Hi everyone on the Forum,
As with most people I am well aware of Chapelle’s fantastic work, but Chapelle maybe did not have a family to attend to or else he left then to their own devices to do as much as he did, its an amazing amount of recording and publishing.
For my part in all of this I first started lifting lines and doing drawings/documentation of historic craft in the late 1980s, working for my uncle Alan Payne, who had a contract with the Australian National Maritime Museum as their consultant naval architect. I have continued this work for them, the last project was 2007, plans for the restoration and re-building of Taipan. In between I have done sets of plans for around 20 or so vessels from their collection for them, and a handful of craft for other people or institutions, notably Lady Denman Museum Huskisson NSW, their ferry Lady Denman and their fishing boat Ninon or Crest.
In almost all of these cases I have tried to prepare a set of plans that encapsulates the lines, layout, construction, rig and profile, but some are not complete in that regard. The idea too was that a shipwright could build a vessel from the information on them, and it more or less works, Ian Smith built his Britannia replica from my drawings. On a few consulting projects I have only done specific drawings, such as recreate the original sailplan and rigging plans for the Logan boats Jessie Logan (Robert Logan Snr), Rainbow and Rawhiti ( both Logan Bros 50 footers)
At first I was unaware of other people doing this work, but in time I have found all sorts of examples of work by others, some working from models, others from the remains of craft and so on. Bill Leonard in WA at their maritime museum has done exceptional drawings with heaps of detail of some of their craft, Gary Kerr’s books show evidence of other people’s work, Tony is doing the luggers, and my project at the ANMM on historic vessels has brought to light all sorts of worthy individual efforts. Another unusual source of information could be with the various state maritime survey authorities, and private surveyors. They often had to lift lines and details of older craft when they went for a survey check and no plans existed. The problem there is that records have been lost, or the archives are too ‘awkward’ to get to, and no one could be bothered looking up what you want.
Anyway, collectively we have all achieved a lot, if it was brought together it would be impressive, but still show lots of holes, often the structure is not well recorded, only the lines, so it is important to at least do a mid section if possible.
My current project at the Museum where I am 3 days a week is the Australian Register of Historic Vessels. Rather than ramble on go to the website
www.anmm.gov.au/arhv and look through the various pages of boats and reference pages on background information.
Now, the talk about Fife, Logan and so on. My research suggests maybe a few people have been missed in your discussion. Halvorsens were a multi generation building and design firm, largely involved with launches/motor cruisers and mission vessels etc, but the few yachts they did post war are very notable. There would be a number of yards around the country, some with at least two generations of designer/builder combination, small medium and large operations, but often more specialized in both type and location. Think of Blunt, Savage and Peel in Vic, Searles in SA, Mews in WA, Wrights and Whearet in Qld. Fords and Holmes in Sydney are two generation builders with some fabulous craft to their credit, and did some design work of their own, but the major vessels came from other designers.
As for designers, Charlie Peel, AC Barber, Cecil Boden, the Wrights and others were all capable of designing excellent craft in terms of style and construction with specific examples that would compare well with designs from outside of Australia.They were versatile too, ut their output was much smaller and much less dominant than Fife or Logan in their respective countries. The size of the market and size of the country both play a part in this.
However one designer who I think has been missed by almost everyone for years is Walter Reeks, 1861 to 1925. He came to Australian from England in 1885, settled in Sydney and was possibly our first full time professional naval architect. He designed an enormous range of craft and was consistently innovative throughout his career, you need to visit my ARHV Register website
www.anmm.gov.au/arhv where I have a reference page under designers on Reeks which summarises his career. I have about 13 big folders of info about him and his vessels and his background, copies of blueprints, all things that I have collected since about 2002, along with plans derived from ½ models that I have drawn myself, and all waiting to be added to and eventually published in some sort of format. He was a builder for about a year, and had no surviving family to take on his work as the next generation. I suggest that he is as good as Fife, see Boomerang and Ena for proof, but actually Reeks was much more versatile in the range of craft he designed.
I still manage to design a few craft and have been doing some revisions to plans as well, my website is
www.payneyachts.com, the news page highlights the latest action including my current obsession, the 21 Foot Restricted Class. I am planning to be in SA for Goolwa next year.
Had a nice sail/twilight race/ sail evaluation etc last night on one of my boats here in Sydney, hope everyone else is getting out on the water when time permits.
Best regard to all
David Payne