\
\
\~ Around th e turn of the century fish ermen adopted a new color scheme. Here is the Cavalier of 1904 with dark green topsides, \ \ yellow stripe and black rails- the traditional look of th e new England fis heries that prevails even ¡~ today. Note the clutter of boats, gear and machinery on deck - a challenge to the mode/maker, as it was to the men who worked th ese Grand Banks schooners!
MODELMAKERS' CORNER:
The Thomas Hoyne Collection of Fishing Schooner Models by Erik A. R. Ronnberg, Jr. This bow view shows th e stong V-sectionfor the Harry L Belden of 1889, whose slack bilges, deeper keel and lower ballast impro ved stability and, hence, safety at sea.
I '1
36
My first encounters with Tom Hoyne were over the telephone in 1978, when he called with questions about the plans of fishing schooner Elsie which I had drawn for Model Shipways Company. Tom was then doing his own modelmaking, though quickly discovering that this activity was consuming more of his time than he wished. In the spring of 1979, I received more calls, inquiring if I was interested in finishing a fi shing schooner model he had started. After seeing photos of the model , I said I was, and a few days later, received a crate containing a very large hull. Tom had decided that large scale models-nothing less than 3/8"= 1 '- were the best for his purposes, and I was to have an enlightening (and sobering) experience in meeting the demands for detail that such a large model imposed. By early 1980, the model was finished , Tom was satisfied with the results, and we embarked on building a collection representing the major types of fishing vessels dating from the1880s to the early 1900s. A few types from other periods were also built as Tom found a demand for paintings of them. All subsequent models were built solely by me, working from scratch or using castings from patterns of my own making. The large schooner models took from 1,000 to 1,300 hours to build, depending on variations in complexity or the amount of fishing gear required. Several models had two sets of dories and fishing gear, or a set of dories and a mackerel seining outfit, so many different types of fishing could be represented in the paintings. The models were removable from their baseboards and all spars and running rigging were workable to simulate different situations under sail. Working sails were not fitted, however, due to the difficulty of making them behave realistically. To study and sketch each model, Tom would pose it in a sand box , then view it from angles that interested him , making careful notes and sketches to work out the proportions of the hull and its details in perspective. To date, the 3/8" scale fleet comprises nine models of SEJA HISTORY, SPRING 1989