Caring for Ship Models: A Narrative of Thought and Application

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Caring for Ship Models

Also by Rob Napier Reconditioning an Eighteenth-Century Ship Model: Valkenisse, Retourschip of 1717 Legacy of a Ship Model: Examining HMS Princess Royal of 1773

Caring for Ship Models A Narrative of Thought and Application by

Rob Napier

© 2022 by Rob Napier. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

Published and Distributed by: SeaWatch Books LLC 2040 Milburn Ave, Suite 102 #109 Maplewood, NJ 07040 web: www.seawatchbooks.com e-mail: info@seawatchbooks.com ISBN 979-8-9862370-0-8 Manufactured in the United States of America First edition, first printing, 2022 This book was set in 11-point Adobe Caslon Pro.

Contents Case Study Roster

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Foreward by Grant Walker

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Part One: Prologue

3

Part Two: Perspectives on Ship Modeling Focus on Compelling Impression: Blocks

7 10

Part Three: Practices and Applications Focus on Dehydration

21 34

Part Four: Case Studies

57

Addendum

161

Epilogue Acknowledgments

167 167

Notes

169

Sources

173

Index

181

Case Study Roster

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No.

Vessel Name

Vessel Type

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Unidentified Valkenisse Princess Royal Warrior Constitution Unidentified Unidentified Andromeda Inez Yorkshire Unidentified Dunderberg Unidentified Belle Panay Enterprise Tioga Corona Roxana Doctor Saboia Unidentified Elena Arizona Roseden Curacoa Helen Barnet Gring Royal Scot Yare Ocean Pearl

English fourth rate Dutch East Indiaman British second rate British third rate American frigate French third rate French second rate British corvette American merchant ship American packet ship British steamship American ironclad American Down Easter American schooner yacht American Down Easter American cutter yacht American schooner yacht American schooner yacht American houseboat yacht British hopper barge American schooner yacht American schooner yacht American battleship British tramp British light cruiser American merchant schooner British steamer American sloop yacht American ketch yacht

Date

Page

1695 1717 1773 1781 1797 about 1800 about 1800 1810 1828 1843 about 1865 1865 about 1870 1870 1877 1878 1881 1893 1903 1907 about 1910 1911 1916 1918 1918 1919 1930 1936 1958

58 62 63 64 65 74 76 81 83 86 90 93 100 109 110 114 116 118 120 123 124 127 136 137 138 148 149 150 152

Foreword

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ob Napier has been widely recognized for many years as one of the leading ship modelers in America. This book shows why, but not for the reasons I expected.

Back when I first met him in the late 1990s, I thought his reputation rested solely on the highly-prized models he had made for private owners and institutions from coast to coast. In fact, I believe I first heard about him from a local Annapolitan ship modeler-collector who invited me to his home to show off his new Rob Napier model. He was happy as a lark to have it, and it was easy to see why. Compared to the owner’s other models, this one was in a class of its own.

Later, even after I became aware of his project to refurbish the contemporary model of the Dutch East Indiaman Valkenisse of 1717 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, I still thought of him as primarily a ship-model builder. He must have told me otherwise, but I still somehow saw his effort to return this timeworn model to its original appearance as an exception to his usual routine of scratch-building new models of ships and boats of all shapes and sizes. I wasn’t paying attention.

I got another glimpse of this side of Rob’s professional life the first time he gave me a private tour of the models on display in the New York Yacht Club. Until then, I had only the vaguest notion of the traditions of world-class racing yachts, and no idea whatsoever of the often-exquisite scale models that depict them. My eyes opened wide as he showed me one beautiful example after another, pointing out details that identified cer-

tain models as the work of specific modelers whom he revered. He also noted several examples of once-damaged models that he had restored to health in his role as caretaker of this unmatched collection. Aside from his infectious enthusiasm and jaw-dropping knowledge of even the tiniest details of these superb models, the thing I remember best was the respect he felt for the people who had built them with such loving care over the past one hundred and fifty years.

Our paths next crossed in 2004 after I noticed one day that, for no apparent reason, an ivory window sash had fallen out of the starboard quarter gallery of one of the U.S. Naval Academy Museum’s most striking dockyard models — the British three-decker Princess Royal of 1773 — and was lying on its baseboard.

A few weeks later, a knee supporting an upper deck beam followed suit, coming to rest on the deck below.

Concern became alarm when one end of the foremost quarterdeck beam came adrift, causing it to droop down ominously.

A look inside the model’s below-deck spaces with a surgical arthroscope revealed a shocking number of ledges, carlings, and other loose parts lying scattered about on the middle and lower gundecks. It seemed evident that, after two hundred and twenty-five years, the hide glue holding the thousands of joints together had dried out and was no longer adhesive. We had no idea when the problem started, but from the experience of the previous few months, it seemed to be getting worse.

It was clear that if nothing were done to arrest the decay, this precious model would eventually fall into ruin.

Recognizing the enormity of the challenge, and with financial support provided by the Academy’s Class of 1951, we agreed to approach the world’s leading professional model makers with a job offer to save the Princess Royal. The person at the top of the list was Rob Napier, and when we contacted him, he jumped at the chance.

I won’t soon forget watching him in action when he came to the Academy to dismantle the model before transporting it back to his home in Newbury­port, Massachusetts. His solution to keeping track of its more than three thousand parts — memory boards — was, in a word, brilliant, a remarkably simple but effective method he explains in detail in this book’s Part Three, Practices and Applications.

I was fortunate to visit him several times during the seventeen months Princess Royal was in his possession.

Each time, he eagerly showed me what he was doing and explained what he was planning next to address the model’s many issues. But whatever stage he was in, he assured me that foremost among his goals was always to respect the intentions of the model’s anonymous builder(s). When he returned the refurbished Princess Royal to Annapolis, the once-ailing model looked fresh and alive, appearing like its maker(s) intended when it was brand new.

After that, I at last began to see how important his work on tattered models made by other modelers has been to him, and what a large part doing so has played

in his life. Yet it is only now, having read this fascinating narrative of his five decades as a professional modelwright (a term he coined), that I see the enormous span of his work, and the remarkable intellectual and mechanical skills he has consistently brought to realizing the vision of other modelers from times past.

In his lifetime of refurbishing fine models of every type and description, he explains how he approaches every job with the same bedrock principles, namely: Always keep respect for the original modelwright’s vision foremost. Do not try to outdo or improve upon his work, even if you are capable of doing so. Instead, do your utmost to understand and replicate what he was trying to convey about a full-scale ship or boat, real or imagined. And when assessing a model’s “quality,” ask yourself if it yields a compelling impression of the vessel it depicts, and what its maker did to achieve it.

For me, reading anything Rob writes has always been a true delight. He has a dry wit that often comes through in his writing, such as the following caption he wrote for an illustration on page 21: “Infestation. Those items that look like spider webs and dead flies are spider webs and dead flies....”

On a more introspective note, I leave you with this eloquent observation from page 17: “The modeler who builds details no one will see is looking inward, toward his own motives for modeling. They are private, possibly even secret. He is having an assignation with his muse.” ¯ Grant Walker

U.S. Naval Academy Museum, Annapolis

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Caring for Ship Models Patience is only required for things you do not love.

— George Kaiser