I have a 1/60 Lindberg shrimp boat model that I’d like to convert into a gaming piece for WW II era skirmishes.
The model is very obviously American, and some limited web research has suggested that small British coasters and motor fishing vessels of the 1930s had rounded sterns. However, contemporary motor yachts, such as those that served at Dunkirk, had transoms. Around when did the designs of small UK (and other European) working vessels change to transoms?
Supposing that a transom would be out-of-the question for a 1930s small coaster or fishing vessel, what would be the most straightforward way of converting a plastic hull with a transom to one with a rounded stern - adding a balsa extension, and covering it with strips of ‘planking’ to imitate the moulded detail on the rest of the hull?
Thanks!
Designs of fishing vessels in the period you’re interested in varied widely . Each coastal area had its own identifiable type of craft .Some had rounded sterns , some had transoms like the Brixham trawler , some were double ended like Norfolk Beach Boats . In short , don’t worry about it . I have adapted the Lindberg shrimp boat for use on my very English 1/43 scale narrow gauge railroad lay out . I simply recovered the sides with plank effect styrene sheet to raise the bulwarks and removed some of the deck fittings . The general appearance of the shrimp boat is a bit low slung certainly for the west coast and east coast craft I’ve seen , but once the sides were raised it looked good .You don’t say what scale you intend to model in but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work in most scales . The most obvious thing , to my mind ,to change or tone down is the very pronounced “corner” as the quarter rises from the water line to the transom . Most European vessels would have much more rounded lines .If you intend to rig it , It would be gaff rigged or lug sails , I don’t recall ever seeing reference to working craft using Bermuda rig . Incidentally , the model I used was donated , damaged , by a friend and cost nothing.
The above is sound advice-. A few notes on the development of inshore craft might be useful. Most British inshore craft were very traditional and perpetuated the designs developed in the nineteenth century and in some cases centuries earlier.
By the 1930s the internal combustion engine was beginning to make serious inroads in to traditional craft, at at the same time modern fishing/ trading technqiues were making many types of small sailing craft extinct. Even in the late 1930s those small craft that did survive were usually converted to petrol power by addind a propshaft through the port quarter- so as to avoid the starboard side over which nets were usually cast.
The small inshore craft of the late 30s therefore usually had a direct descendancy from those of a century before. substantial deck houses were very conspicously absent for instance.
Here’s a picture of Brixham harbour in 1939- it could almost have been taken in 1900! http://www.francisfrith.com/brixham/photos/the-harbour-c1939_b214022/
Luckily, in the 1930s a number of historians recognised ancient types of craft were becoming extinct and there are hundreds of surveys of such vessels recorded for posterity. ‘Inshore Craft. Traditional Working vessels of the British Isles’ is a pretty much comprehensive survey of every type that existed in those fnal decades.
The Lindberg ship is a bathtub, but with a bit of work (mainly losing the ‘modern’ deckhouse and fittings) could be made to represent something like a Thames Bawley, or even an East Cornwall Lugger? I suppose the exact type depicted would depend on what scale you are eventually working towards.
Will