Tag: Dave Brooks (Page 2 of 3)

Model gets Muzzle

March 6, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Westmoreland model gets a muzzle

Dave and Tony Brooks are making some good progress on the major components of the Westmoreland model’s rigging. It seems they are raiding their ladies’ jewellery boxes for some realistically sized chain. Brave lads!

As Dave says, “We have now hung the sprit complete with muzzle and stanliff. It swings like the real thing. We have a temporary stayfall to ensure the mast stays upright. We also have a fid for the topmast so we can house that as well. Stayfall Tackle and shrouds are next. Got to come up with a way to make little dead eyes”.

Incidentally, I think I never posted an earlier update from Dave dated 13th Feb, as follows, “Even though it was extremely cold we managed to move the model forward tonight. We have now permanently fitted our home made anchor having raided Dad’s wife’s jewellery box for a better chain. We also have bow badges that are as yet not painted. We fitted a bracket to the stem post for the anchor to chain to pass through and have put three turns of chain around the windlass. All that remains is for a small anchor chain box to be made which is housed just in front of the forward hatch.

Time to go upwards. We have now fitted all our ironwork to the sprit in readiness for the muzzle to be made and the sprit to be hung. All spars are now painted brown and we will soon be ready to start the real painstakingly fiddly job of standing rigging”.

Nice job, Lads!

Dave McCabe and Vigilant

February 22, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Friend and Face-book Fiend Annie Meadows high lights a nice piece of video available from BBC News covering the rebuild of SB Vigilant down in the South West by boat builder Dave McCabe. It’s on http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-21525933 if you fancy a look. It’s only a few minutes long but shows some nice rebuild shots. It even includes some clinking pawls (and regular readers will know how much I love that noise!). Dave says that he intends to actually use the barge, once restored to try to move some cargo about, perhaps potatoes. I did smile though as at one stage the sprit-pole winching results in a huge baulk of timber swinging against the wale with a resounding clunk – I suspect Dave would have prefered they edit that bit out.

Westmoreland model 220213

Meanwhile in our own ‘barge building’ – the model sized version of SB Westmoreland currently being constructed by Dave and Tony Brooks, Dave has the following update. “The model continues to move forward. With the hull practically complete we have started to move up. The mainmast is now in place and the iron work almost complete. We fitted the jackstay tonight which was quite intricate work. We also worked on the Sprit. Fitting the muzzle, and preparing the Stanliff. We are hoping to be able to hang the sprit next week”.

Thanks for the update, Dave

Facebook update from DB

February 10, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Main Mast Winch drawings from Basil Brambleby.

First a couple of drawings of those main mast winch drums showing how they will be installed. On either side of the mast you can either winch direct from the upper drum for lighter hauling, or you can use the geared down ‘mechanical advantage’ version for heavier hauling. Thanks for those, Boss of Volunteers, Basil.

Next a nice progress report on our winter re-fit from Dave Brooks via the Facebook Group. Dave writes, “The sailing season fast approaches and next weekend the mast is lowered in readiness for re-rigging. This year we will be re-rigging at Oare Creek whilst Tim Goldsack and his team undertake work on the heating system, the windlass, anti fouling and a new cabin amongst other things. During the close season all the blocks have been serviced and painted (all the same colour and looking very smart) also a major overhaul of the waste plumbing system has been keeping the air fragrant. Most of the deck furniture has received a fresh coat of paint, but there is still a lot to do. Any volunteers welcome. We will have two clear weekends in order to touch in paint on the mainmast and sprit, coat the topmast and finish serving the standing rigging that hasn’t already been done. Once again the weather has held up painting but investigations are ongoing for a poly tunnel next winter. Will keep you all informed of the progress”.

Thank you for that, Dave.

Fine Detail

February 4, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Model as at 4 Feb

Dave and Tony Brooks are soldiering on with ‘our’ model of Westmoreland and Dave has sent me a couple of pics. I was so impressed by some of the fine detailing I have actually cropped a couple more pics out of one of these so that you can see the clever work which has gone in around the windlass and main mast case and, again, around the crab winches and steering gear.

Dave says in his email, “All the deck furniture is now finished. The two crab winches and the brail winch are now soldered together and stuck in place. All metal work for pinning the lee-boards is complete with the boards themselves temporarily hung. The paint scheme is roughly that of Eastwoods working colours but will need fine tuning if we can find some good colour pictures. We are now ready to start going upwards. We messed around with a bit of wire to form the stayfall, but we are still undecided as to how we will do this”.

: Model as at 4 Feb

It’s looking good, Dave.

A Miniature Chaff-Cutter

December 3, 2012 / / 1 Comment

With the hull and major components now in place, our in-house modelling team of Dave and Tony Brooks are now getting down to details of deck furniture and so on. Dave takes up the story from the 22nd November. ”

Chaff cutter wheel in miniature. Model by Tony and Dave Brooks, Picture by DB

When we had finished last week Dad suggested that he would attempt to create a chaff cutter wheel. I knew he wasn’t really looking forward to it and had resigned myself to using one of the watch cogs as a wheel, which would have looked wrong. I was amazed to see the result of his efforts. We have a genuine mini Westmoreland size chaff cutter wheel.

So if we have a wheel we will need something for it to turn. Time to look at the rudder and how we are going to fit it to the barge. The main post is made from balsa wood and the blade from pine. We opted for four small pieces of drilled brass, two inserted in the stern post and two in the rudder post. Getting the gudgeon pin to line up was a task and it reminded me of when we put Cambria’s rudder on for the first time. Indeed we were thwarted that day until some adjustments were made to the hinges.

Model Rudder; Westmoreland model by Tony and Dave Brooks; Picture by DB

One of Westmoreland’s distinctive features is her rubbing bands on her bow and to finish off last night we fitted them in readiness to give our hull its first coat of black paint. During the week a little more cleaning up will be taking place and who knows we may get that coat of black on next session.”

I’m impressed you guys!

Incidentally, Dave also tells me that there is now a nice video of the Medway Match 2012 available as a DVD through the Edith May website. You will recall that Cambria won her class in that race and Dave tells me that there is some nice footage of Cambria in the film. The DVD is £12.50 from the merchandise section of the Edith May website at http://www.edithmaybargecharter.co.uk/shop/category/merchandise/ . Nice Christmas present idea?

Loose Ends

November 17, 2012 / / 0 Comments

A bitty old post today as I catch up a few loose ends.

Newspaper Cutting showing the Pihama Girls receiving their award from HRH Princess Anne; Photo from Faversham Times Thurs Nov 15th 2012

First up, those Pihama Girls got themselves into at least three Kentish local papers (The Faversham Times, The Faversham Gazette (Kent Messenger) and the Ashford Kent Messenger with this nice picture and a good write up including comment from their School Headmaster, David Anderson.

2nd, David Rye, former “Occasional Contributor”, fast becoming “Regular Contributor” has found some more good links, including the next two sections of that instructional video on sailing the square rigger Solandet at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlRbcTsm2rc&feature=youtu.be (Part 2)

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3jU9Xz_GHE&feature=youtu.be (Part 3)

plus some nice assorted sailing vessels on

and then the moving of a big chunk of a new Aircraft carrier by sea on

And, last but not least, the latest from SB Westmoreland modelers, Dave and Tony Brooks who tell us that by,

“14^th November. An undercoat has been applied to the hull to show up any major blemishes, then final touches applied to our windlass and yet more cleaning up. After this we decided to take a look at the mainmast furniture, namely the hounds and topmast cap that take the cross trees and house the topmast. Careful manipulation of brass and we had something that looked remarkably like the real thing. The brass for the topmast cap was gently rolled around a bar and then soldered. Once they were finished we glued both pieces to our mast and while we were at it we squared off the bottom of the mast to fit the mast case”.

Thanks all of you. I will put some of Dave’s latest pictures of the model up over the next few days.

Model Update

November 10, 2012 / / 0 Comments

In the latest update from Dave Brooks on the Westmoreland model, Dave writes,

The Brooks’s model of Westmoreland gets its masts; photo by Dave Brooks.

“9^th November. No progress in the week due to work commitments so the winches have no further action for the time being. Today we turned our attention to cleaning up rails and final shaping and also to the windlass. We sought out our pre-selected watch cogs for our windlass and while Dad cleaned and shaped rails I carefully filed down some dowel to look like a windlass drum. Dad then cut the frame for the windlass and mounted the cogs to the drum and then the drum to the frame. We laid the windlass lying roughly in position though some alteration to the frame will need to be done. I then decided not to waste any time watching the master at work and set about sourcing some spars. Mainmast, topmast and sprit. I found some reasonable sized dowel and cut them to length. We finished the evening by varnishing the balsa rails to give them strength for final shaping, and sanding the mainmast to the right diameter on the plan. And just for fun we stood the mast up for the first time since the original model”.

Thanks for that, Dave. Good progress.

Update on the Model

November 1, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Dave Brooks sends me an update on the model of Westmoreland currently being built by him self and his Father, Tony Brooks.

‘Our’ SB Westmoreland model as at 1st Nov; Picture by Dave Brooks.

“With the 31st Oct passed and all holiday and family commitments completed,” he says, “we were back on with the model. Our rails were nicely glued down and positioned. A piece of veneer has been stuck over the transom in order to cover the end grain and give us a better painting surface.Also a stern post has been added in readiness to mount a rudder at a later stage. We have also completed the rails around the bow and the saddle chock and they are currently pinned and waiting for the glue to dry. Four tiny frames made from brass have been fashioned for our lee-board winches and offered up to the hull for sizing and look quite good. Cogs have been selected to finish them off later this week we hope.

The pictures show the rails all round, the lee-board winch frames are being drilled and also offered up to the hull”.

Thanks for that Dave and Tony. It’s looking good.

SB Glenmore

October 7, 2012 / / 0 Comments

SB Glenmore model by Tony Brooks, Picture by Matt Care

On my recent trip over to the UK to stay on Cambria, I was in Hoo with Dave B tracking down Ray Rush’s now restored and back-in-the-water Galway Hooker and I had the pleasure of being invited back to Dave’s Dad’s place to see the model that they are currently making of SB Westmoreland but also an older, completed model of SB Glenmore. Regular readers will know that Dave’s Great Granddad was Barge Master on the SM Glenmore, the famous George “Navvy” Brooks. Dave’s Father Tony built this model originally as a working model sail boat (obviously with a lot less detail) but then fell in love with it and was anxious that the fun and games on the pond in the park were causing it damage. He decided to change it into a display model, so added all the detail of rigging etc and now has it nicely on display in the living room in this glass case with a lovely brass plaque naming the barge and an old black and white photo of ‘Navvy’ himself hanging above it on the wall. It is a beautiful thing to have and to admire and especially given the family connection.

Thank you to Dave B and to Tony for allowing me to see it, photograph it and share it with the surfers on here.

Just to prove…..

September 29, 2012 / / 0 Comments

Just to prove we do occasionally do some work when we’re swanning about aboard the barge, here’s quite a nice picture of us moving the barge from one side of Gravesend pontoon to the other. Last Sunday strong winds and bad weather had meant that the barge, returning from charter under Skipper Ian Ruffles had had to be brought in to the outside of the pontoon rather than attempting the more difficult manouvre of either the ‘S-bend’ onto the inside, or the gentle kiss against the unforgiving concrete wall of St Andrew’s Wharf. The outside of the pontoon though, is not as nicely visible to the passing public and might, anyway, shortly be needed by the Gravesend to Tilbury Ferry or the visiting paddle steamer Waverley who was due in at 16:00 Friday. We needed to move Cambria in once we had sensible weather and the back end of an ebb tide, but Mr Insurance Man (quite rightly) says we can not move the barge about without a qualified Skipper on board. These days that is either Tim G, Richard T or Ian Ruffles and Ian was available first, so the manouvre was booked for 16:00 Thursday.

Hauling her in to the pontoon at Gravesend; Photo by Jason Arthur

The short version of this task’s description is that you let the barge drift backwards off the pontoon while controlling the drift with the thick mooring warps (ropes) and then, when the bow is clear, put the helm over so that she slides sideways in the current till she’s line up with the other side of the pontoon, and then winch her back up against the tide using the dolly line. Needless to say it’s not as simple as that and there’s a lot of preparing by, for example, hauling the barge-boat inboard, then nipping about letting go one rope and making fast another, setting ropes up so they do not tangle on bits of pontoon, fending the barge off the sharp corners of the pontoon and, of course, heckling Ops Manager Rob Bassi (red overalls) on the pontoon. Also hauling up the anchor, taking the outboard back off the boat and squaring away ropes etc at the end.

In this, another pic from new contributor Jason Arthur, on deck (l to r) are Denis Johnson (admiring the view while dangling a fender ‘bladder’), Skipper Ian Ruffles keeping an eye on things and issuing instructions, my good self taking up some slack on the big yellow and black warp and Dave Brooks giving it some on the dolly line, a surprisingly strong but thin cord. Looking at it, you’d not think it could start a 90+ ton barge into forward progress against a 3-4 knot tide flow, but it did with Dave leaning on the windlass. All good clean fun!