Next question: angle of heel?

The original Bermuda sloop was a wet sailer- basically fore-and-aft rigged with low freeboard and a very curved sheer, pierced for six gunports, 13 scuppers (theoretically one way-out!) and perhaps 8 sweeps. I don't want to soak my electronics, so I'm not putting in the scuppers or sweep port. I've reduced the number of gunports to five, mostly in aid of creating a quarterdeck to use a tiller instead of a wheel. Cannon were generally housed except in time of need and ports were probably shuttered (no lids). Can I expect to have a wet deck in an average breeze (under 10 mph) or should I house the guns and shutter the ports?

Thanks.

Clay you model is very similar to my Somers in size, and while her rig is lower than Somerses i doubt she will be much stiffer (do you know your displacement yet or rather how much ballast you will be able to take?)

One of the biggest mistakes i made in Somers was to rely on dubiously sealed hatches and low freeboard to keep the water out, while making no provisions of clearing the deck from water she shipped... you`d be amazed how much water you ship over the bow in anything other than a flat calm. Same goes with heel and freeboard you WILL get knocked down, it`s a certainty, and all water than makes it over the bullwark that she can`t rid herself off will make it into the hull.

So i definitely recommend making sufficiently sized scuppers, on Somers i couldn`t because the hatches where almost completely out to the edge of the deck, on your sloop the hatch is much closer in to the centerline and thus the angle of heel until you start downflooding that hatch is much larger. The qarterdeck hatch might need to be more permanently sealed to prevent water ingress.

Wow, I'm amazed! I guess I just expected pretty upright sailing, with no more than about a 30º heel. I don't know the displacement yet, Meatbomber. I was waiting until I had finished and painted the hull. I had already been looking into those peelable silicon caulks for the hatches. Do I need a water-tight compartment under deck for the receiver and on-off switch? Should I "waterproof" the servos? What protection does the battery need? Should I put in one of those water-actuated mini-pumps?

Clay

Still working on my Bermuda sloop (c. 1740). Hull above wales planked with Swiss pear, bulwarks within planked with domestic pear. Deck planking is of boxwood. Ready now to do deck furniture.

Clay

Beautiful hull, Clay.

Thanks, Brooks-

The hull now weighs 2# 10 0z, and, in the bathtub (hooray, it's waterproof!), it takes 4# 2 oz to bring it down to waterline. If the deck furniture and the masting/rigging/sails/eletronics weigh as much as the hull, that won't leave much for fin keel balast. The hull in the tub now is very stable, but just a little push puts the gunports in the water and pours water onto the deck. Think I'll have to consider port shutters of some sort (these older and smaller vessels didn't have gunport lids).

Clay

My Aldebaran started with no freeing ports (holes to let the water off the deck). I hoped that the height of the bulwarks would keep the deck free of water in the 1st place. No such luck. As MB says, you Are going to get water on the deck; the ship will heel faster than you can dump air via RC. And if it can't find a way off, it will likely make it's way below.

Waterproofing the joint between deck and hull will help, something I was unable to obtain on Aldebaran (my experimental gasket, house caulk, did not stay flexible per the tube's claim). But, as the model rolls back and forth, water will get Everywhere on the deck, so any hatches would have to be watertight also. I think if I'd been able to get my seal with the caulk, I'd have been in pretty good shape - at least the water would have not immediately dripped below, giving the freeing ports time to discharge it back to the pond. I was loath to glue the deck to the hull (glued-down decks can be made watertight): because my squaresail servo arms are quite big, I need full access below to do maintenance work on the rc gear, replace worn running rigging, replace waterlogged servos, etc. Gluing down the deck, and depending on hatches for access, would not have worked for me. Due to space restrictions, my servos rest on the bilge, so they are exposed to any water that gets below - if you have the space between bilge and underside of deck, putting your servos a little higher would be a good idea.

You can close-off your gunports, but you will still need to let water off the deck, I think.

Gunports alone won't act as freeing ports because the sill of the port is raised above deck level. Thus, there would be trapped water aboard, even if you left the ports open. Scale freeing ports won't pass water as fast as you'd like because of water's surface tension; make them bigger than scale, or add more of them than the plans suggest. btw, I suspect that your vessel did cover it's gunports, probably with canvas to save weight. Something would have been done to reduce splash onto the deck, I'm pretty sure. The canvas could serve as your gunport lid, if you go that route.

Thanks, Brooks-
That's very helpful information. My hatches will be represented as battened, therefore, with no open grids. My gunports will be shuttered (no hinged lids at this point in time for these vessels) just as soon as my research bears fruit as to the actual configuration of the shutters (I would suspect wooden ones, just like port lids, but fastened from the inside with spashboards), but we'll see. I will also work out some large, gravity lidded scuppers to get rid of water.

Clay