Mandatory Safety Training for Hyde Street Pier Volunteers

Posted on April 13, 2016 by catopower

A mandate was made this year that all volunteers working at Hyde Street Pier must attend a safety training course. As all Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwright members are officially Park Service volunteers, all club members are required to attend safety training.

Terry Dorman, the Volunteer Coordinator, in coordination with our lead volunteer and President, Paul Reck, has set up a session for club members on the morning of April 30th, and has graciously offered to provide us lunch. All members are expected to attend. Those who can’t attend should have made alternate arrangements with Terry to attend a session on April 23rd, or made some other arrangements.

We’ll be discussing this a bit further and answering any last minute questions at the upcoming April club meeting. Ω

Higaki Kaisen – Edo Period Transport Model by Clare Hess

Posted on November 28, 2015 by catopower

Back in August, we published a post about the classic yacht model the Good News, built by Paul Reck. The post included a link to a nice slideshow Paul put together. Well, Clare Hess decided to do something similar for his Higaki Kaisen model.

The model itself is built from a kit by the Japanese wooden model manufacturer Woody Joe. It measures about 16-1/2″ long and high and is made from a wood called Hinoki, which is an aromatic Japanese Cypress. The kit features a large number of laser-cut parts and includes some interior details in the cabin area. Some of the wooden panels have been omitted, so as to allow a view of the interior areas.

Building the model took a matter of just a few months due to the manufacturer’s heavy use of laser-cut parts and detailed instructions, plus the fact that these ships had very simple square sail rigs. Click here (link disabled as slideshow is not currently available) to view the slideshow showing the model going through the various stages of construction. Ω

Japanese Wasen Model Display in San Francisco

Posted on November 6, 2015 by catopower

The latest Japanese boat model display by ship modeler Clare Hess is now on display at San Francisco’s Japan Center.

The display is located in the window of the community room of Union Bank, which is in the East Mall building of the Japan Center Mall in San Francisco.

Three models are featured this time around, making for a much more complete display than the last two, which consisted of only two models. The models are shown below.

Higaki Kaisen – A Japanese coastal transport from the Edo Period. This sailing ship operated in vast numbers between Osaka and Edo (now Tokyo), maintaining the flow of consumer goods which supported the growing cities economy.

Hacchoro – An 8-oared fishing boat used by the fishermen of the Daizu region south of Mt. Fuji. This model features the family crest of the Tokugawa Shogunate because many of these boats were said to have been commissioned as guard boats for the retired Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu. Special permission was said to have been granted for these boats to be equipped with 8 oars so that they could keep up with the Shogun’s boat. This is how these boats got their name, as Hacchoro literally translates as “8 oars.”

Yakatabune – These houseboats were initially owned by nobility for leisure use, but were very popular during the peace and growing prosperity of the merchant class. During the Edo period, it became common to rent a yakatabune to entertain guests or for viewing the fireworks at festival time or cherry blossoms in the Spring. These boats became a cultural symbol of growing prosperity.

The display runs now through the end of December, 2015. Ω

Ship Modeler

This week, I installed my latest display of models of traditional style Japanese boats at the Japan Center in San Francisco. If you haven’t seen it before and are in the area, this is a good display to check out. This time around, I added a third model to the collection, my Yakatabune model. So now, there is the Higaki Kaisen (1/72-scale), Hacchoro and Yakatabune models (both 1/24-scale). All three models were built from kits by Woody Joe of Japan.

The display will run from now through all of November and December in the window of the Union Bank community room, which is in the East Mall building.

One thing I discovered while setting up the new display is that this is a much better time of year to display the models. Because of the lower angle of the sun, the there is far less glare from the skylight above, making…

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NRG’s 2015 Photographic Ship Model Contest

Posted on November 5, 2015 by catopower

The Nautical Research Guild held their annual conference in Mystic, CT, at the end of October. While only one of our Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights members was able to attend to representing our group. At the NRG banquet, our group members took a larger share of the honors.

The winners of the 2015 Photographic Ship Model Contest were announced at the dinner event. All models entered into the contest received a ribbon based on total points earned in the scoring. The top models in the categories of Journeyman and Master received medals. Three medals, either Bronze, Silver or Gold, were awarded in each category, for a total of six medals, with Hyde Street Pier members taking home with 2 of the 6 medals.

Clare Hess, receive a Bronze medal in the Journeyman category for his model of the Private Armed Schooner Lively, 1813, while Paul Reck was awarded a Silver medal in the Journeyman category for his model of the Grand Banks 32, Willie II.

Clare’s Lively model is a 1:48-scale scratchbuilt model of a small, single gun privateer, typical of the early pilot boat model privateers of the War of 1812. The model was based on kit plans by the late Jim Roberts.

Paul Reck’s Willie II is a Grand Banks 32 that was built around 1978 and used by the St. Francis Yacht Club as a race committee boat. His model was built from scratch in 1:16-scale and is on display at the Yacht Club.

Watch the upcoming NRG Journal and the NRG website for a full report on the contest.

Note: This story originally referenced the wrong yacht club for the Willie II. The correct yacht club is the St. Francis Yacht Club, not the Corinthian Yacht Club. Thanks to David Wingate for catching the slip-up!

Visiting Our Gracie S. Model in the Maritime Museum

Posted on October 18, 2015 by catopower

We had a nice meeting of the Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights aboard the ferry boat Eureka yesterday. Good turnout, interesting talk, news from members, and all. We even made some decisions and got started on cleaning up and cataloging our library of ship plans, books and media. So, at the end of the productive day in workshop, heading back to our cars, Paul Reck and I decided to stop in at the Aquatic Part Bathhouse Building which is home of the Maritime Museum (or what remains of it), and visit the Gracie S.

The model was built by members of the club, including yours truly, though I had a relatively small part in it compared to Paul, Tom and Bruno.

The Gracie S. model was built at a scale of 3/8″ to the foot or 1:32, and I can’t exactly recall how long it took to complete. Group builds can be slow, particularly when they are worked on primarily in our model shop.

The neat little shipyard diorama was mostly Paul Reck and Tom Shea’s work and it really adds life to the model. Paul commented that his neighbor also had a hand in it, contributing an old board from his fence which was used to build the sheds in the display.

What’s particularly nice about this display is that the museum put together the information board, showing photos of club members working on the model and describing our group and how to find us. You can even see my hand and belly in the first photo…

It’s nice to see that the model has a good home, is viewable by the public, and that it reminds visitors that people still build ship models. Time to go home and build more…

– Clare Hess

The Good News – Classic Yacht Model by Paul Reck

Posted on August 19, 2015 by catopower

Long time Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights member and president Paul Reck shares a slideshow of a model he built in 2010 of the 60′ yawl-rigged yacht Good News. The original boat was designed by Sparkman and Stephens. The plank-on-bulkhead model was scratch built at a scale of 1/2″=1′ using white pine with sugar pine hull planking and deck planked with Alaskan yellow cedar.

The model features wire rigging and many parts that had to be built from scratch. Paul put together a nice little slide show of his build, which you can access on his Dropbox account here:

Good News Slide Show Note that it’s not necessary to have or to create a Dropbox account. Just close the window that asks you to sign-in.

The model was built for the St. Francis Yacht Club, where it now resides. It is one of 70 models (many of which were built by Paul) featured in the recent publication, The Models of the St. Francis Yacht Club, which is available only through the yacht club. Ω

Ship Modeler Reporting from Philly

Posted on June 28, 2015 by catopower

32-gun Frigate L’Hermione

Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights member Mark Rosenbush, one of the newest members of our group, reported in on his trip to Philadelphia today where he is currently on the scene and completed touring some of the ships there including the newly built reconstruction of the 32-gun French frigate L’Hermione. The original ship brought the young Major General Lafayette, only 21 at the time, to Boston in 1780 to fight along side the Americans who were fighting for their independence from Great Britain.

Of course, there’s much more to the story and much more about the modern reconstruction which recently sailed across the Atlantic from France where it was built.

USS Olympia

Mark says he took at least 100 photos on his tour of the Hermoine and other ships. He’ll be bringing these back with him and maybe we can coax a slide show at an upcoming meeting.