Dutch wooden rescue motor boat in 1:72

[Fliger747]

Interesting boat, especially with the tunnel for the propulsion system. I used to have the original CAT Mx manual for an early D4 but I haven't seen it in a long time. Full of lots of good illustrations of the bits and pieces. Let you know if it turns up!

Cheers: Tom

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Interesting boat, especially with the tunnel for the propulsion system. I used to have the original CAT Mx manual for an early D4 but I haven't seen it in a long time. Full of lots of good illustrations of the bits and pieces. Let you know if it turns up!

Cheers: Tom

Hi Tom, I'd appreciate that. Thanks! Itseems I wiill have to scratch that tractor too.

[Fliger747]

MAARTEN:

What I found is a service manual for the Cat R4. 'll look through and see if there is anything useful for you!

Tom

[Fliger747]

Maarten:

This is the CAT R-4 tractor. The manual has some photos that would help, thouh mostly it's about how to take apart things.

[Fliger747]

Apparently the difference between the D4 and R4 tractors was the "R" version ran on regular gasoline and the D models used diesel engines. An external difference with later D4 tractors is the the early model has the gas tank at the end of the engine compartment, later it's behind the seat.

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Apparently the difference between the D4 and R4 tractors was the "R" version ran on regular gasoline and the D models used diesel engines. An external difference with later D4 tractors is the the early model has the gas tank at the end of the engine compartment, later it's behind the seat.

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your help! Yes indeed, the R4 looks very similar to the D4 models, and I think you're correct that the fuel tank is a variety between the earlier and later models. I'm also starting to find some dimensional data, and a very rare longitudinal section of the thing. So the picture is slowly falling together. I think I will build the tractor in two versions: one without the deep wading modifications, and one including these. Than the little kit can satisfy more audiences, like the construction diorama builders, the military equipment builders too...

But to get myself going on to this one I will first make a visit to Noordwijk aan Zee (upon Sea) to the Kurt Carlsen, and take some measurements of their modified tractor. That will help: both confirming the basic dimensions and the very extensive mods!

My built is getting into the next phase: the inner works of the boat. I will add to sets of twarths: the one shown having three (actually four, with the middle part cut away) and the original config with five, that was when rowing was still an option. Because of the casting limitations the twarths' deck will remain a separate part, which simply slips into place. Next I will add the internal frames (17 each side).

[Iceman 29]

It's a great job, it's progressing quickly and well!

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

It's a great job, it's progressing quickly and well!

Thank you, Pascal!

In this case the preparation took a long time... to think out a practical way to build a clinker boat, so that it can also serve as a master for resin casting. I had rejected several approaches before I came to this idea of using the Evergreen Clapboard sheet as semi-fabricate. It seems to work out very well - but I still need to clean up some less perfect points.

I'm getting already various cheers from current owners of these boats, they can use such a kit to help creating enthousiasm for their restoration and maintenance efforts. All of that is volunteer work of course.

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

Progress now a little bit slower...

It was well known the Dutch boat was derived from a almost similar Danish boat, developed by the Navy Yard in Copenhagen during WW1. But I had very little information on that Danish predecessor, until I saw this Danish painting:

the-red-rescue-boat-on-its-way-out-michael-ancher.jpg (46.79 KiB) Viewed 3841 times

You can find the original on this Wikipedia page: https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redningsb%C3%A5d

Also revealing to compare the original Danish drawing with the Dutch version: the similarity is striking! Beware: the Danish drawing seems to be somewhat compressed in vertical direction. Easy to correct that.

Danish:

Dutch:

You can be sure, I will include the Danish paint scheme with my kit as well! Only the rudder is essentially different, the blade of the Danish rudder swivels upwards, in the Dutch boats the entire rudder is lifted along its axis.

[maxim]

In Aalborg, there is a later version of a Danish rescue boat preserved, but I think the hull shape is similar:

Motorredningsb�d Nr. 23 in Aalborg

The protected stearing position was added in 1958, earlier it was open.

/edit: you likely know this museum:

Nationaal Reddingmuseum Dorus Rijkers in Den Helder

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

In Aalborg, there is a later version of a Danish rescue boat preserved, but I think the hull shape is similar:

Motorredningsb�d Nr. 23 in Aalborg

The protected stearing position was added in 1958, earlier it was open.

/edit: you likely know this museum:

Nationaal Reddingmuseum Dorus Rijkers in Den Helder

Thank you, Maxim! No, I hadn't found the museum in Aalborg yet.

I'm pretty sure it's the same hull shape, and the overall measurements align very well!

Indeed the Reddingsmuseum Dorus Rijkers in Den Helder also has one of these boats, called the 'Ubbo'. The Dutch boats also got a covered engine compartment in the fifties, so their look was rather different from the Danish boats by that time.

I will reach out to the museum in Aalborg, to check what further data they may have on this type.

[wefalck]

In Germany there has been a range of quite similar looking boats of different dimensions, some of them in wood and some of them in steel. This cabin rounded at the front and the steering position behind seems to have been a common feature of such boats in the late 1920s and 1930s.

The Brits had very similar boats, see the RNLI collection at the Chatham dockyard: https://rnli.org/find-my-nearest/museum ... collection

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

In Germany there has been a range of quite similar looking boats of different dimensions, some of them in wood and some of them in steel. This cabin rounded at the front and the steering position behind seems to have been a common feature of such boats in the late 1920s and 1930s.

The Brits had very similar boats, see the RNLI collection at the Chatham dockyard: https://rnli.org/find-my-nearest/museum ... collection

Hi Wefalck,

In your earlier posts you referred to the museum in Bremerhaven, and they have some really nice boats there:

These were both of the rowing/sailing type still. Until WW2 all rescue services were equipped very similarly and facing the same fundamental technical problems. For rowing boats the clincker-built Greenland whaler was the most common design. The British though were much the pioneers, with their Beeching-Peake boats with double mahogany skin and two huge air boxes for and aft - in fact the shape of almost all the money collection boxes for rescue charities! As for the motorized boats, the British Oakley class was maybe the best known of these, but rather large to be launched from a trailer or be transported over a sandy beach. FROG of course made a nice model kit of this in 1:48.

I got the impression the German DGzRS got really off their marks shortly after WW2 with their concept of 'Seenotrettungskreuzer' (very German word btw! ) in fact a streamlined fast boat (>20kts) with a conning tower much like an U-boot. Part of the concept of course was the 'Tochterboot' on the quarterdeck for approaching/saving the crew in distress.

The German concept survives to the current day but was never really taken over by other rescue organisations. From modelling point we are well served by Revell having issued several of these ships as a kit, including the current flagship 'Hermann Marwede'.

[wefalck]

The SPIEKEROOG is actually a Francis-boat, constructed from hydraulically stamped vertical sections of sheet-metal. This type of boat, including the launching carriage, was already presented in:

P�RIS, F.E. (1869): L�Art Naval � l�Exposition universelle de Paris en 1867 augment� des derniers perfectionnements et inventions maritimes jusqu�en 1869.- 58 pl., Paris (Arthus Bertrand).

It had watertight compartments and was self-draining, because the watertight floor was above the load-line, when fully manned. A few years ago I took series of detail photographs of this and the sailing rescue boat with the view to one day built models of them.

The development of the 'Seenotrettungskreuzer' in some way began already in the late 1930s and early 1940s, when some of the motor rescue boats were given an elevated steering platform/conning tower, the shape of which resembled already that of the later boats. I gather this development was sped up by their war-time role of rescuing also ditched air-crews the raised steering gave a better visibility to find the rubber dinghies or floating crewmen in a choppy sea.

On this site (they seem to be somehow related to ARTITEC) two kits in 1:87 for early German motor rescue boats have been announced for years, but have not been forthcoming so far. They also have a post-war half-track vehicle for transporting the rocket apparatus for launching rescue-line across a stranded ship. The half-tracks were converted from the war-time 3 ton personnel carrier/artillery tractor. I think such half-tracks were also used until the early 1960s to tow the beach-launched rescue boats across the dunes and tidal-flats of the Wadden Sea.

[Iceman 29]

Another remarkable preservation of a lifeboat in France at Penmarc'h, Bretagne:



THE OLD LIFEBOAT PAPA POYDENOT
The Papa Poydenot is a teak lifeboat, with sail and oars. Unsinkable, it is self-righting and self-draining. It belongs to the Papa Poydenot association, whose main goal is to preserve the memory of the crews of sailing and rowing lifeboats. Since 1992, it is classified as a historical monument. The history of sea rescue, its organization in Penmarc'h, the action of the brave Penmarc'hais rescuers and the evolution of lifeboats are also to be discovered.

The Papa Poydenot is located in its shelter at the tip of Penmarc'h in St Pierre, behind the lighthouse of Eckm�hl.

3 RESCUE STATIONS AND A FAMILY HISTORY
Three lifeboat stations were created in Penmarc'h: the first in K�rity in 1868, the second in St Gu�nol� in 1889 and the third in St Pierre in 1901. The Papa Poydenot was the first lifeboat of the St Pierre station. Madame Caroline Poydenot financed the construction of the boat in homage to her husband Jean Bernard Paul Poydenot who died in 1890. He himself financed in 1888, a lifeboat for the station of St Gu�nol� named Maman Poydenot.

This lifeboat is with sails and oars. It is unsinkable, self-righting and spontaneously self-emptying. Built in 1900, it was presented at the Universal Exhibition in Paris. It was given to the Saint-Pierre station in 1901 when it was created by the SCSN (Soci�t� Centrale de Sauvetage des Naufrag�s).

CREATION OF THE ASSOCIATION PAPA POYDENOT
In 1990, the Papa Poydenot association, whose main goal is to "preserve the memory of the crews of the sailing oar lifeboats", found a boat of the same type in Port Haliguen (Quiberon peninsula). This boat was used by the Gl�nan nautical center. The association bought the boat and renamed it Papa Poydenot. The renovation began at the Pichavant shipyard in Pont l'Abb�. A cart to transport it was built at the shipyard of St Gu�nol�.

The boat was launched in the port of St Pierre on May 30, 1992, and participated in July of the same year, in the gathering of old riggings in Brest. It was classified as a historical monument on November 6, 1992.

https://www.penmarch.fr/evenement/lanci ... 020-09-01/

Clic to enlarge:

[wefalck]

Prompted by this discussion, I have dug out the pictures I took in 2011 in the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven of the rowing and the sailing life-boat and created a dedicated page for them on my Web-site: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/m ... DGzRS.html.

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

@ Iceman 29: thank you Pascal, for this beautiful story about 'Papa Poydenot' from the Breton coast at Penmarc'h! Like the story realated by Jim Baumann earlier in this thread this is a good hommage to the brave people risking everything to save seamen and passengers in distress!

@ Wefalck, thank you Eberhard for those details on the 'Spiekeroog' boat in the Bremerhaven museum. I had been wondering what boat it actually was: one would guess at first sight it's a wooden boat.

I had read the Dutch rescue service had acquired one such boat from Havighorst (Bremen) in 1896 for the 's-Gravenzande station, just south of The Hague, and used until 1910. Apparently it got no sequel. I read this about the type:

Here it describes the German design was in fact a combination of the wooden Beeching-Peake plus the corrugated metal of the Francis boat, and then called the 'Einheitsboot'. However, you have studied the topic in detail so I will try to get hold of your article in 'Das Logbuch'. It seems there are seven other survivors of the type, not a bad score! These are: 'August Grassow', 'Unser Eiland', 'Otto Hass', 'F�rst Bismarck II', 'Magdeburg II', 'Generalpostmeister' and 'Geheimrat Heinrich Gerlach'. https://bos-fahrzeuge.info/einsatzfahrz ... oto/497353

Do you happen to have dimensional data and maybe even plans of this type?

[wefalck]

No, actually not, I don't have drawings for these boats. I should write to the DGzRS in order to see, whether they have anything in their archives. I didn't do this (yet), because I did not have a concrete plan to build a model. One could also write to the museum in Bremerhaven in order to see, whether they took off the lines of these boats - their move to a different location following the restructuring of the museum would have been an opportunity to do it.

I have seen a couple of the other boats in their sheds at their (last) original location. However, they were difficult to photograph due to the narrow shed and the pictures were taken in my pre-digital age. At some stage I will have to scan them.

[Fliger747]

The cross section drawing along the centerline is interesting in the protection of the propeller. It is certainly possible that WWII landing craft somewhat copied this system. The LSM has a similar hump in the underwater profile to protect the propellers in this shallow draft vessel, with skegs on both sides.

Such surf boats must have been a wild ride!

Regards: Tom

[wefalck]

Such tunnels were not new in the 1920s. They have been used on shallow-draft craft since at least the 1860s. I have drawings for French river and coastal gun-boats from that period that show such feature. They were also used on river tugs and act almost like water-jet propulsion, sucking in water from below and expelling it horizontally.