The Launch

Based on a fair amount of research, it appears as though the Santa Maria had two smaller boats. The first one is located here: The Lifeboat .

The second, is a larger “launch.”  After a couple of failed attempts, I used a similar method that I used with the ‘lifeboat’.  I took the diagrams from Pastor’s reference, made scaled copies, then cut out along the lines to create bulkheads to plank.

The most difficult part of this small build was shaping the keel.  It’s a very dramatic bend. It took several attempts at soaking a strip then bending it with heat to get the shape I needed. I overbent, cracked and broke a number of pieces going to fast. Patience was definitely and ultimately a virtue here. But, I finally got a reasonable facsimile to work with.

To shape the bulkheads properly, I just glued my paper templates to some thing plywood – knowing I would sand out the hulls later.

As it turns out – this method failed miserably. I wasn’t able to effectively plank or sand this version, because there wasn’t enough wood to work this. After much aggravation, I just scraped the plank on bulkhead idea.

Shifting gears – I switched to a more basic method, trying to simulate the real-world version of building smaller craft.  I mounted my bent keel, filed small grooves, then bent and shaped until I came up with something suitable to plank. While this ultimately worked – it was quite difficult soaking and bending these smaller pieces.

After quite a bit of planking, sanding and filling then planking again – I had a viable product to work with and shape.

 Filling in the launch with seats, rails, and a keel was relatively easy compared to the construction itself. Thank goodness for the weathering that I’ve been using because hopefully it’ll cover up a fair amount of minor inaccuracies.

I’ll ultimately also add oars, some rope, and other small additions that represent the clutter that was often found in the small vessels. I suspect they were often used as storage bins much the same way we all seem to have a “junk drawer” somewhere around the house.