Nautical Research Journal 341


22. Boats hung from their davits.


T e boats Magnus Mörck provides for USS Lehigh probably are appropriate for an American monitor but the Russian vessels embarked very diff erent craſt . Fortunately, I was able to replace them with the correct boats by taking them from a kit published by Paper Shipwright for the Russian monitor Smerch, an exact contemporary of Uragan but equipped with two Coles pattern turrets instead of the single Ericsson type.


T e challenge with making small boats from paper is giving them a proper boat-like shape. Oſt en what is provided makes a V-shape from the sheer to the keel, which is not very prototypical. For these boats, aſt er I cut out the hull part I rolled it fore and aſt to give it a curve from the keel to the sheer. T en I used the round end of a paintbrush and pressed the part on a pad of paper towels to introduce a convex shape into the bow area. I glued the thwarts unit into one side fi rst. Aſt er it had dried thoroughly I brought up the other side and glued it to the thwarts unit. To maintain


the curvature of the cross section, aſt er I had cut the bottom board into two pieces, I inserted the forward section through the thwarts, pressed it into place, and glued it from underneath using a length of fi ne wire as an applicator. When that was dry, I inserted the aſt er section of fl oorboards and glued this the same way. Finally, I added the transom and rub rails before fi tting oars and a rudder. T e fi nished boats are a little over an inch long overall. (Figure 20)


T e davits on the Russian monitors were very diff erent from those on their American equivalents. Davits on Russian ships at this time were not of the radial type but pivoted at the heel near the deck directly outboard with control coming from an inboard tackle. Furthermore, the davits on these monitors were much taller because the Russian designers had the idea that they should carry the boats above the level of the turret top so that the boats and davits would not obstruct the turret guns’ fi eld of fi re. I am very dubious about the effi cacy of this concept


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