Zulus, Scottish herring drifters circa. 1890. [COMPLETED BUILD]

I love the weathering, Jack and have the utmost faith in your skills that it won't look overdone. The chopping block is an interesting one - indeed, it looks oversized to the point that it must have fulfilled a very specific purpose. Hopefully someone can tell us what it was for - I have no idea.
 
Jack Jäger said:
Hi Folks,
I have finished my scratch build of the Zulu's steering and I am quite pleased with the outcome, for sure it looks better than a box with a steering wheel poking out. Like I hope to do with the rest of the boat I have tried to add a bit of weathering. It looks a bit over the top in these photographs (macro), but when seen with the naked eye it all blends in quite nicely. I think if you where to make a working trawler as dirty as they really are no one would believe you. When I was still at school I worked two summers on a drifter harboured in Peel on the IOM. Being just a pup I got all the cleaning jobs but you could never get her clean, you had to take a spade to the herring scales that dried as if super glued to the deck! The boat was called the 'Mary Ann', she was smaller than a Zulu at fifty odd feet and driven by a big Perkins marine diesel. She was owned and skippered by an uncle of mine and was loved and well looked after but rust never sleeps, wire brush and paint the only answer. Anyway I will try not to over do it with the weathering.

Here are some pics. of my progress.

View attachment 340346View attachment 340347View attachment 340348View attachment 340349View attachment 340351View attachment 340352View attachment 340353 I don't know the reason for the big chopping block behind the wheel although most /, maybe all, Zulus have it, The guides for the steering rods are attached to it, but it seems a bit extreme if it is only there for that, any guesses ?

View attachment 340354View attachment 340355View attachment 340356View attachment 340357View attachment 340358View attachment 340359

I made the little roller fairlead from scrap brass and 1mm dia box.
View attachment 340360 Next job will be making and fitting the rear spar that supports the mizzen lug sail it attaches to the port side of the stern and the top of the 'poop deck'. Cheers JJ..
Click to expand...
Awesome work JJ.
Keep it up.
 
Jack Jäger said:
Hi Folks,
I have finished my scratch build of the Zulu's steering and I am quite pleased with the outcome, for sure it looks better than a box with a steering wheel poking out. Like I hope to do with the rest of the boat I have tried to add a bit of weathering. It looks a bit over the top in these photographs (macro), but when seen with the naked eye it all blends in quite nicely. I think if you where to make a working trawler as dirty as they really are no one would believe you. When I was still at school I worked two summers on a drifter harboured in Peel on the IOM. Being just a pup I got all the cleaning jobs but you could never get her clean, you had to take a spade to the herring scales that dried as if super glued to the deck! The boat was called the 'Mary Ann', she was smaller than a Zulu at fifty odd feet and driven by a big Perkins marine diesel. She was owned and skippered by an uncle of mine and was loved and well looked after but rust never sleeps, wire brush and paint the only answer. Anyway I will try not to over do it with the weathering.

Here are some pics. of my progress.

View attachment 340346View attachment 340347View attachment 340348View attachment 340349View attachment 340351View attachment 340352View attachment 340353 I don't know the reason for the big chopping block behind the wheel although most /, maybe all, Zulus have it, The guides for the steering rods are attached to it, but it seems a bit extreme if it is only there for that, any guesses ?

View attachment 340354View attachment 340355View attachment 340356View attachment 340357View attachment 340358View attachment 340359

I made the little roller fairlead from scrap brass and 1mm dia box.
View attachment 340360 Next job will be making and fitting the rear spar that supports the mizzen lug sail it attaches to the port side of the stern and the top of the 'poop deck'. Cheers JJ..
Click to expand...
Good morning Jack. Awesome detail as always. The skipper would have to keep an eye out for ropes, hands etc getting caught in the exposed gears. I wonder why they didn’t just cover these? Makes for cool model tho. Cheers Grant
 
GrantTyler said:
Good morning Jack. Awesome detail as always. The skipper would have to keep an eye out for ropes, hands etc getting caught in the exposed gears. I wonder why they didn’t just cover these? Makes for cool model tho. Cheers Grant
Click to expand...
Hi Grant,
Yea, those gears look dangerous alright, but remember this is a Scottish boat and wood to cover them would cost money 'ye ken'. I have heard that the Scots are the only race in the world that evolved the ability to peel an orange in their pocket! Have you resisted the urge to start a wee bit of work on your Xebec, I never can or at least drooling over the plans. It looks a great kit I've always wanted to build one. Cheers JJ..
 
Jack Jäger said:
Hi Grant,
Yea, those gears look dangerous alright, but remember this is a Scottish boat and wood to cover them would cost money 'ye ken'. I have heard that the Scots are the only race in the world that evolved the ability to peel an orange in their pocket! Have you resisted the urge to start a wee bit of work on your Xebec, I never can or at least drooling over the plans. It looks a great kit I've always wanted to build one. Cheers JJ..
Click to expand...
Hello Jack. I have resisted the urge. I have looked at the instructions and looked at some other models tho. Looks like a fun build . I do need to finish the Victory first so may be a while. Cheers Grant
 
Hi Folks,
Spent the last while still working on the permanent deck gear and other fittings around the hull. This included rings, hooks and fairleads and around the bow I added a huge 'iron' plate that runs all the way to the keel, also a pair of iron 'horns' to either side or the stem. These horns where left out of the kit , but nearly every Zulu has them.

IMG_20221115_161955.jpgIMG_20221115_201115.jpg Strangely
the plate and horns remind me of the Cybermen from TV's 'Dr Who'!

Here are some pics.

IMG_20221116_171804.jpgIMG_20221116_171823.jpgIMG_20221116_171851.jpgIMG_20221116_171927.jpgIMG_20221116_171942.jpgIMG_20221116_172723.jpgIMG_20221116_172734.jpgIMG_20221116_172746.jpg The little skylight on the poop deck I 'glazed' using something called Glue and Glaze, it worked really well, drying crystal clear, however I should have used it from below but was too late so it looks wrong, darn it! I like the scrapyard look of the capstan but will have to think of a way to 'dirty ' the deck, other than my messy work. Every time I look at the bow sprit I think it is way too long, but it is right to the plans and right to the old photos (by proportional calculations), working out at over 54 feet. I will show some more photographs soon. Cheers JJ..
 
Heinrich said:
Wow Jack. She is really coming along and how about that bowsprit? 54 feet - goodness me, that is a serious piece of lumber!
Click to expand...
It's some length alright and works out at around 38 feet over the bow, hard to handle with a crew of only six, and only about four feet shorter than a big navy cutter like Alert with it's crew of zillions. I listened to a recording made in the 80's by an old trawler man who worked Zulus out of Buckie before WW1, in it he said that there was an unwritten agreement on nearly all the boats that the jib would not be set at night because it was too dangerous!
Spent my day making this wee latch pin and safety chain for the mizzen boom only to decide that it is too big. A well better credit me a good day against this bad one.IMG_20221117_165701.jpgIMG_20221117_171156.jpgIMG_20221117_171217.jpgIMG_20221117_171340.jpg Cheers JJ..
 
dockattner said:
Hello Jack,

I'm a first-time visitor to your blog and I have to say that the details you have added recently are quite convincing. Bravo!
Click to expand...
Thanks Paul,

I am trying to make these wee boats look like they would have in use. Its fun to batter them about a bit but hard to know when to stop sometimes. I do know, I take my hat off to the brave men and woman who sailed and fished them in reality. JJ..
 
A Zulu is named.
​
After a long debate conducted between the few remaining active brain cell that I retain I finally, out of a wide and wonderous choice of Buckie reg. boats; names such as 'Judy', 'Eviscerate' (I'm not joking),'Lords Prayer', 'Past Away', and 'Monday', I decided to run with William 'Wildie' Geddes's seventy eight foot, built at Buckpool in 1898 'BOYS'. The overriding factor being not that she was a locally famous and successful boat. Nor that she was owned by the Geddes family who from inauspicious beginnings became a wealthy and leading family in the Buckie area. Nor even that she swam for over fifty five years. No the true reason is that 'BOYS' has only four letters and thus is easy to paint!;) JJ..

IMG_20221119_163047.jpgIMG_20221119_163640.jpg

IMG_20221119_162914.jpg
 
Stunning work Jack! The rusty weathering on the bow is magnificent and I can actually see the green sheen in the black paint - subtle, but there.
 
Jack Jäger said:
It's some length alright and works out at around 38 feet over the bow, hard to handle with a crew of only six, and only about four feet shorter than a big navy cutter like Alert with it's crew of zillions. I listened to a recording made in the 80's by an old trawler man who worked Zulus out of Buckie before WW1, in it he said that there was an unwritten agreement on nearly all the boats that the jib would not be set at night because it was too dangerous!
Spent my day making this wee latch pin and safety chain for the mizzen boom only to decide that it is too big. A well better credit me a good day against this bad one.View attachment 341058View attachment 341059View attachment 341060View attachment 341061 Cheers JJ..
Click to expand...
Nice looking details, Jack. And thanks for the ‘Zulus Name Post’. Always nice to have background info.
Regards, Peter
 
Peter Voogt said:
Nice looking details, Jack. And thanks for the ‘Zulus Name Post’. Always nice to have background info.
Regards, Peter
Click to expand...
Thank you Peter,
The names mostly came from the book 'Mighty Zulu' published by Buckie and district fishing heritage. It is hard to believe that over 400 boats (mostly Zulus) sailed out of that wee harbour back then. Buckie and district fishing heritage have also got an interesting web site with stories and interviews recorded years ago. The supply and demand for herrings must have felt limitless back then. It's great to think a good weeks fishing could earn a skipper the price of a new boat. Mind you a bad storm could and did send many a boat and crew to the happy hunting ground for ever. Cheers JJ..
 
Jack Jäger said:
A Zulu is named.
​
After a long debate conducted between the few remaining active brain cell that I retain I finally, out of a wide and wonderous choice of Buckie reg. boats; names such as 'Judy', 'Eviscerate' (I'm not joking),'Lords Prayer', 'Past Away', and 'Monday', I decided to run with William 'Wildie' Geddes's seventy eight foot, built at Buckpool in 1898 'BOYS'. The overriding factor being not that she was a locally famous and successful boat. Nor that she was owned by the Geddes family who from inauspicious beginnings became a wealthy and leading family in the Buckie area. Nor even that she swam for over fifty five years. No the true reason is that 'BOYS' has only four letters and thus is easy to paint!;) JJ..

View attachment 341503View attachment 341504

View attachment 341502
Click to expand...
Rust and all…Thumbsup.
 
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