Whaleboats

 Kate Cory carried four whaleboats; 3 active and fully equipped boats which hung from iron davits and 1 spare boat carried on the “featherboards” off the stern (Kate Cory, Boats 3 and 4 from alow, astern).

I chose to model boats of the type made by the James Beetle Boat Yard of New Bedford, Mass.  This was strictly an aesthetic choice on my part.  I have no way of knowing whose brand of boats the ship may have carried.  Since this model depicts the ship at about 1860, I have exercised artistic license and issued her Beetle boats.  All four boats are 28’ 6” long, have a centerboard and a gaff rig.

The hulls were carved from basswood with all the details applied (Boat 1, Boat 2, Boat 3, and Boat 4).  The paint scheme for the boats is dark green hull with a “color of choice” for the sheer strake.  The boat header or mate got to choose.  On this Kate Cory, the port bow boat has a yellow strake (Kate Cory, First Whaleboat), the port quarter boat is white (Kate Cory, Second Boat) and starboard quarter boat is black (Kate Cory, Third Whaleboat).  Interiors I painted gray or blue for the ceiling planks and either buff or light green from the seat riser to the gunwales.  The spare boat(s) carried on whaleships were generally painted a solid color until they were put into service.  White lead as a primer was common with umber or gray for the interior and this is what I did for the spare boat here (Kate Cory, Spare Boat).

Whalecraft

All of the whalecraft for the boats on the Kate Cory are scale replicas of actual artifacts that were on display at the Nantucket Whaling Museum during the early 90s’.  The folks at the museum kindly allowed me to measure all the gear in their fully equipped example of a Beetle whaleboat.  That opportunity has given me a leg up, as it were, to produce models with an increased degree of historical accuracy (Kate Cory, First Whaleboat, amidships detail).