Build a 1:96 Scale 35" Three-island Steamers Full size printed plans

Full Size Printed Plans  and Article

Three-island Steamers

Armora

Full Size Printed on a sheet 40” x 28”

(These Drawings are for experience Builders There are No Building Notes)

Eight Page Article and photos

1/96 Scale 1/8" = 1'

Length 35 1/2"

Power Electric, Steam or Gas

Suitable for Radio control

By P. N. THOMAS

The tramp steamer was not fast, because speed cost money, and many of the early vessels plugging along at 8 to 9 kts. were chagrined to see the clippers passing them at 15 kts. However, the tramp won the day because she could keep that 8 kts, up day after day, while the sailing ship was at the mercy of the fickle wind. The tramp could sail through the Suez Canal or later through the Panama Canal, reducing the length of the voyage by thousands of miles.

The three-island ship seems to have been a design based on tradition. Paddle steamers had their engines amidships, so had the three-islander; by tradition the crew lived in the forecastle and the officers in the poop, thus the three raised decks were retained in the design. The basic difference was that the steering was moved forward to the midships structure. The standard arrangement was to have two hatches in the forward welldeck and two hatches in the after welldeck, with a mast and derricks to serve each pair of hatches. As the vessels increased in capacity another hatch was introduced amidships between the bridge and the funnel. By the beginning of World War 1 the tramp steamer represented half of the British merchant marine.