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I wonder if they left that ball while towing the wreck (which is not exactly at anchor or moored)? I also noticed in the Solent image that there are also two balls in the line going towards the main aerials, above the pompom platform.

A yes, indeed, there goes my helm indicator theory! I'll try finding more info in the navigation manual; I only searched the part on wrecks so far.

Following my earlier post of Warspite (1937, on BM, on OTS blog), a series of images of Warspite (on OTS blog) after decommissioning and running aground at Prussia Cove. Finding new images is quite difficult and auction prices go up really quickly, but I hope to add more. In fact, I added a new one today. Nothing unseen or special; I nearly managed to get two unique shots and put in a bid... and... lost... If people would stop bidding on my photographs they could see them for free on my site! Anyway. While Warspite isn't even in my top three of next projects, I think the wrecked version is a superb diorama subject. Also, the Britmodeller editor is terrible. There's a small line running from the bridge towards A-turret carrying a marker (top left). Top right shows Warspite's (1937) main mast with the helm signals—a green ball for starboard and red cones for port—suspended by a single line running over a pair of large pulleys. When Warspite went to the breakers (bottom left, same images as above) the helm indicators were still present. After she beached herself the helm signals were gone; the two large pulleys are hanging fully vertically. Was the green starboard ball reused as a wreck marker? My Admiralty Navigation Manual (1938) has a small section of wreck buoys off the coasts of the British isles using green balls hoisted in sets of two or three: one set of two: pass on port hand one set of three: pass on starboard hand two sets of two: pass on either side. whereby the hand direction is with the main flood stream around the British isles; a small map pointing our that direction is even provided in the manual. It is pretty straightforward on what side to pass this particular wreck and while two buoys should have been raised should the above apply, if I had to guess this single buoy should be green. I always remove blemishes from scans and one may inadvertently remove something in error. In this case the postcard above was damaged at the precise location of the marker and I hadn't noticed the buoy on other images when I was cleaning this one; the line remains visible and the marker is still there/

There's a colour scheme in Thomas' volume British Steam Tugs too, matching the pic in your link labelled "Above photo of EPPLETON HALL lying at the breakers is copyright of Malcolm Donnelly". (Largely black, red hull/funnel strip, buff upperworks, not much new). According to the volume (which really is a gem!): "colours of her last owners, the Seaham Harbour Dock Co.".

Not mentioned in the blog, but you need about one bottle of whiskey per shackle (Scottish, of course) 😆 If I am ever going to start 3D printing it is to avoid making another set of cables....

I looked at the same issue a while ago in my ground tackle posts and found no references to the use of colouring per link or shackle; most of the info is also based on the Manual of Seamanship (1937) that @Dave Swindell mentioned (for scratch building these volumes are highly informative) https://ontheslipway.com/ground-tackle-part-i/ https://ontheslipway.com/ground-tackle-part-ii/ I did notice that Hood carried a partly light-gray cable (for whatever that may mean!); difficult to see if the cable was painted black/white, or AP507B/C and when with the latter (Arrow highlights the mooring swivel, bottom left the cable in to colours). Later IWM close-ups show hull colour.

Below are a few pics of an ancient (semi) dry fit of some etch attempt I did a while ago (with master's barrels). Not entirely different but different enough; the guns are staggered in different directions which is quite noticeable, plus, the entire platform differs as well. Same genus, different species?

Indeed! And there's a few lockers (I think) that show up on pics I haven't been able to identify... may have to add... random detail. I know, and some (surface) details that are easy in 3D are very difficult in scratch; won't be able to reproduce everything. But, even if the Micromaster's version were the right version (it is not though easily fixed with a few mouse clicks) and though most people wouldn't be able to tell anyway (I wouldn't until very recently) , I still enjoy crafting my own Hope it turns out alright... may have to add some etch... this is 2D printing, actually, I guess I draw the line somewhere at an inconsistent location... 😋 I'll not use a 3D printer now, perhaps in the future... haven't decided.... but I'd do my own CAD anyway.

Part of a blog post under construction... I had only two regrets of building HMS Hood in her April/May 1941 configuration; a bit too early for her to have one of the admiralty first disruptive camouflage schemes and a bit too late to have a steam pinnace board, in my opinion the most handsome type of the ship's boats. As described in Boats & Launches of HMS Hood, 1941, the last picket boat was not landed but still aboard when Hood was sunk. I might have let useful research material slip believing it less to be relevant; I even forgot I already bought Stapleton's book and now have two copies... (in my defense, my first copy slid behind a bookshelf out of sight). "The term steam launch is not included. Naval Officers and ratings referred to each type of team boat, or craft, by its correct description and never used, even affectionately, the general term picket boat for every steam craft. Picket boats were either 56 feet or 50 feet in length whilst the 45 foot steam pinnaces during their existence were always referred to as pinnaces" Stapleton, 1980 While Stapleton is quite clear in the term picket, official drawings and documents refer to a 50ft Steam Pinnace; all steam pickets are pinnaces but not all pinnaces are pickets? Fortunately there is a good copy of a plan of the picket in the book on Norman Ough here loaded as a background to Rhino with various notes and lines to make the model. While going over the drawing and photographs I started to notice small differences between the various pickets. The cover over the engine room is either a low version with small 'plateau' below the funnel, or, a higher flat-roofed version If you look closely to the top-left image you'll notice that Hood appears to carry one version of each. The top-right image clearly shows the 'stepped' enclosure, while the bottom images clearly show the flat-roofed version that remained present until 1941. The layout for hatches and cowlings and so on of the Ough drawing cannot be used, including the coaling chutes on deck as Hood's pickets were oil-fired. The cabin of Steam Pinnace 199 does not show characteristic S-shape; this cabin was taken from pinnace 224 from HMS Inflexible that carried 2 50ft pickets. Images of Inflexible (stolen from internet)do not show the typical 50ft pickets (with one craft not a 50ft picket at all); while her sister ship New Zealand (bottom right) does. The cabin of pinnace 199 is filed under "mysterious" and will be ignored. Meanwhile, variations of the default cabin are found as well with HMS Rodney's picket (top left) showing a rectangular seating area aft while nearly all other pickets show this area following the lines tapering aft (as does Hood's picket). A small hull was vacuum formed from flimsy 0.25mm plate using a small plug made from Evergreen strip based on the lines from Ough. The hull was not immediately cut to size but first fitted with a few 'bulkheads' and filled with magic sculpt. Two layers followed, the last one the individual planks as laid on pinnace 199 with a small centreline king plank and the rest of the planks following the margin plank, except at the bow where the planks are cut off. No nibbing is visible at either the margin or king plank, fortunately. The strips were made from Wave 0.2mm styrene cut to 0.25mm strips. The trick is to glue the strips almost together without fusing the gap between them. (It would be really useful if you could buy strips and rods at smaller dimensions as I need these so often)

That would result in an underestimation; you get a better estimate by taking the maximum distance from the centre of the hub... From your photograph I measure about 15.3ft and 16.4ft (small/large model). Raven & Roberts say 16.5ft propellers, so, Pontos propellers are a better match.

I checked my copy of the lines drawing of HMS Prince of Wales; it shows that the propellers were initially dimensioned at 15ft, but the approved diameter ended up at 14ft6in. These lines show the difference with (as per the drawing) HMS King George V, Jellicoe, Anson and Beatty*. I remembered there was a change in diameter but apparently towards the final diameter of 14.5ft. *(For HMS Prince of Wales there is this tiniest of differences in the stern region and the small knuckle just below the deck in the forepeak).

In case of a screw in wood that would be the case, but for a propeller a) the distance travelled is usually not constant over all radii of the propeller and b) the actual distance travelled is typically less (called slip). Iirc the prop diameter was not the same for all kgvs; will check tomorrow, I’m off to very fancy dinner…

I know; these were initially posted at MW.com but I cleared out all attachments (oops)... more on the blog though

Looks like a small cover for the view ports; can image Y-turret experienced some flooding? (HMS Hood site has a close-up showing the cover partially but I cannot find its location...)

I updated my hotlinking settings and whitelisted Britmodeller; on my phone in privacy mode the images now show up.... thanks for the heads up, hope it works on your end. This is the image I recently bought (click to view at full resolution). While it was at it I refreshed my collection of Hood pics: https://ontheslipway.com/assorted-pics-of-hms-hood/

Work on Hood as been slowish with much of my Friday modelling time being consuming by debugging (how delightful to be granted the grace of working with Fortran), but hobbying is building up steam and I hope to be producing a small 50ft steam pinnace shortly (vacuum form hull plug done). Meanwhile, I spotted another Tannoy speaker on a small postcard I bought: Bottom row centre shows a small speaker on the barbette of X-turret (might there be another one on the opposite side?). Anyway, noticed it while cleaning up the image. Aha! there you are... (small and silly things that add to my modeling pleasure).

The external degaussing coil was removed during her early 1944 Liverpool refit; internal coils fitted. The Mk IV HACS directors make it easy to identify her from the others of the class.

More confusion:

I also spent some time going over the manual and my first reaction to seeing the model with two (parts of a) cables coming out of the hawsepipe was "that can't be right". Only to be confronted by the photograph 3 seconds later 😁 Most pics show the anchor catted with no cable attached... Always something new! (or... old in this case).

Great work! I do wonder how that cable work was handled on the actual ship? Is the anchor catted, parted, linked to the stopper, free end then linked to the buoy?

I'm flipping through my "Radar: the developments of equipments1 for the Royal Navy" by Kingsley (volume 1) . Of all AA cruisers only Carlisle and Delphi received the type 281, the rest a (2)79 set except Calcutta, sunk before the sets were issued. Photo interpretation seems ok 1 Plural (Next to my boat page I contemplated an aerial page too to stop the confusion, but it would mainly be plagiarizing Kingsley and Howse for all the information. Books can be very hard to find but are a radar information goldmine).

The halyards in that drawing do not match any source I have and seem to be imagined; not sure what the source is but I suggest the Anatomy of the Ship as a reference that is quite clear in the various rigging plans of Hood; not the 1940/41 version though, but the volume specifies stays, halyards, helm indicator lines, aerials and so on in various views. I have not made a full rigging plan of Hood in 1940-41... not sure what aerial posts were used or no longer used for the final rig; fine lines are difficult to spot in most images (certainly most online images). In any case: on the yardarms of the starfish two line systems were present: one signal halyard (pair, one on each side) for hoisting flags, more or less in the drawing you uploaded roughly halfway between the outer pair. These run through a pulley, so, a double line. I tried finding exactly where the signal halyards end up but as far as I can tell the run forward to base of the tripod legs of the main mast The more inboard line is the so-called helm indicator, carrying a green ball and starboard and red cones (inverted pair) on port side. These are attached to a single line running over the very large blocks from one side of the starfish to the other side through the starfish. This image shows it most clearly https://purl.slwa.wa.gov.au/slwa_b2943881_17 (The cones according to the AOTS used to be a flag as is visible in this shot; signal halyards not visible in that shot). This single line enter/exit the boat deck through two tubes. On my model where the main mast will be placed---one day--- you can spot these tubes: Portside one is within that group of three grey mushrooms. So in this image: in the bottom-right corner you see the two lines running the left of the left-most blue array; the left line goes to that tube behind the tripod leg though the deck and the right line runs in front of the tripod leg. But the exact connection point is just blocked (Cannot find a better image that this one!).

Certainly very interesting! A first-hand account on an incident is better than a report of "several incidents". I did find not much on the Table Bay in our archives, other than a general paper (in German) on twin-screw single-rudder maneuvering by Brix, also found in his later work in the reference in the opening post.

Not directly, only that a series of incidents happened, but the ships with poor steering behaviour with having an open skeg and diverging shaft lines are Liverpool Bay class, Table Bay class, Helderberg class and Sea-land Market class. Ships with a closed skeg apparently did better at smaller rudder angles with no grounding in Suez but one in the Panama canal (Again no specifics but either Hamburg or Tokyo Express as only two are named? ). Barndoor rudders behind a closed skeg behaved well, with the rudder hitting a prop race at very large angles (Bremen Express, Hong Kong Express, Nedlloud Dejima/Delft/Houtman/Hoorn and Transvaal) (All from the Vossnack paper). Gawn is very well known in the hydrodynamic community; the data of several of the Haslar propeller series are still being used. Just a few months ago I also used some data by Gawn and Burrill on old propeller data (added mass & inertia). Fifty year-old data and approximations that held up remarkably well against a computational re-analysis by your truly.

It crossed my mind; from what I recall she did loose control when accelerating to a higher speed. Some links say yes https://swzmaritime.nl/news/2021/04/01/container-ship-ever-given-grounding-could-it-happen-again/ My focus was now mainly on the twin-screw single-rudder setups, which I hope was not the configuration of that container ship. Regarding Getty/Alamy: I once found an image from my collection uploaded to a forum for sale for $450.... 🤬 (now in the public domain). Now I always add a small link to my images in an inconspicuous location but there's always some low-life that will even edit that out (for instance); a minor side effect of sharing I suppose.