Category: Boats & Launches

50ft Steam Pinnace

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 aboard, 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 lost. 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 defence, 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 minor 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’ cover, 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 pinnaces 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 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. The strips were made from Wave 0.2mm styrene cut to 0.25mm strips. It would be really useful if you could just buy strips and rods at smaller dimensions as I need these so often. The trick is to glue the strips almost together without fusing the gap between them.

The stem strip running over the bow was first bent, taped on a small plate and boiled a bit to maintain the curve; the keel is a separate strip sanded to size. A small stern tube was added from from Albion Alloy’s 0.4mm tube; I let it run into the cabin to help alignment. The wooden grating on the aft deck is the finest mesh I could find but this mesh not fine enough and does not match the lattice outline well. On the foredeck three tubes were added for the flag post, a pipe to the chain locker and a small vent. I was worried a bit about making this complex shape. I started with a 1.0mm tube, added a 0.7mm hole/tube and soldered them together. After filing them to size with a bit of magic sculpt to round off the top the part turned out really well.

The bow received a bit more detail above the rubbing strake (or rubber) near the stem against the wash strake; this small area was often left unpainted and polished. The fairleads were another experiment using a small 0.2mm milling bit; I started by milling a small ‘T’ in a wide strip and then milled away the sides. Each fairlead has a small asymmetry that is larger than the slack in the milling machine, but it’s so small I don’t mind. The milling was easy, I had to spend more time cleaning the part and scraping away excess styrene. The cleats are leftover PE from Hood herself for details scattered around the deck edge. A small strip is present on Pinnace 199 at the waterline; not sure if Hood’s pinnace had one but Renown’s picket did and it should come in as a very handy guide when masking the hull. A bit rope was added—made from a pair 0.15 mm brass wires twisted using the drill—running over a small bump on the post side hull, I assume some cooling water discharge.

The layout of the cover over the engine room seems to be different for each picket. Ramillies’ picket (top left) has two hatches aft, opening forward. (A) Two air intakes are grouped around two hatches opening inboard (B) three scuttles are fitted in the roof between the intakes and the funnel (D). Royal Sovereign’s picket (top right) shows only two scuttles in the roof and has an additional hatch just behind the funnel (C). An unidentified picket (bottom left) also shows three scuttles in the roof and a small hatch behind the funnel; pinnace 199 (bottom right) has only two scuttles in the roof and no hatch behind the funnel.

These are all pickets of Hood. A previous image showed that Hood’s pickets had a stepped and a flat-roofed cover (shown here); but on closer inspection of the top image (beneath the inserts) it seems that Hood started carrying two flat-roofed pickets (A). A few decent shots were found of the port side picket; this is picket #2 as indicated by the two brass rings around the funnel (B). This picket has the forward vent on the same side as the aft vent (C); an earlier shot (bottom left) shows the vents in other positions (plus other arrangement of steam pipes around the funnel), so definitely not the same picket #2. I noticed that the scuttles in the side of the engine room cover is not the same for the small insert and bottom right image (E) suggesting these are not the same picket either, but both have the vents on port side. So, both pickets were replaced or modified? The hatches in the roof open forward on all versions (F), in contrast to the pickets in the previous image. The bottom right also shows a pair of scuttles in the roof. I will use this layout for my model and not the one shown bottom left (edit: this image shows the same pinnace from another direction).

I found a good image on the website on the National Maritime Museum matching Hood’s picket better than the other drawings; slightly pixelated but useful enough to drawing the cover for the engine room and the base for the 3in Hotchkiss gun. Various etched parts are already drawn in. The steering wheel is connected to the rudder till via a wire runs around the outside of the hull over a number of pulleys (top view: small circles at the stern and either side of the steering position). Two small pulleys are mounted at the base of the steering assembly as well as visible-ish in the drawing; I only found a good view of that position of in a clip showing Pinnace 199 being disassembled for an overhaul (here at 4:14)

The Hotchkiss 3-pdr base and engine room cover were made from styrene sheet and then filled with Magic Sculpt. This was really tricky because of the small size of the parts glued to the model and I needed four sessions to apply these otherwise simple shapes. The arrows indicate the location of four pulleys for the steering arrangement. Top right shows the cabin under construction made from strips. The inner benches were added first as a convenient spacer at the end of the cabin. I tried spotting a door on photographs bit didn’t manage to find one, except on pinnace 199 where the doors open inwards. However, this is not possible with the S-shaped cabin shape here so I decided to keep the cabin open. The end of the cabin is again strip and both the front and aft section have a slight arc to capture the curvature of the roof. I used many ‘spacing strips’ to find the width and depth of the cabin to make all the parts fit.

The roof has both the S-shape and a slightly curve, so I used a cheap vacuum former shown top left; simply add boiling water. A few spacer strips were added to the inside to ‘lock’ the roof into position—need to paint inside before I’ll glue the roof—and the plate could then be cut to size. Below is the model with all parts in place with ready to receive the etched parts. Two more vent cowlings were made using the same recipe as the one on the foredeck; I really like my small milling machine! The funnel was a very tricky part with the trumpet made by squeezing one end onto a dead centre on the lathe; I actually tried using a butane burner to heat the tube end, but that didn’t help one bit. In the end it was just repetition until the trumpet didn’t show any tears. The base is a bit of styrene trimmed to size on the lathe and filled with Magic Sculpt; the top ring is a bit of stretched sprue.

I finished a small etch set with a denser lattice and the parts for the picket bottom right. A few other parts were added as well, mainly more Denton floats (far right), missing admiralty ladders top, and re-etched stairs from the aft superstructure down going down as the previous versions didn’t fit.

The artwork was sent to etchworks.eu and arrived three weeks later. This is only half the etch as a copy was added on the opposite side of the A5 sheet; I always add a few experiments and parts that are a bit finer than recommended by the etcher; some thin lines are over-etched and some grids and holes a bit under etched but generally a scan of set looks great.

All etched parts in place; most of it went fine except for the steering pulleys near the steering wheel that were too small; I gave up and added a tube. The grid on the stern was replaced by the newly etched mesh, a decision that came with some regret as I first had to repair the damage from removing the previous mesh. For the two small small ‘steps’ in the aft seating area I found out I did not have any folding lines on the rear of the etch (put some parts in the wrong layer when creating the PDF for the etcher); except for these only two other parts are affected, fortunately. The handrails are drilled in a bit to make sure they don’t fall off at the slightest touch (now they fall off at the merest touch).

The crutches follow the hull lines of the barge, but their spacing follows the 4ft frame spacing of the boat deck; the crutches are spaced at 3 frames, except for the last crutch at 2 frames, positioned just below the stern tube. I started with the 2nd crutch working in either direction, choosing the keel to run level so that the propeller doesn’t foul the deck. Each crutch starts as a strip made to fit the pinnace; weight-saving holes are then drilled in and the strip is trimmed to size. The real boat rested on a teak planks but rather than putting a strip between the hull and the crutch, there are a few strips on either side of the crutch so that the crutch doesn’t need to follow the hull lines perfectly. There’s a bit of damage near the bow as I put the forward crutch initially at 2 frames; I also had to make 4 versions of the rear crutch before it looked fine; only one very tricky part and 13 strips to redo. Propulsion arrangement was last with the rudder being particularly tricky and very fragile.

40 ft Royal Barge

For my list of ‘false positives’, this is 40ft Royal Barge built by Vospers running trials at Portsmouth (1938). This 24 knots craft served as a tender for the Royal yacht Victoria and Albert. This craft has been spotted aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia as well but appears to have been replaced by another 40ft craft.

Cane, du, P., High-speed small craft, 1964, Temple Press Books.

THE KING WITH THE INVASION FLEET. 24 MAY 1944, HMS BULOLO, AT BEAULIEU ROADS. THE KING VISITED MEN OF THE INVASION FLEET ON BOARD THE HEADQUARTERS SHIP HMS BULOLO.
THE KING WITH THE INVASION FLEET. 24 MAY 1944, HMS BULOLO, AT BEAULIEU ROADS. THE KING VISITED MEN OF THE INVASION FLEET ON BOARD THE HEADQUARTERS SHIP HMS BULOLO. © IWM (A 23599)

45 ft Motor Launch

There are two types of this launch, this standard version and a lighter version. Drawings of the standard type have not yet been located.

John Roberts states that “42ft motor launch was similar but had only a single rubber, like the 42ft sailing launch from which it was derived. The rubber or rubbing strake is the line at the outside of the hull running the entire length, either a timber of rope. I use Robert’s information to classify all large launches as either 42 or 45 ft.

It appears this boat was only carried by a handful battleships and battlecruisers prior to modernization. Hood’s motor launch also carried a small cabin and its interior appears largely the same as the 42ft launch,

(Presumably) a 45ft motor launch next to a steam picket.

45 ft motor launch, from an unidentified warship.


RN Communications Branch Museum/Library, Godfrey Dykes photographic collection. Image of a diver (plus equipment) working from the 45ft motor launch.

WITH THE ROYAL MARINES ASHORE AND AFLOAT. 1940, ON BOARD HMS RODNEY AND ASHORE. THE VARIOUS TASKS PERFORMED BY THE ROYAL MARINES. WITH THE ROYAL MARINES ASHORE AND AFLOAT. 1940, ON BOARD HMS RODNEY AND ASHORE. THE VARIOUS TASKS PERFORMED BY THE ROYAL MARINES. © IWM (A 129)

WITH THE ROYAL MARINES ASHORE AND AFLOAT. 1940, ON BOARD HMS RODNEY AND ASHORE. THE VARIOUS TASKS PERFORMED BY THE ROYAL MARINES. WITH THE ROYAL MARINES ASHORE AND AFLOAT. 1940, ON BOARD HMS RODNEY AND ASHORE. THE VARIOUS TASKS PERFORMED BY THE ROYAL MARINES. © IWM (A 130)

ON BOARD THE BATTLESHIP HMS RODNEY. OCTOBER 1940, SCENES IN THE DAILY ROUTINE OF THE BATTLESHIP. ON BOARD THE BATTLESHIP HMS RODNEY. OCTOBER 1940, SCENES IN THE DAILY ROUTINE OF THE BATTLESHIP. © IWM (A 1425)

ON BOARD A BATTLESHIP. 1940, ON BOARD THE BATTLESHIP HMS REVENGE. ON BOARD A BATTLESHIP. 1940, ON BOARD THE BATTLESHIP HMS REVENGE. © IWM (A 1519)

While not many details are visible, HMS Revenge has a main mast with a large derrick and no need for the light type; I suspect this is the standard type.

Boats & Launches of HMS Hood, 1941

With special thanks to Sean Carroll and Frank Allen for the discussions and additions.

The exact layout of the boats aboard HMS Hood in 1941 is frequently-asked question. My list is (currently (*))

Many sources will claim that HMS Hood in 1941 was fitted with three 35 ft FMBs —one of which was an admiral’s barge fitted earlier in 1940—but now I believe that this third fast motor boat was never fitted and HMS Hood sank with one of her 50ft Steam Pinnace’s still on board. The most direct evidence follows from an image from an undisclosed 1941 album showing the pinnace more clearly in the far background but I can make a very good case (or so I hope) with public material. One other difference is a 2nd 16 ft dingy that is easily spotted on photographs.

After 1940 Hood no longer carried her 5.5 inch guns and after the 1941 Rosyth refit a few changes were introduced that make it fairly straightforward to date an image as either 1940 or 1941

  • Torpedo lookout removed from foremast
  • Type 284 gunnery radar fitted on the top DCT
  • Fore topmast removed and aerial spreader mounted on a frame
  • Type 279M fitted to main mast
  • HF/DF office on main mast starfish removed (small cabinet present)
  • 50 ft Steam Pinnaces replaced by 35 ft FMBs

Normally we’d use the presence or absence of the 35 ft FMB to date an image, but as the port side boat was never fitted we should no longer do that. Some of the images below are cropped, not showing the clearest indicators that are often in frame (i.e., removal of the HF/DF office on the main mast and torpedo lookout from the foremast), but you can find them in various publications if you need to be sure.

First we’ll have a look at the boat deck prior to 1940. Hood carried (A) 2 x 50 ft Steam Pinnaces and (B) 1 x 45ft Admiral’s Barge; the latter has an overhanging stern and its overall length is almost the same as the 50 ft Steam Pinnace.

On the original plans from 1940 we see—from left to right—

  1. 45ft Admiral’s Barge
  2. 45 ft Motor Launch
  3. 32 ft Cutter
  4. 42 ft Motor Launch
  5. 50 ft Steam Pinnace
  6. 16 ft dingy,
  7. 35 ft FMB (Admirals Barge)
  8. 30 ft gig stored on top of the second 32 ft Cutter

For those people who are detail-minded, note that the 42 ft Motor Launch is placed at a slightly inboard angle. Note that with the new 35 ft FMB (Admirals Barge) that the 45ft Admiral’s Barge is now simply referred to as a pinnace.

Near the port side pompom many boat outlines are visible and many of them are crossed out, except for (A) 2 x 25 ft FMB. Note that the more forward boat is also placed at an angle

Near the starboard pompom the situation is largely the same with many older boat locations crossed out and only (A) 16 ft FMB and (B) 25 ft FMB .

Two 16ft dinghy’s in cradles on either side of the DF platform are not on this drawing.

In this well known image from 1940 we see the (A) 45ft Steam Pinnace , (B) the cradle for the 16ft dingy—ignorant that it is not on the plans—and (C) the crutches for the 25 ft FMB.

When we compare the drawings with these image taken from 1941 we see that little has changed (left image courtesy HMS Hood organization, right own collection).

  1. 16 ft FMB,
  2. 2x 16ft dinghy’s in cradles,
  3. 3x 25 ft FMBs ,
  4. 2x 27 ft Whaler,
  5. (presumably) 30 ft Gig/32 ft Cutter combination,
  6. 42 ft Motor Launch
  7. 45 ft Motor Launch (note the 2nd rubber at the blue arrow),
  8. 35 ft FMB
  9. 35 ft FMB (Admirals Barge)
  10. our suspected 50 ft Steam Pinnace.

While these images visually confirm most boats, it’s not clear from the left view what type of boat is actually at J.

I cannot confirm the presence of the 30ft gig or 32 ft Cutter on top the the other 32 ft Cutter and 45 ft Motor Launch, respectively. That is, on some pics I can see something on top of the motor launch but not enough to make out what, but it’s fair to assume that the 1940 plans still holds; both the 42 ft Motor Launch and 45 ft Motor Launch can be spotted in various other 1941 photographs (not presented).

There is circumstantial evidence in Bruce Taylor’s highly recommended book, pp 210, with a summary of the refit by Philip Bucket dated the 6th of March 1941 that reads:

“[…] The second picket boat has been replaced by a 35-foot motor-boat”

Taylor adds a footnote that both steam pickets were replaced, but the above is oddly specific. This could well mean that first one boat was removed and then another, but it may well mean that only one steam pinnace was removed which is not contradicting my 50 ft Steam Pinnace theory. We already noticed that the 45ft Admiral’s Barge was demoted to the rank of ordinary Steam Pinnace.

Furthermore, in the aftermath of HMS Hood’s destruction, Robert Tilburn responds to Board on Inquiry on how the fire spread on the boat deck:

Could you say exactly were the fire seemed to start?

No, it was somewhere between L.I. and the U.P. mounting.

Which way did it seem to spread?

It did not seem to spread at all. At kept on blazing while we were in action but it did not seem to spread to the picket boat or anywhere else, though I cannot say definitively weather the picket boat took fire or not. Anyway, it did not move [illegible] before L.I. 4″ mounting.

Now, L. I. is the portside, most forward 4″ gun, and, Tilburn was also sheltering on the port side when Hood was hit. That would put the fire near the 35 ft FMB.

When we take a closer look at the boat deck we see the (A) crutches of the 45 ft Motor Launch and the V-shaped crutches of (B) the 35 ft FMB (Admirals Barge) and (C) 35 ft FMB that share the same hull. The boat crutches at (D) are not those of a V-shaped hull. This issue was also raised by Flyhawk when we (I and the Hood association) were assisting them with their 1:700 kit—just to give you an idea how well they were looking at the available material—but we could only offer cognitive dissonance at that time. Of course, on this 1941 image there simply is no third 35 ft FMB at that position as the 50 ft Steam Pinnace was still on board (well, not in this particular image, but, it’s close).

There is also a collection of images at the Hood association by Leonard Eaves that are dated as either 1940 or 1941. Those that are dated are all placed firmly in 1941 except a few. Some images can be pinned to 1941:

Now look closely at this photograph of HMS Hood dated the 22nd of May 1941, mere days before her loss. I scaled the image to roughly Hood’s length and first added the 35 ft FMB to scale. We do not have full resolution but I can make out (A) the bow, (B) the forward cabin, (C) the aft cabin, and (D) its stern; it’s not exact but matches well enough. I did the same with the 50 ft Steam Pinnace. I see (E) a funnel folded down, (F) the cabin with its characteristic upwards sweep, and (G) the stern and steep buttocks. While vague, what we do see matches exactly with what you would expect when a 50 ft Steam Pinnace were in that position.

* Update 09/05/2022 Corrected links to correct 32 ft Cutter.

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