One of the ships we're building is HMS Erebus, a WWI monitor armed with 15" guns. The Erebus and Terror were unusual warships, designed to bombard German trench lines from the French and Belgian coasts. Despite a displacement of 8500 tons draft was only 12'. The hulls were 405' long and 88' wide over the prominent anti torpedo bulges, each of which stuck out 12' from the main hull. Unusually, the tops of the bulges were horizontal (except at their outer edges where they started to curve down) and about 18" above the surface of the water at standard displacement. They were used for ship's boat stowage in harbour. The question (from owner Tom Cromwell) is whether the horizontal area on top of the bulges and above the waterline should be treated like a hull embrasure is and be considered an impenetrable deck? This is the only R/C combat hull with this odd feature. A few of the smaller and earlier British monitors with 12", 14" guns and 15" guns had similar bulges but their upper surfaces sloped at a shallow angle below horizontal and were completely submerged. Steve Pavlovsky of the IRCWCC saw the hull several years ago and was the first person to suggest to tops of its bulges should be treated like casemates. Tom and I discussed it this afternoon and thought a solution might be to make only the 0.5" of the horizontal bulge top closest to the hull side impenetrable and cut out the outer half of the bulge tops. Note that this would apply to only about 50% of the bulges amidships. Fore and aft of that area the bulge tops curve more steeply downward and there's no horizontal area on top. Opinions? Bob
After giving further thought to this I realized the rules allow a stringer to be any width as long as it does not exceed 1/8" thickness. On these monitor hulls the 90 degree angle between vertical hull side and horizontal bulge top has been very difficult to glass and is the weakest part of the hull. That's where the bulge stringer needs to be for strength and where it's traditionally located. We'll be compliant with the construction rules if we use the horizontal top of the bulges as the bulge stringer, as long as the total thickness of the horizontal portion does not exceed 1/8". That means only the inner part of the bulge tops will be part of the stringer, which will end where the bulge tops start to curve below the horizontal plane. Bob
Bob On occasion we will run into ships that are out of the ordinary, and we need to be flexible with how we make these ships as buildable as possible. I will ask Eric, and Bob, and get back to you on this. Mikey
