Wow, what can I say.

Just received emails with stories and photos from Cormac Lowth and Edward Bourke(the author of the book in the attached image) who, along with Gerry Byrne(attached photo), were all part of the original team on the recovery and documenting the wreck.

Still trying to absorb what all this means, but just had to share it.

I think the Lloyds Register Survey documents will be the centre piece, followed by the line drawing and then the actual model,

But, as I said, wow.

Oh, and the diver is Gerry Byrne, one of the original divers on the wreck, which is interesting, but its the location of the photo for me.

Directly above the Tayleur where she is today.

Updates to come.

Murray.

One of the first things I noticed was the original design drawing had the mast locations on them.

Though not unusual you would think, except, this drawing is what the foundry was using at the time, which begs the question, why would a 'metal shop' have any interest in wooden masts.

Proposed location is of course the answer, but that would be represented by clamps, etc. through the deck or similar...

or the masts were metal.

And, sure enough, according to the Lloyds Survey Register, the "(Main and foremasts are iron) lower only)".

This could be explained by the fact that the Tayleur was initially intended as a steamer, and the masts' subsequent inclusion was easier if placed on top of, rather than through the existing decking. The attached drawing of the Bournuef (also part of my emigrant fleet) illustrates this quite well.

At this point its also worth noting the possibility of unusual modifications to the original design because, from build commission to maiden voyage was just six months, for there was a lucrative passenger market waiting to board.

How this all pans out in the end I'm not sure, but, right now, it sure as hell changes the image of the masts I had in my mind.

And of course, with this drawing, Lloyds Survey and extrapolation, we can locate the masts accurately, which as recorded, seems to have been a design fault, but not very well understood.

I have emailed Edward Bourke for his thoughts on the issue.

Updates to come.

Murray.

Update: Calculations done on my beer coaster suggest the mainmast could have been ~21.4 ft aft of centre.

Update: Bourke advises he is already in the process of gathering old documents, Lloyds Register additional Survey data, museums collections and engineering books of the day to, hopefully, answer the questions surrounding the Tayleur's masts.

Earlier, Alessandro kindly searched the known universe for me after an existing model I could use, at least, as a starting point for my Tayleur project.

So, after having received some great pictures of the half model of the Tayleur this morning, we can now start a basic comparison.

For our consideration, I have attached images of the half model for each vessel.

Let me know what you think.

Updates coming,

Murray.

So, I have made a decision, considering the amount and quality of material I now have, to go full on and just start from scratch, 21st Century style.

And, given my BambuLAbs X2D printer isn't coming until early December, it's time for the printer guy's to earn their keep and recommend a viable software solution to get from paper to plastic, or 1853 to 2027.

Now, where's that business card...

Updates to come.

Murray.

An interesting side note.

Following a recent enquiry to Edward Bourke, he included this small footnote;

"by the way the designation RMS is a mail ship Tayleur never carried mail - it comes from Titanic jgroupies"

Updates to come.

Murray.

So,

Having had a long and interesting chat with the 3D printer guy's, it turns out this might be the cheapest, non-commercial (FOSS), workflow to start with.

Apart from the printer, so far, this has been a revenue neutral venture.

However, it DOESN'T solve the need for an internet connection and account with OrcaSlicer for their Cloud based 'stuff'.

I'm primarily interested in getting an accurate hull design 'into' the system and fine-tune it later.

So, the software/hardware is;

1. FreeCAD
https://www.freecad.org/

2. OrcaSlicer
https://www.orcaslicer.com/download/

3. BambuLabs X2D
https://bambulab.com/en/x2d

What computer do you need? Well, I run a 2020, Lenovo ThinkPad T460, Intel i5, 16GB DRAM, 500GB SSD, integrated graphics, via a 4G modem/router without issue.

This, by the way, exceeds all individual System Requirement specifications for each stage (you don't need the latest and greatest from Big Tech.)

So, off we go...

Updates to come.

Murray.

Step 1.

Import Foundry Line Drawing into FreeCAD.

Updates to follow.

Murray.

So, in an attempt to fine tune the Lloyds Register Survey Line Drawing I was given, and better define the Tayleur's 'edges', I ran the image through a few AI systems, freely available online, which returned some amazing results.

The idea was/is to produce a vector graphics file (.svg) of the Tayleur allowing more precise manipulation into 3D.

Some of them quite staggering actually, so I thought I'd show a few of the better ones for your entertainment.

But, for my purposes, there is a winner too.

God I love computers...

Oh, and here's the guilty party's address if you want to have a play.

https://vectorink.io/sketch-to-svg

There is a catch though, limited to one a day, though the limit is IP address based, not browser cache, so if your lucky and have a VPN provider with over 4000 servers worldwide, like me, then its knock your socks off 24/7.