The Colonial Schooner 1763-1775
Harold M. Hahn

The Schooner rig became associated with North America very early in the history of the Colonies and eventually came to be regarded as the most typically American sail plan. The earliest properly documented American built vessels were schooners, and these ships are the subject of this book. The historical background which forms the first part describes a series of schooners, built for or purchased into the Royal Navy, which played a significant part in the events leading up to the American Revolution. This is based entirely on contemporary sources and throws many interesting sidelights on both Colonial politics and Navy policy during the troubled period 1763-1775.

The second part of the book is devoted to building schooner models by a method developed while the author was constructing the Colonial Shipyard Diorama for the Mariner’s museum in Newport News, Virginia. This technique is the perfect introduction to the most admired of ship-modelling forms, the plank-on-frame hull. The step by step description is easy to follow, and illustrated with over 120 photographs, plans and diagrams, including some of the author’s superb etchings of Colonial shipping scenes.