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In
French
An
engineer on naval construction sites, Jules Vence
published his book " in order to be useful to
industrious workers using their spare time to build
ships, so as to increase their resources".
CONSTRUCTION ET MANŒUVRE DES BATEAUX ET
EMBARCATIONS A VOILURE LATINE (Building and
manoeuvring lateen-rigged ships and boats) is a
handy book giving all information (such as plans,
types and samples of wood used, nailing, fitting
and rigging), necessary to build the small ships
that cruised the Mediterranean coast between the
Etang de Berre and Antibes.
The book contains plans (8 inset plates) and
include every detail regarding the building,
rigging, and use of head ships from Marseilles;
ships from Toulon called "rafiaus" or "pointus";
Gourses; Barquettes (small crafts) and Bettes
(lighter barges).
Plates (at 1:25 and 1:20 scale) allow the readers
to build high-quality models.
The second part of the book deals with manoeuving
lateen-rigged sails by recalling the old
Provençal saying :
"Sé mi counouissés
pas, mi toqués pas"
"If you do not know me, do not
touch me".
A
French-Provençal and Provençal-French
lexicon evokes the time of galleys and chebecks. It
is a complete work of its period, and has no equal
as a study of the "little navy" in the western
Mediterranean. Every amateur and sea-lover, and
every ship's model builder will want this book on
his or her shelves.
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