Mark P

Good Morning Paul; There was a very clear photograph posted recently by Vladimir Wairoa in his build log for the Cutty Sark model he is building. This shows the run of the stern planking beautifully (this is the stern, note the rudder pintles, must be a whaler; although the bow would be identical in a transom-sterned boat) In conjunction with Jaager's post above, this should make things clear. As well as a rebate, the planks can have a chamfer between them, to a line drawn between the two internal angles. this is easier to construct on a model. All the best, Mark P

Good Evening Mark; It is possibly just a fancy terminal on the spear. some had a spike on the reverse end, so that when it was used in a defensive formation, the end of the spear could be fixed in the ground if desired. Note also the chicken/cockerel by her foot. Is this the same type of bird as in the model's figurehead. Does the chicken/cockerel have a significance for Bellona. The Romans used sacred chickens to provide omens as to whether or not to attack, guided by the way the chickens ate their grain. One famous general, waiting to launch an invasion from a fleet, threw the chickens overboard when they failed to eat in the desired manner, saying "If they will not eat, they will drink!" or something like that. Something slightly odd: we have many words meaning war, or warlike, all rooted in 'Bellum', latin for war. Bellona, belligerent, bellicose, ante-bellum, parabellum. Yet the Italian word 'bella' means beautiful. All the best, Mark

Good Morning Vladimir; You are still working hard I can see. The speed of progress is remarkable, and I agree with Alan above, your resourcefulness in using other objects as substitutes to obtain the desired look is ingenious. Keep up the good work. All the best, Mark P

Good Morning Mark; Some good advice: listen to your wife; especially when so many of the other forum members agree with her (not that the latter consideration should influence you as much as the first, of course!) All the best, Mark

Good Evening Kurtis; I still advise you to devote some hours to study of models and pictures. The purpose of this is not to transcribe anything, but to compare the picture/model with what you have drawn, and look for differences. If something does not look the same, try to work out why. The 'Bellona' has an excellent series of photographs on the NMM collections website. Have you looked at these? Full colour, lots of different views, and a zoom function (although it never gets as big as would be really helpful) There is also at least one rigged model of a 74 shown. There is also a book by Brian Lavery, about the Bellona. You may already have this; if not, I would certainly recommend that you acquire a copy. This is one of the Conway Maritime Press 'Anatomy of the Ship' series, and is only available on the second-hand market, but many tidy copies exist. If you are not intending to create a fully-detailed likeness, then it is a matter of ensuring that the general impression does not look notably erroneous. To help you, I will list what I see as the most obvious areas for improvement. If you do not know the parts referred to in the following description, try an internet search using the word, which will assist you in learning their meaning. Most of them will get many hits, I am sure. I will not list any missing items, as I will assume that you have not yet got round to adding these. The quarter galleries I will likewise assume are still a long way from completion. To start at the stern: 1: The rudder should taper from top to bottom, and follows the taper of the sternpost. The top is approximately square. You have the top much too long in the fore and aft plane, and much too narrow in the thwartships plane. 2: The shape of the stern below the tuck is completely wrong. There should be a streamlined diminution so that the planking just forward of the sternpost is no wider than the sternpost. If the water cannot flow past the rudder in a smooth run, the rudder will have eddies on each side, and will not work well. The hull planking at the stern should also round upwards to meet the tuck, forming what is known as a 'round tuck', the technique used for almost all warship sterns at this period. 3: You show a sharply defined edge where the vertical plane of the side of the keel meets the hull planking. Whilst this is often correct in the midships area, and for some distance fore and aft, it did not happen at the stern, where the planking should fair smoothly into the keel. 4: You appear to have correctly picked up the main wale in the midships, but at the stern it should rise up much more, and meet the end of the tuck mould. 5: The line of the fife rail on the poop/roundhouse should continue in a smooth flowing curve all the way to the outer edges of the taffrail at the stern timbers/side counter timbers. 6: The run of the headrails is very wrong. They look like a fence, which they are not. The main rail should run up to meet the ends of the beakhead bulkhead, the middle rail terminates where it meets the bow planking, and the lower rail meets the bow planking in a manner similar to the middle rail, then sweeps aft and upwards to terminate in a supporting knee under the cat-head. 7: The cheeks are likewise very wrong, and should be much more 'L'-shaped in plan. The forward ends need to curve upwards following the forward edge of the knee of the head. 8: The knee of the head is much narrower thwartships at its foremost point than it is lower down, and near the top its foremost edge is noticeably rounded off. All the best, Mark P

Good Afternoon Kurtis; You obviously have a talent for computer modelling, and it is a shame to see it being rather misdirected. I would suggest that before you go any further you devote some hours to a search for pictures of 74 gun ships from the period you are aiming at. This is because there are a large number of unfortunate errors in your drawing. If this is just a drawing exercise for your own pleasure, or if you are intending it to be for gaming then this is not a problem at all. If, however, you genuinely wish to make a true representation of a specific or general type of vessel, I would recommend that you start looking now before you add any more details. Different countries had different styles of ships as well, so it might be worthwhile deciding on the nationality also. I appreciate that this is by no means a finished work, but much of what looks complete or nearly so needs considerable alteration; too many to try and explain them all. Look for paintings by late 18th century artists, or modern book illustrations. Avoid pictures of modern models or computer-generated pictures, as you cannot be certain of exactly how accurate they are. Also take a good look at the National Maritime Museum's online collections, searching under ship models, and you will find much valuable information there. One final point: a frigate at this time was a single-decked ship with up to 38 guns or so. A 74 was generally referred to either as a 74, or more precisely as a 74-gun third-rate line-of-battle-ship, and was a vastly different creature. All the best, Mark P

Good Evening Mark; Yes, you have read it correctly. The inboard length, which as you say is indeed called the cat-tail, is specified; the outboard length merely has to be 'sufficient'. The beam under this was normally called the cat-beam, and was the largest beam in the ship, bigger than the wing transom. If you need any other sections, let me know. All the best, Mark P

Good Afternoon Mark; If you don't already have this information, you may find the following extracts helpful with the timbering of the beakhead and forecastle. These are from the contract for Warspite, a 74, dated 1755, which I have transcribed. As the period is similar, the information is useful, and is more contemporary than the Shipbuilders' Repository, which is another source, very helpful, but 30 years later. All the best, Mark P

Good Evening Mark; Take a look at the pictures below, which come from Rob Napier's book about his repairs to the Princess Royal, published by Sea Watch books. This has a wealth of colour pictures of the internal features which are normally almost unseen. These show some good views of the roundhouse on this model. The doors are much narrower, and parallel sided. All the best, Mark P

Good Afternoon Mark; Do you have Rob Napier's book 'Legacy of a ship model', about the repair of the Princess Royal in the Annapolis Collection. This shows many pictures of the inside parts of a model which one normally cannot see. If you have got this, look at chapter 6, pages 90, 91, 92, 98 & 99. There are lots of lovely pictures of the roundhouse from in and out, and removed; showing its internal structure quite clearly. It also shows quite clearly that there was a door in the bulkhead, to give the petty officers some privacy. As she was a 3-decker, the prow deck is not such a step up, so presumably on a 2-decker one had to duck carefully to squeeze in. The seat would have been higher than you show, as the deck of the prow deck formed the floor of the roundhouse. All the best, Mark

Good Morning Gentlemen; Further to the above comments, and as Bob says above, the garboard is often shown in sections as thicker than other planks at the edge where it meets the keel, tapering off at the outer/upper edge. In the 17th century it was also common practice to have thicker planks at the turn of the bilge. This was because of the need to grave, or clean, the ship's bottom, ideally twice a year; and to do this she had to be beached and allowed to lie on her keel and bilge. However this would be undetectable on a model. Sir Henry Manwayring, an experienced sailor who distributed one or two copies of his Seamans' Dictionary to influential patrons every year, around the 1630s, wrote that to spring a leak at the garboard was the worst disaster of its kind, 'as it cannot be got at'. It would therefore seem reasonable to suppose that the garboard received special attention. Another factor is that the timber shortages of later centuries would not have affected the shipwrights building the Great Harry, so wide planks would have been fairly easy to obtain. All the best, Mark

Good Evening Gary; She's coming on very well. Concerning the bolsters overhanging the cheeks, I have also seen the same instruction in several contracts. From what I remember, they always said 3/4 ", never 1 3/4" But you and the others who mentioned this are right, I would say: it does look better set back slightly, and that is the most likely reason for it being that way on models. All the best to you, Mark P

Good Evening Vladimir; You are still making good progress, and your doubled-up deadeyes do seem to look the same proportion on their thickness as the ones in Rob's post showing the originals. Well done, very glad to see how quickly you are getting on. All the best, Mark P

See below a picture of a model from the NMM of a troop landing craft, approx mid 18th century. Length is 32 ft, width 10 ft. Total number on board 68 men.

Thanks Allan for keeping these coming. Fascinating stuff! Re the purchasing power of a £500 reward for turning in the murderers of the Revenue cutter crewmen, it is a fairer comparison to say that an ordinary seaman around this time was paid £11 6s per year, less than £1 per month. This means that £500 would be the equivalent of more than 40 year's pay! Now that would certainly be a major inducement! This had been the same since the reign of Charles II. I am not sure what happened to pay after the mutinies in 1797, maybe it was increased then. Imagine the rate of pay not increasing for over a hundred years; different times indeed, with presumably much lower inflation. Prices did increase dramatically during the Napoleonic Wars, though. Did you see anything to say what happened in the smugglers' case. Was the reward claimed. All the best, Mark

Good Afternoon Allan; I would have agreed with Henry's post above, if you had not posted the picture. Certainly neither bumkins nor bobstays would be used for the Mayflower, as both came into use later. Your idea of staple holes is probably correct. It could be that several pieces of ply are fastened together temporarily to ensure that they all are worked to the same profile. The only other possible use I can think of is as holes to fasten filler blocks to receive the ends of the planks. But there is normally no need to fasten these through the stem. I do not think that these serve any construction related purpose. All the best, Mark P

Good Afternoon Vladimir; She is coming along rapidly. You are a fast worker. Well done on deciding to rebuild the stern rail. If it does not look right, change it while you can, or regret ever afterwards that you did not. Keep up the good work! All the best, Mark P

Thank you and the other Committee members for the thought Kurt. Over here in England all the archives are shut for the duration. On the plus side, as you say, I can get on with the drawing side of my project, having more time than ever. All the best, Mark

Good Evening Mark; I have seen references before to the fact that the deck in the quarter galleries did not follow the deck in the main cabin. I have also looked through my pictures of models, and although I don't have many looking at the quarter galleries square on, the one below is from Egmont, in the Science Museum. It is clear that the upper gallery windows follow the sheer of the ships mouldings etc. The bottom windows are slightly distorted due to their being below the centre of the camera lens (the model seems to have had a bit of a hard life, but the run of the windows is not affected by this) The shot below, of Endymion, shows the same thing. Regarding the curvature of the line of window cills and heads on the stern, the amount of curvature would increase with each successive level. This is one of the fundamental principles of elegant design. None of the curves on the stern are parallel to each other, although the difference is slight. The window cills will not be parallel with the deck, for example, but somewhat higher in the centre than at the sides. The picture of Victory actually illustrates this. The height of the moulded panel below the window can be compared to the height between the glazing bars. In the centre window the panel and the pane of glass are not greatly different in height. However, on the window closest to the side, the panel mould below is noticeably less in height than the pane of glass is. This can be confirmed by measurement of the photo. Keep up the good work! All the best, Mark P

Good Evening Vladimir; I will certainly take some for you next time I am at Greenwich. Unfortunately I am not sure when this might be. At the moment the Maritime Museum is shut, which is my reason for going to Greenwich. Until the government here relax the travel restrictions and things are more normal, I shall not be going past the ship. Very nice work on the bulwark stanchions. Keep it up! All the best, Mark P

Good Afternoon Keith; One possibility is that the two carrick bitts, one at each end of the windlass, had a pin rail between them, which could have curved round over the two bitts which hold the pawls of the windlass. I know that I have seen this on other draughts or models, although I cannot mention a specific example. That all depends upon how high the top of the carrick bitts etc was above the barrel of the windlass, as the coils of rope hanging from the pins would need to be clear of the cables. All the best, Mark P

Good Evening Bluto; Regarding the chain pumps, you are quite correct. Two pump cisterns should equal four tubes, as each pump has a lift and return tube. Concerning the location of the elm tree pumps, I have looked through many deck plans, and they all seem to show only the chain pumps, either two or four cisterns, depending upon size. The extract below is from the deck plan for 'Ardent', a 64 gun ship of 1782. The small octagon adjacent to one of the chain pumps indicates an elm tree pump. All the best, Mark P

Good Evening Roger; Whilst I agree with WE's comment above, I also seem to recall that a rigging block fixed to the end of a yard was called a jewel block. Your diagram might mean this. Can you post a picture, which would probably settle it. All the best, Mark P

The Master Shipwright’s Secrets, by Richard Endsor. This new book from well-respected author Richard Endsor sets out the latest fruition of his ever-deeper researches into Restoration era warships. The book is large format, approx 260 x 310mm, and has 304 pages. It is lavishly illustrated throughout: there are many colour depictions of a variety of vessels and scenes from the author’s own hand, as well as a plentiful quantity of folding plates of plans and draughts, at a scale of 1:72 The great majority of these are in colour also, and are again by the author. In addition to these there are a variety of prints by the elder Van de Velde, again in colour; good colour illustrations from other sources; and a decent quantity black and white line line drawings where necessary to explain points discussed in the text. The folding plates and accompanying draughts are all based on the author’s reconstructions, using contemporary sources, of several vessels built during the closing years of the Charles II’s reign. These are as follows: 1: The Mordaunt, a 40 gun fourth rate, of which there is a detailed contemporary model in the NMM, a survey of which forms the basis of the reconstruction, along with a contemporary survey of her made at the time of her purchase from Lord Mordaunt, who had had her built as a privateer. 2: The St Albans, a 50 gun fourth rate, of which there is a contemporary model in Trinity House, which was carefully surveyed in the early 20th century. The resultant drawings and the model are used as the basis for the reconstruction given here. 3: The Tyger, a 46 gun fourth rate. The reconstruction here is based on those of the other vessels, and a variety of contemporary documents. The most important of these is a carefully calculated series of mathematically derived offsets, written down by Jonas Shish, the Master Shipwright at Deptford Yard, who designed and oversaw the building of this ship. Although the offsets do not quite match the overall dimensions of the Tyger, and were compiled a couple of years before she was built, they are for a very similar vessel. This list of offsets and associated dimensions is the ‘Secret’ of the title, and appears to be a unique survival from the period (no other such list is known anywhere) Any of the reconstructions of the various ships listed above have sufficient information to enable a reliable model to be built. As mentioned in a post I made a short while back, the importance of the table of offsets as a factor in ship design is a major discovery. It proves that the design of ships at this period was based on sound mathematical principles, some of which are complex and not easy to grasp. The book sets out in a clear fashion the basic lines which determine a ship's design, and the variety of methods used to draw these. There are four in total: the rising line of the centres of floor sweeps; the narrowing line of the centres of floor sweeps; the rising line of the centres of breadth sweeps; and the narrowing line of the centres of breadth sweeps. By combining these four curves with the station lines, the centres from which all the main curves of the body plan are struck can be located in three dimensions. None of the methods of drawing these four curves is simple, all needing some considerable skill to master; one relies on the use of factors, which is something beyond the understanding of many people. Nor are the curves necessarily of a constant radius, as this can be varied as they progress along the hull. I believe it is safe to say that the chapter dealing with these offsets, and the techniques for drawing the four basic lines, will bring a welcome addition to the knowledge of every reader. The book opens with chapters describing the typical features of the ships of the time, and has comprehensive coverage of what would be found on board, as well as a well-informed narrative of the environment in which they had to operate, and the factors which influenced their design and building. The Tyger is the main subject of the book, which was built for service in the Mediterranean, in response to the threat from Barbary Pirates there. Their depredations amongst merchant shipping and the fate of the crews as slaves or prisoners was a constant concern in the 17th century. They also made raids on England’s South coast. The frequent lack of winds in the Mediterranean meant that ships with the ability to row were needed. Earlier efforts by Charles' Naval administration had built vessels with many oars, but not heavily-armed. This had been shown to be a weakness, and the new design of the Tyger was for a ship which could be easily rowed, but which also carried a decent broadside armament. The old Tyger, a ship built in the Commonwealth era, was taken apart for repair in the 1670s, at Deptford Dockyard, and became no more than a few timbers stacked in a corner. However, she was maintained as an active vessel on the Navy list, so that a number of wounded seamen could receive salaries as her standing warrant officers. This was one of the King's ways of supporting deserving men who were no longer able to be active sailors. Charles II’s part in the design of his ships is made clear, and it was extensive. He was a very knowledgeable king, who loved ships and the sea, and understood a great deal about their design. He devoted large amounts of his time to the creation of the Navy, and would discuss aspects of design and seamanship with many people, including those from ordinary walks of life. He was also a faithful patron of Jonas Shish, and stood by him when any problems with Shish’s superiors needed to be settled. Well aware of the need to build a ship to deal with the corsairs, but short of funds, and knowing that Parliament would not easily vote for further money for another new ship, Charles hit on the idea that the Tyger, although not really existing in any physical form, could be ‘repaired’ using funds from the existing repair budget. Working closely with Jonas Shish, a new ship was designed and put into construction at Deptford. One consequence of the secretive building was that the resulting vessel’s considerably larger size was not drawn to the attention of the Navy Board until after they had allocated to her a set of guns based on the old vessel’s size. The remainder of the book contains a thorough description of the new Tyger, and shows much detail of her internal fittings and machinery. A detailed, colour set of rigging plans, sail plans, and mast and yard dimensions is also given. The belaying points are not given, but as there is no contemporary source for this, this is understandable, and such information can be gleaned from modern works and contemporary models if needed. Her armament is discussed in considerable length, and again is well-illustrated in colour. Gun carriage reconstructions are given, based on a surviving example on a tower at Windsor Castle, of all places; and a carriage recovered from the wreck of the London, which exploded and sank near Southend in 1665 (her wreck, a valuable source of artefacts and knowledge is being rapidly eroded and a campaign is under way to try and recover as much as possible, or even to raise the remains; see www.nauticalarchaeologysociety.org/Appeal/save-the-london ) Looked at from any point of view, this book is a deeply useful resource for modellers, historians and archaeologists alike. The many reconstructions offer a great depth of information, and the analysis of contemporary sources is thorough and well-explained. There are a number of 17th century ship-building contracts as an appendix, and a well-illustrated glossary. The book is priced at £65, and is published by Osprey books. It is available from all the usual sources. I highly recommend this as an addition to the library of any serious modeller. All the best, Mark P

Good Morning Siggi; Lovely work on the cannons. I congratulate you on your skills. Regarding the number of cannons on board, it is not always necessary to count the foremost port on the gun-deck. This was frequently what is known as a bridle port, and was used to help attach the cat-block to the anchor ring once the anchor had been raised to the water's surface by the capstan. No cannon was fitted if the port was intended for this kind of use. As you point out above, the manger is in the way of the cannon's recoil. In these circumstances, it would seem safe to assume the port is a bridle port, especially if it is smaller than the other ports. All the best, Mark P