Mark P

Good Evening Georgik; An interesting query. I will do my best to give you a relevant answer, but can I ask you to clarify the connection between what seems to be an 'Italian' (or at least Mediterranean) ship (Medici; Livorno) and an English ship's cabin? If you are referring to an old model somewhere, it would be good to know about it. To answer your query I can tell you that there are, as far as is known, no woodcuts, engravings or paintings of the interior of a cabin from this date (the earliest I know of are more than 70 years later) nor have I seen any such features in the background of contemporary portraits. They are still very rare even in much later portraits (I would be very happy to be proven wrong!) However, there is a simple rule which enables a reasonable start to making a reconstruction of an English cabin at least, which probably applies to other nations at this era. That is, that the interior of the cabins used by senior officers was constructed and furnished to resemble as closely as possible the rooms of the homes in which they lived on land; so look at architecture surviving from that period. Fundamentally, the side walls would be covered with wood panelling up to the dado level, with pilasters at intervals, surmounted by a moulded cornice. The panels above the dado were normally? frequently? sometimes? made not of timber but of fabric. Bulkheads would be all timber construction, probably. The level of finishing of the decoration would depend upon the likely status of the person using it. For someone royal this would involve carving, gilding, elaborate moulded ceilings, and painted ceiling and wall panels too (or maybe tapestries, although this is not mentioned anywhere) Those of lesser status would have cabins without the wall and ceiling paintings, but still with plenty of mouldings, carving and gilding. There are some mentions of the ceiling being painted to match the sky with 'clowdes'. The completed cabin was furnished with benches, settles and tables; and beds or bedsteads (probably of rope strung over a wooden frame) This should be enough to enable you to make a good start; and the real guidance is that within the outline of what I have written above, nobody could be more specific for any individual ship of the time, so create what you feel best will fit. All the best, Mark P

Good Evening All; To add a further note to the thread, I came across this while reading through Sir Henry Manwayring's seaman's dictionary, dated around 1624. He specifically states that lockers were placed by the ship's sides, at every gun, for shot to be stored in. However, in a fight, the shot would be taken out, and placed in, quote: 'in a rope made like a ring which sits flat upon the deck'. The reason for this was that if an enemy shot were to hit the full locker of balls, the contents would be spread around like shrapnel and do great injury. All the best, Mark P

Good Evening All; Re the reference to grummets in the above quote, the word 'grummets' is a version of grommet, which is a circle of rope formed by splicing the ends of a short length together. These could be made quickly, and easily moved to any place on deck where they might be needed. They would hold shot without trouble, and prevent them rolling around the deck. This could well be what was done on smaller vessels such as cutters. I have no knowledge of this being so, and I have not seen a reference to grommets in this context before, so I am grateful to Morgan for posting this comment in the first place. It would also have been easy to make these in a ladder or grid type arrangement, with spaces for several shot together. All the best, Mark P

Thank you Bruce; And many thanks indeed to all those who have spent time searching for answers to my queries. This has been a great help, and is much appreciated. All the best to all of you, Mark P

Well, thank you indeed, Druxey; How on Earth did both you and Craig find these tidbits? So it is a particular pattern of graining, which it seems can be done with a variety of colours. Interestingly, Leonard Fryer was Sergeant painter to Elizabeth I, and is listed in the accounts for 1599 as being paid £103, a very considerable sum then, for painting the Warspite following her repair in dry dock. Thank you again. All the best, Mark P

Thank you both, Bruce & Craig. Still a lot to learn! All the best, Mark

Good Evening to all who read this; I would be very glad to receive any help from users of this forum who have knowledge of old painting techniques. I have come across the following terms, and if anyone can explain how each was done I would be very grateful. 1: Revailing. Example 'laying with a light colour and revailing with brown'. 2: Rebiske. Example 'for working with a rebiske in diverse colours'. Diverse I take to indicate more than 2 colours. 3: Flother work. Example 'painting the ceiling with flothered work'. Don't have a clue what this might mean. Flother is apparently an old word for a snowflake, but this would seem a bit unlikely in this context. All the best, Mark

Good Morning Allan; I would if I could; my only authority for the changes is a memory that there were some made to rigging setups in the 1770s, based on many previous readings of Lees' book; confirmed just before my last post when I looked through his book again. In his proportional listings at the end of the book, quite a few items change at this date; and at the beginning of the book, he mentions a 1773 establishment, without clarifying it much. This may well have related only to rigging. All the best, Mark

Good Evening Allan; Not to worry too much, easily done! Lees does mention a 1773 establishment. This certainly made changes to masts, yards and rigging, although I am not sure if this relates to rigging only, or whether anything about scantlings of the ships' timbers was included. All the best, Mark

Sorry Allan; but I must disagree (I believe!) I am sure that there were some important changes to rigging in the 1770s; will have to check, though. All the best, Mark

Good Evening Chuck; A very impressively executed model. The sweep of the timbers inside the hull when the top template was removed is so smooth and regular that I can't believe it will need much sanding. I can see that you are a very creative and inventive thinker, devising workable and effective aids to assist each step of the construction; and I congratulate you on another very effective and realistic model to add to your already impressive repertoire. I look forward to seeing her completed, and wish you the success you so rightly deserve. All the best, Mark P

Good Evening Bill; I have some contemporary records listing dimensions for masts, yards and rigging of English warships going back as far as 1600, if this is what you need. If you can be more specific about what is your particular interest, I can PM you some details. There are surveys going back to Armada times, but unfortunately they only list the condition of the items, and don't give any sizes. All the best, Mark P

Good Evening all; Further to Bob's informative reply above, I have just noticed an item in the Navy Treasurer's accounts for the year 1626 as follows: Dressing 49 hundredweight, one quarter & 19lb of ground towes into fine Okam at 12s the hundredweight £29 10s 1d ha'penny. Also Converting of 8 thousand 4 hundred 2 quarters & 1lb of ground Towes into sounding lines, Deep sea lines, white lines, marline, and sail lines at 30s the hundredweight £126 15s 3d It helps greatly that I understood what tow is before I read this. Thanks Bob! All the best, Mark P

Good Morning Tomek; Congratulations on a lovely model; one that will be a joy to look at for many years. All the best, Mark P

Good Afternoon Frolick; Bruce is indeed correct; there were several attempts to set up a dockyard at Kinsale, but they always failed due to lack of support and funds, despite much pleading from various interested parties. It is also possible that English shipwrights worried about losing lucrative work to Irish yards, and used any influence they had to stop such developments. In 1672 a contract was signed between Sir Nicholas Armorer and Sir Edward Spragge, and the Navy Board, to construct four 50 gun ships at Waterford in Ireland. However, the contract was cancelled and no work carried out, when Spragge was killed at the Battle of the Texel some months later. All the best, Mark P

No boats at the jetty? Or are they all filled up with the other 15 and sailed away to give you a bit of peace? Looks like a nice place for a bit of sailing. Interestingly, the sea is exactly the same colour as that which I was looking at here in England off our East coast at the weekend. Have a good break! Mark P

Good Morning Gentlemen; I can add some facts to this debate: in the early 17th century, the limber holes were cut in the bottom of the floor timbers, adjacent to the keel. To prevent fouling of these holes, and the spaces between them, a rope was placed through them, known as the 'limber rope', or 'keel rope'. The holes were 3-4 inches square. This is explained in Sir Henry Mainwayring's 'Nautical Dictionary', written by an experienced mariner for the education of gentleman officers who knew nothing of the sea, and of which he produced quite a few handwritten copies around 1630; so this can be taken as a definite feature of ships of the time. How long it continued I cannot say with any certainty; nor exactly when it might have started. However, as Bob says above, the cost of chain, certainly in the earlier periods of sail, would have made its use very unlikely, and I have seen no mention of such in this context. All the best, Mark P

Hi Bob; Contemporary evidence for masthead details are pretty much non-existent, and most people will probably rely upon extapolating back from the last known true details from later in the century. Cornelisz Vroom painted English ships arriving at Flushing in the early 17th century, and some masthead details can be seen in this; I include a small excerpt below. However, although he supposedly depicts English vessels, he probably shows contemporary Dutch practice. The main point to note, though, is that the mast head is shown round. Whilst this is not definitive proof of English practice, it does seem logical that ships whose mast was made of a single tree would not have a square mast-head. Since at lease Elizabethan times trees for masts had been imported into England from Eastern Europe, so there was no problem finding large enough trees. All the best, Mark P

That is a beautiful and painstaking model; I congratulate you on the successful completion of it. Well done indeed! All the best, Mark P

Good Afternoon Amateur; Jules has included significant extracts from the museum report at the beginning of this post, and they are well worth a read. Whilst I cannot give any opinion on Dutch draughts of the 17th century, I can inform you that English draughts of the period consisted largely of the midship section and a series of curves shown in sheer or plan, called the rising and narrowing lines. These delineated the points on each station at which the curves used for the midship frame were shortened/lengthened and re-combined, in a process known as hauling up or down. The curve radii used remained constant, and for this reason there was no cause to draught anything beyond the rising and narrowing lines. This system appears to have been developed by Mathew Baker in the 1580s, and remained the basis of draughting until at least the reign of Charles II. The relevant points to use on each station could be calculated mathematically with great accuracy, so there was no need to rely upon scaling up or down from a smaller draught, provided that the shipwright possessed the relevant knowledge of mathematics. There is therefore no expectation, amongst anyone with knowledge of this period, of the existence of anything beyond a comparatively simple draught, which would be the technical equivalent of the much later and more complicated draughts which survive in far greater numbers. Early 17th century draughts are few in number, regrettably, although contemporary writings make it clear that they were a routine part of the design and building process, and must once have existed in quantity. All the best, Mark P

Good Evening Gentlemen; Discussion of the merits of a stated position is to be expected, and provided that it is done without open rudeness, is all part of the process of justifying one's argument. If an author were to hypothesise that 'It is probable that 17th century Dutch shipwrights did not use draughts', and then for the resulting discussion to demonstrate that they did, the author's credibility, whilst somewhat lessened, is not undermined or damaged beyond repair. However, if an author, accepted as being an authority in his subject, makes a definitive series of statements that "17th century Dutch shipwrights did not use draughts"; and that "17th century Dutch draughts do not exist", and then publicly denounces a collection of 17th century Dutch draughts in a national museum as forgeries, then I would say that that author's credibility, on that subject at least, is effectively destroyed when the museum in question undertakes a series of careful (and presumbly expensive) tests and establishes beyond doubt that the draughts are genuine. The lesson to be drawn here is that one should not make categorical statements unless one is either absolutely certain of their correctness, or unless the writer/speaker is prepared to see their credibility damaged when such statements are reliably exposed as false. If a person is viewed as an expert in their field this carries the privilege that their opinions are listened to and generally regarded as correct. The follow-on from this is that the expert has a responsibility to his/her listeners to exercise great care and ensure that any statements made are well-founded and carefully considered, or qualified. Regrettably it would seem that this is not always the case. All the best, Mark P

Good Morning Jules; Thank you for the post no. 53. Some very clear points are made here, ones to keep in mind when Dutch shipbuilding methods are being discussed. It would seem to be rather a shame (to say the least) that available 17th century sources have been, and will presumably continue to be, misinterpreted through what seems to be a combination of both wilful and negligent misinterpretation. English records have also been considerably reduced by fires: at least two at the Navy Office, and the disastrous fire at the Cotton Library, where many Medieval, Tudor and early Stuart documents had been collected. Keep up the good work! All the best, Mark P

Good Evening Siggi; In addition to the tackle shown in Druxey's post no. 983 above, the fish davit would probably have been moved around using the fore burton tackles and/or the yard-arm tackles. The burton tackles were suspended from the mast below the lower mast cross-trees; and the yard-arm tackles were hung from the end of the yards, and could be pulled inwards by means of the tricing line. Rotating the yard using the braces would have moved any object suspended from the yard-arm tackles. Burton tackles are not often shown rigged on models, and yard-arm tackles, if shown, are normally triced up tight to the underside of the yard. All the best, Mark

Good Evening to all; Many thanks to Jules for continuing with this interesting thread. I would like to add a few thoughts to the comments on the differences/similarities between English and Dutch shipwrights' use of draughts. Firstly, the use of draughts for the design of ships in England can be traced back as far as Mathew Baker, whose beautifully illustrated notebook contains various examples of theoretical drawings, dating from the 1580s onwards. Although these might seem very sparse compared to later draughts, it must be remembered that the method used then was dependent upon the construction of a midship section, and of the various rising and narrowing lines, drawn as curves on plan and sheer. Armed with this information, a shipwright could either set out manually (to scale or full-size) or calculate mathematically, the shape of the hull at all stations fore and aft of the midship frame. There is a very good explanation of this method, well illustrated, in a thesis by Taras Pevny, titled 'Capturing the Curve'; which can be downloaded from the internet. Secondly, one of the illustrations in Baker's work shows a master shipwright at work, drawing a detailed ship's draught using a pair of compasses. Thirdly, the Scott MS, a detailed treatise on the construction of all the curves to be used in the setting out of a ship's draught, along with various rules governing proportions, and which mentions the use of a bow to draw curves, was written by George Waymouth, who died circa 1612. The foregoing make it very difficult not to believe that ship design, in England at least, was based on the construction of a draught made prior to building, and that the proportions of the ship were decided beforehand, based on well-practiced rules governing the relationship of length, breadth and depth, as well as the radii of various curves, well before the end of the 16th century. The Scott MS was originally accompanied by a number of draughts of different types of vessel, both ships & galleys, which, even if they still survive, are in a location which is not recorded anywhere that I have found. There are also methods given to calculate the area within a frame, which is presumably linked to displacement calculations, and understanding the level of the waterline. All the best, Mark P

Good Evening All; A big thank you to Jules for posting this, and especially for the news of the tests that were carried out on the draughts. I never really believed that they were fakes, as claimed by a well-known author some years back in an article in the Nautical Research Journal. This was done, I believe, solely to avoid said author's claim that 17th century Dutch shipbuilders did not use draughts until the very end of the century being discredited by the existence of such draughts. I also came across Jules' rebuttal of the fakery arguments very soon afterwards, and I know that another expert in this field was also highly sceptical of the claims of fakery. Regarding the rowing layout above, an interesting layout of the rowers is shown in a contemporary model in the NMM at Greenwich. See below. I am not suggesting that this is what was done here, as the thole pin layout is symmetrical, but it does offer the possibility of a wider choice in the rowers' positions. All the best, Mark P