Marcus.K.

Thanks Gentlemen !! I fully agree being careful with compareing the orginial design with results impacted by later repairs and renovation. Constitution and Victory both have a VERY long history - and since they are wooden ships, most of the timbers have been replaced - often much more than only one time. The good thing in case of Old Ironsides: we have this Humphrey Specifictions written in June 1794 - which at least describe his plan in that year - and which provides the width and thickness of the used timbers. Unfortunatly not position nore final shape (as this dimensions most likely were the "midship" dimensions where planks are widest) and not providing any information about the tapering vs. bow and stern section. And of course also no information about the edge preparation of the designs. ... This seems to be "a copy" which might be the basis for the text in the "American State Papers - naval affairs Vol. I" which often is used as reference. Martin - who collected so many information concering Old Ironsides - unfortunatly is not very precise with his sources - especially in his books. I got a copy of the "a close up" in which carefully lists his sources. His statements on Page 70 ff in "Building a Legend" make from principle perfect sense - but I did not see any source providing that thickness change - nor any details concering the way the thicknes change was done - especially on the main wales. So especially these edges were the concern of our discussion in @The Bitter End´s building log. We were wondering whether the edges are smoothened - to prevent rotten wood at the exposed edges - and "in order to carry the water out of the seam" - a very important issue. Any "unchamfered" edge in the ships planking (where thickness of planks changed) might generate a tiny "plateau". And especially if the ship is sailing close to the wind the steps in the planking on windward side would even generate tiny "pockets" in which the water would be able to stay and work it´s way into the caulking. I used one of Lords section cuts as starting point - just to illustrate the position. If the top edges of the wale would not be chamfered or smothened ... it would look like this, right? And the result on sea would be that one: Water might be trapped and has a lot of time to make it´s way into the caulking or work its way into the wood allowing the planks to start rotting. Chamfered the situation would change: A chamfer done at the wale´s edges must on one side come as close to the next thinner plank as possible - and must be wide enough to avoid any pocket under heeling. It wasn´t a simple 45° chamfer of the edge. It was at least a perfect reshape of the timbers edge to fulfill that task. Even a complete "smoothened" upper wale plank is possible. THIS is the question we try to clearify - do we know from other ships how the edges of the main wales were shaped? I guess if we look into models the builders might not have shown that chamfer - as it is a) hard to produce in a pleasant way (having the chamfer being constant over the lenght) and b) it might be just too small to try to represent it. @Force9 you sure are right concerning John Lord´s reconstruction - which is impacted a lot by his given timeline and budget. But what chance did he have? .. At least his two section cuts from 1926 showing his research seem to me to be not that bad! He tried to follow Humphreys written specs - and he obviously studied paintings (Cornè and others) and "old models" (Hull Modell?) - and he did not have internet ! But I agree: one must be careful in studiing his results. .. and that´s what this posts is about 😄 By the way: Haiko @The Bitter End was pointing on the fact that even in my examples of Hartt Shipyard build ships like USS Enterprize and Boston one might be able to see a tiny edge indicating the wales ... Do you see that tiny bright line below the gun streak? If you look into the engraving you even think to see a line in the midship area .. One would need to see the original engraving to study that effect better ..

Let me dig deeper in this topic: @Mark P was stating: Is that really true for all ships? @The Bitter End found in his building log USS Constitution by the Bitter End - Wales reason to doubt that. Were the wales, which consisted of thicker planks than the regular ones, left with sharp edges at their margins – or were the transitions to the thinner planks worked in such a way that no visible edge remained? We found that the Isaac Hull Model does not show the wales at all. Here in this photo - taken by @Force9 - we can see no edge indicating the contours of wales. John Lord - in his reconstruction of Old Ironsides between 1926 and 1931 produced several - at least - 3 drawings with 4 different section cuts, in which he showed different approaches: In his Feb. 1926 drawing #35208 he shows what his research of the Joshua Humphreys papers and other sources seem to have indicated: The 6 thick planks of wales are supported by not as thick (but thicker than the planks) 5 planks "black strakes" on top and 4 planks "thick stuff" below the main wales. The dimensions for sure were provided in Humphreys list of material. Of course - what nobody can know from the written specification of the materials main dimension of Humphreys list : did the shipwights smoothen the edges - or did they keep the edges "sharp" or with a certain chamfer - so that the thick strakes or the main wales would be notable as being something other than the classical planks? In his Jan. 1926 drawing #34535 he represents on left side the ship as he found it - most likely done in the earlier 1906 resoration - while the right side shows what he by then found after "considerable researche" including "old models", "drawings", "paintings" ... The 1906 / 1926 Ship seems to have the edges of thicker planks smoothened - so that at observation no one would notice which of the planks are wales, which are planks. It would look like this photo: this is the 1926 ship - at the beginning of Lord´s restoration process - as he "found" it (like in left side of the drawing #34535). On right side of that drawing it now seems that only the top edge of the wales have a sharp edge. If we look at Lords final drawing #24472 done in June 1931 we can see that now even the top edge of the wales are not visible anymore - just as the ship was done in 1906: O.k. .. all those drawings were done in the late 1920s .. ca. 130 years after the ship was launched. How was it done in those days around 1800 ? Let´s see what Maestro Felice Cornè had to show in 1803 - "Frigate Constitution": is there a fine line below the ochre gun strake in the already black area.. just above air vents of the berth deck? ... Hm... Maybe even a tiny indication of a line in about where the wales lower edge would be?? Or do I just wish to see that ..?? Let´s check the sistership: US Frigate President: Antoine Roux - a in many details precise observer of Mediterian Sea vessels painted several times USS President - in around 1803. No prominent wales visible, right? If we look at this beautiful old bones model of US Frigate Chesapeake - done 200 years ago by prisoners of war - this model is in Internationales Maritimes Museum Hamburg. The model builders were experts, sailors knowing those ships in detail. It might have been done by sailors of the USS Chesapeake after being captured in 1813. Would they be mistaken when showing the wales having very sharp edges? You can see on top and on bottom the sharp thickness increase for the wales. Also from british admirality models of that times we also know that often the wales were prominent and clearly distiguisable from classical planks. .. On the other hand: those edges would always be endangered to be damaged, if the ship was struck by harder objects in the water like boats, loads, flotsam, etc.. And those damaged areas would be the starting point of rotten timber .. making repairs essential. So there are pro´s and con´s for prominent wales. It might be that the wales just in models were prominent as they were a very important feature for the admirality or experts to really see the ships "anti-hoggin-stiffneners".. it might be that the wales were prominent in real ships too Maybe some shipwrights just did not smoothen the edges of the thicker wales as this is effort which was not payed - seemed not needed by some? Maybe other ship yards did smoothen the edges as the lower edge would cause resitance and friction in the water and both - lower and upper edge would be senstive for damage. By smoothening they durablity of the planking would be improved - an expensive work - but providing more robustness. maybe just some artists (modelist, paintes, engravers) just did not show this feature? Is it possible that both options existed in parallel? Some ships had prominent edges?.. some had smoothened wales? Maybe it depends not only on the nation but the shipyard what was the preferred design?? So we started trying to find if George Claghorn or the Hartt Shipyard had their own "habit". George Claghorn, the assigned shipbuilder for USS Constitution, was chosen as he was building "big" ships before. We found that a waler - Rebecca - a ship of 175 tons and the first waler to pass Cape Horn and a merchant ship named Barclay with 200 tons have been build by Claghorn before USS Constitution. Non after the big frigate. Unfortunatly no visual description of both ships seem to exist today. A dead end for now. For the Hartt Shipyard there is a bit of visual evidence: This is USS Michigan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Michigan_(1843)) build some years after Constitution. Its hard to really see - but at least we can not identify the wales .. very little evidence for anything, I agree ! .. a poor picture ... There are two engravings by the french artist Baugean - who was a precise documenter of ships in this age - showing ships build in Hartt´s shipyard: USS Enterprize .. a very smooth ships hull, right? But I agree: here too the simplification by the artist or even the poor representation of the digital photo might just not show the wales. What about this one? Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Boston_(1799)# USS Boston 1799 - also build in Hartts shipyard in Boston. Here the artist / the representation even shows vertical lines to show the shape of the hull - and no step is visible at all. And finally even a photo again! Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Independence_(1814)# This is USS Independance as a hulk in the 1890s - and if you investigate the area close to the bow - in between that vertical toilet effluent pipe and the start of that 2nd layer of "overplanking" of the ships sides you recognize the orginal planks of the original hull of the ship - and again: no step is visible, no sharp edge. And of course: the photo is not very sharp - and we don´t know whether the planking is still the original one. The ship had been razeed years ago - and for sure had to go through repairs .. who knows how old those planks are. Summarized: do those few examples provide real evidence that at Hartt´s shipyard it was custom to smoothen the wales? .. a "thin ice" assertion - maybe, maybe not - but a possibility. If we add the Cornè-painting of 1803 .. and if we assume that this tiny line SHOWs an edge, ... well .. all that is interesting - but does not really solve the mystery, right? Now to you, shipmates, comrads, experts, sirs, ladies and captains .. Does anyone of you have better evidence of what was done in about 1800 in Boston´s Shipyard - or in the US in general - or .. in other nations? Is there any known logic? Were edges always prominent? Was that sometimes the case - and sometimes not? .. if so, why and where? Did any authority in age-of-sail describe this feature in detail?

Hey Jon, Gentlemen, Ladies (still hope there are some reading and participating in this) thanks for the correction. I have to admit that my typos are based on my lack of precision and concentration. I am sorry for that. I should be much more careful when writing in public spaces. I know mistakes like that are often seen as lack of respect ( and I assure : that isn´t the issue here ! ) - and I wished my statement would not sound that much as a cheap excuse. But this was and still is my main issue: not being patient enough - not being precise enough. That too prevents me from doing modeling myself. I just can not be as good, as I want to be ! I am never satisfied with my result ! But the one thing I believed to have translated correct is the "diagonal riders" which Humphreys intended to get - and got at least in Constitution. Diagonal stiffeners were known before - and later. Beside other inventiones and improvements (later Sir) Robert Sepping was using and improved them until he later even used iron knees to increase the stiffness and robustness of wooden ships for the Royal Navy: see here: "longitudinal Binders & Iron Riders https://warhistory.org/@msw/article/seppings-truss-system But in general - to come back to Haiko´s need - it is hard to guestimate the right detail design for Old Ironsides in its earlier appearance. As we have only the verbal descriptions and main dimensions of most main components (and it is very likely that those dimensions were the "delivery dimensions") in Humphreys 1794 "specifications" and only rare and not very precise paintings in her earlier years. As Haiko pointed out already: the 1803 and 1804-05 Cornè paintings are too tiny to show a detail like edges on wales. The 1803 Roux paintings do not show distinguisalbe thicker planks. The earliest serious source is the Isaac Hull model which the crew did build for their beloved captain in 1812. And beside some odd details it turns out that someone tried hard to represent a lot of tiny little details which may not be too important - but caused for sure efforts for the builders. That they did NOT represent wales or black streaks with edges might have to tell something. Or course there is still a certain uncertainty - and I guess there still will be one for a very long time. I am not sure - as Royal or any other Navy is not my field - but I would not be surprised if the represenation of wales with "sharp egdes" in British Admirality Models or even drawings might be a way to point on an important feature - which in real life would be smoothened. As they were an important feature to stablize the framing and protect the hull I would not be surprised if Admirality wanted to be able to exactly see their position and shape. I think we are all used to "see" them .. and this may be misleading due to my above mentioned arguments.

GREAT ! THANKS !!! Would you agree the note says: So .. does that help us? @JSGerson What´s the source of that black-white-copy? Which book is it from, do you know? THANKS for this!

Oh, Gentlemen, pls. be very careful with Karl-Heinz Marquardt´s Constitution. Marquardt did a lot of very interesting and excellent research in many fields of ancient sailing vessels. His AotS Constitution book is unfortunatly not a highlight - and I have the impression that its - unfortunatly - perfect presentation and the huge impact of the author´s name did damage a lot to the general view on the ship and caused a lot of errors to so many good model builders. Let me pls. try to help here. First of all: there is of course no doubt that the ship had wales - as I understood Haiko he is looking for how to shape the upper and lower edge of them: an invisible transition between the heavy wales and the thinner planking – achieved by gradually diminishing the thickness at the edges – or a sharp transition with a distinct arris or a chamfer. Second: that section cuts you showed, Haiko, are from one drawing - in which - in the gun deck level - two texts explain the content of each half: Left side is "Port side - present construction and arrangement" - so this is what Lord found in 1925-26 from the 1906 renovation. Right side of the drawing: "Starboard side - proposed re-construction" .. Above the header of that drawing #34535 is a text explaining that the drawing is based on "considerable research" and even if the text on gun deck says "Proposed reconstruction" we need to be careful - as the final result differed. These are the two half section cuts to showed in your post, Haiko. And below you find the text right of that section cuts - above the drawings header. This next photo done in 1927 shows what Lord was finding from the 1906 renovation: I believe we can not identify for sure which planks were the thicker wales - and which were just planks, can you? But there is another drawing - #35208 - in which Lord seems to represent the "from Specifications .. Joshua Humphrey "as the note close to Lords signiture explains. Unfortunatly I can not read that text above the header. Does anyone of you have a copy of that drawing #35208 - with a readable "note" above the header? This here is a copy of that drawing #35208 as it is represented in Magoun´s "Old Ironsides and other historic ships" - unfortunatly without that note and the header. And then there is this last section cut of the Lord Restaurtion (I know about) #24472 - done in 1931 "as finished" - which represents what we would find in 1931 .. I did not (yet) find any represenation of the ship in which the wales would look like the britsh "puzzle" with these short "pentagon"-shaped pieces as Marquardt shows in his unfortunatly beautiful book. It is much more likely that the US Frigates had - from beginning until today - more simple but robust and long planks as wales as there never was lack of long wooden planks in the US - in contrary to their British cousins - which had to deal with shortage of wood in the 1800s. Looking through all the representation I collected of US Frigate Constitution or her sister ships I never could identify an "edge" of the wales. Either it was that tiny that it was not obvious enough - or it just wasn´t existing. Here an example for 1871: The artist did show all kind of ugly things - like that ****-ramp on the bow or the tiny air vent in the quarter gallery. Many strange and ugly details. Would he miss distiguisable wales? Or here: in 1857: No wales visible - which does not at all mean they were not existing. Just: there is no edge notable. Another approach - from technical point of view: an edge would make no sense - neither on top nor on bottom side of the wales. On bottom side it would just increase friction in the water. On top and on bottom side it also would be endangered to get damaged, while doint what wales have to do: being a bumper for any object floating against the ships hull. And if an edge was damaged, the wood would be in much more danger to start rotting. So high risk. And how to repair? You had to remove a plank out of the hull! What would be the benefit of a sharp edge? .. or even a chamfered edge? Technically it would make no sense to have the wales not smoothened to the planks. Any other feature to protect the hull from impacting objects like fender strakes for the loading or for the action with the boats - or billboards for protecting the hull from the ancres.. Those were added on top of the planks - and were easy to remove if demaged or rotten. In my opinion those planks being the wales were just thicker - but you would not be able to differentiate them - except maybe by a bit wider? - but I don´t see evidence for that either. I would not represent them in the ship as an extra layer or as thicker planks with a distinguishable edge.

Those Close Ups look amazing !! One really struggle: "... is this the ship? ..oh, it´s a model!"

I recently learned the statement: "if you have issues in keeping up doing something, you need to frequently restart restarting." I hate to move! That amount for work and time waisted until you have settled into the new environment. Yes, its an opportunity to get rid of ballast - but no, I believe its not worth it! Getting rid of ballast can be done without moving. ... of course we humans tend to not doing it, right? Good luck with your restart - maybe it helps, if you know: we are eagerly waiting for updates 🙂

As Martin points out: he concluded a single and a double wheel just because on number of payed "men on the wheel" (two in case of single wheel and 4 in case of a double wheel). But that calculation has anyhow a flaw: if one assumes that 2 men would man the single - and 4 man would man the double wheel, we would in fact need 4 men for the single and 8 for the double wheel - right? So that each watch had a full manned wheel. So to conclude for the number of wheels just by the paid helmsmen, we would need the double amount of personel. IF we allow the single wheel be manned by only one dedicated (and paid) person per watch (and being assisted by another "common" sailor) .. why would that not be possible on a double wheel? .. There could have been one dedicated helmsman per watch in the beginning - even on a double wheel - who might have got support by 1 to 3 more common sailors in case of need. Maybe the navy later decided to pay 2 helmsman per watch - just to make sure that there is enough experience at the wheel? But by THAT the NUMBER of helmsmen would not affect the number of wheels themself. To summarize: if we doubt Martins conclusion (number of wheels connected with number of paid helmsmen), we may stick with the assumed double wheel - from beginning. That would be my assumption - until there is more evidence for a single wheel ...

Oh yes, what happened, @Force9? I was reading the post this morning and was again impressed about the details you found in Hull's report and concerning Corne's possible misinterpretion? Unfortunatly I am under pressure at work, come home late, leave early for the office.. I missed answering earlier. Can you please check whats wrong, Evan?

I tried to present you a table with the captains, their nomination as captains and commodores and their birth dates from beginning to about 1815 - and hoped I can manage to make it "sortable" as for example in an excel table. Unfortunatly I am not capable to do so. But even with that table you see that some younger captains where higher in rank depending on the captain or maybe the commordore nomination. That of course might have (and did) cause hurt feelings sometimes 😄 .. those gentlemen usually had a strong will 😉

# Name Born–Died Captain Since Squadron Command (Commodore)? Notes 1 y John Barry 1745–1803 7 Jun 1794 1798 – West Indies Squadron First senior officer of U.S. Navy 2 y William Bainbridge 1774–1833 7 Jan 1801 1815 – Mediterranean Squadron Captured in 1803, returned 1815 3 y Samuel Barron 1765–1810 13 Sep 1798 1804 – Replaced Preble in Mediterranean Ill health ended command early 4 y James Biddle 1783–1848 1814 Not until after 1815 Served on USS Wasp; later Commodore 5 y Isaac Chauncey 1772–1840 1806 1813 – Lake Ontario Squadron Directed Great Lakes ops 6 y Richard Dale 1756–1826 4 Jun 1794 1801 – Short Mediterranean deployment Retired early 7 y Stephen Decatur 1779–1820 9 Apr 1804 1815 – Mediterranean Squadron (post-war) Hero of Tripoli & 1812 8 n Charles Gordon 1781–1860 ca. 1813 No Capt. of USS Congress briefly 9 n Joseph Green ? – ? ? No Commanded privateers & small ships 10 y Isaac Hull 1773–1843 23 Mar 1806 Not until after 1815 Capt. of Constitution, defeated Guerriere 11 y Thomas Macdonough 1783–1825 10 May 1807 1813 – Lake Champlain Flotilla Victory at Battle of Plattsburgh 12 y Richard V. Morris 1768–1815 ~1799 1802 – Mediterranean Squadron Recalled in disgrace 13 n James Lawrence 1781–1813 3 Jun 1810 No Killed on Chesapeake (“Don’t give up the ship!”) 14 n Oliver H. Perry 1785–1819 1813 No (technically flotilla leader) Lake Erie hero 15 y Edward Preble 1761–1807 20 Jul 1798 1803 – Mediterranean Squadron (Tripoli) Highly influential 16 y John Rodgers 1772–1838 2 Sep 1798 1803+ – Several squadrons (Mediterranean, Home) Senior-most officer 1812 17 y James Sever 1761–1845 10 May 1798 c. 1799 – West Indies Retired early 18 y Charles Stewart 1778–1869 22 Apr 1806 Not until after 1815 Capt. of Constitution late in war 19 n Thomas Truxtun 1755–1822 4 Jun 1794 1799 – Caribbean Squadron Famous from Quasi-War 20 n Jacob Jones 1768–1850 3 Jun 1810 No Capt. of Wasp (defeated Frolic)

Gentlemen, thanks for that intersting debate. I had to learn a lot. Its quite fun as answering one question two other interesting aspects pop up and you need to read further, dig deeper, learn more ... If I got it right what I was reading the last days it seems that my understanding that a squadron leader who just met a more senior commodore was forced to pull down his broad pennant and show a "lower seniority" broad pennant was absolutly wrong. You are right @Force9 Evan. There is only one squadron leader. When Barron met Preble and took over command over the Mediterean squadron Preble had to lower his broad pennant and the commission pennant was raised on Constitution instead - while Barron´s broad pennant was still floating on his US Frigate President´s mast top. Barron was now in charge. The different colours of the broad pennants would have been used, only if several squadrons worked together as a fleet - and each squadron would have had its own squadron leader, its own commodore. .. just as the britsh did with their rear-, center- and vanguard-division. In those cases different colored broad pennants would have been presented to each flagships main mast. But that did not happen the early years of the US Navy as there was rarly (never?) a chance to act as a fleet of several squadrons. The US naval strategy and tatics was different - as the young navy never intented in those days to make use of battle ships and fleets. But the idea was having flexible and persuasive squadrons dealing with only minor enimies as privateers, corsairs, pirates or maybe a squadrone of frigates or a single 2nd rated ship of the line. But never with a 1st rate ship of the line or even a fleet of ships of the line. That was not yet the focus of the new navy. Seniority was a tricky thing in those days it seems. Hull was the more senior captain to John Rodgers, although Rodgers was about 1 year older. But Hull was appointed to captain only some months earlier than Rodgers. On the other hand: Rodgers was first in getting a command over a squadron - and by that was in a way the more senior commodore. I guess that was part of the animosities among some of the early "commodores". Hull seemed to have agreed to switch the ships USF President and USF Constitution with Rogers - although he might have had the right to stay on the ship with higher prestige (in those days), the President. But it seems he did accept the change especially having in mind to to preserve harmony and reinforce the bond between the officers. .. maybe .. but there seem to be no written evidence .. maybe he was even happy to be on his old ship of his "Quasi War" and lieutenant times - and maybe he was looking forwart to meet some of his old comrades - helping him to improve the ships performance and make it a much better one compared to the days of Samuel Nicholson and Silas Talbot.

This is what I found in one of my most liked sources: Cmdr. Tyrone Martins collection. Its in his "lucky bag" section of his "The Captains Clerk" homepage. That is at least the order of colors defined in 1817 and 1818 as it seems. But of course it is not clear how that may have used in previous years.. As I was writing: the habits were still developing and not yet fixed ..

I am of course not sure as I never were able to compare PE bars with the ones you showed here, but I believe that the round shape of these bars is a better looking solution than usually not round etched ones. Even if spacing might be worse. I am curious for the painted result and it would be interesting to see a close up comparison of both variants. In any way: impressive and beautiful!

Ah - that´s interesting !! Sure!! I did not realize this salute process! THANKS @Chapman