Louie da fly

On 8/31/2023 at 2:04 PM, Mark Pearse said:

Have you come across the photos of Alan Villiers?

Yes, I found quite a number of them on-line, but I never knew the source. Thanks for enlightening me - and yes, they have often proved very useful.

On 9/1/2023 at 12:00 PM, Cathead said:

I don't want to derail this thread into a long discussion of canoe sailing, I was just fascinated by the convergence of ancient and modern.

That's fascinating. I never knew about this, and it's really amazing how old proven technology sometimes re-surfaces in the strangest connections. Thanks for letting me know.

And now for an update on progress.

I think I mentioned that I'd planned to make a cabin below the aftercastle, for the captain/owners. 

First I needed to install clamps to support the ends of the cabin's deck beams. It was fairly complicated trying to get the curve and orientation just right, but I think I succeeded pretty well. Here's the stern with the aftercastle removed, and some of the deck beams in place.

And an overall view from above.

Finished all the masts and dry fitted them. The mast steps and mast partners line up quite well, with a little wriggle room to get the masts exactly vertical when looking from the bow/stern. They are all somewhat raked - the foremast (which is in fact the MAIN mast) has quite a pronounced rake forward, the other two slightly back. Lining up the mast partners in the two decks (aftercastle and cabin) to achieve this is an ongoing project, but I think it's going to be ok.

Note that they all now have their calcets in place. I tried to get a good contrast in colour between mast and calcet, but I may have to do a bit more to emphasise it.

And planking on the aftercastle deck. You can see the hole for the mizzen and the opening for the stairs down to the cabin. And on the main deck the mast partners and the beams that form the sides of the two hatches, waiting for more deck beams either side of them, to complete the deck structure.

I'm planning to have a wall at the forward end of the cabin, with a door leading into the hold via a ladder, so the captain and owners can access the cargo without having to go up a ladder to the poop, down another to the main deck and down a third to get into the hold. I expect I'll have doors to close off the hatches and the companion, as in Woodrat's Venetian round ship.

Here's the first "crowsnest" attached to the mizzen mast just below the calcet. It doesn't have a floor yet; I'm still working out how to keep the halyards/tyes from fouling this structure - I won't have a definite answer until I install the knights on the deck and run the halyards/tyes to them.

Steven

On 9/1/2023 at 10:10 AM, Ferrus Manus said:

in my opinion, the guy climbing up the backstay in the Winchelsea image is just bad seamanship. Why not unfurl the yard while it's resting on the deck? Also, why put unnecessary strain on the rigging by climbing it? Why, also, make the lives of the people hauling on the windlass harder by, presumably, sitting on the yard? And if you fall? Well, now your ship has one less man to operate it, and your mates have to find a new crew member. 

All good questions, but this is what is shown on these seals, not just the Winchelsea one but others as well. And regarding climbing the rigging, there's this (Crewmen on 20th century dhows)

12 hours ago, Ferrus Manus said:

However, i do not have a withy.

Woodrat made one from a bit of creeper out of his garden, in his "Elusive hulc" build. See post #125 at 

but you've come up with a good workable alternative.

Nice paintwork, by the way.

5 hours ago, Ferrus Manus said:

the first Mediterranean ship, or the first ship at all? 

The first Atlantic ship, as the nef is part of the Atlantic tradition. There are Mediterranean ships shown with castles at each end on the leaning tower of Pisa (probably from the late 12th century) and in the Annals of Genoa (last decade of the 12th), but these are lateeners, not part of the nef tradition in my view. In fact, for the Med we can go right back to about the 10th century, when dromons are described as having central wooden castles (xylokastra), or even earlier, to Roman times, when warships had a central castle.

5 hours ago, Ferrus Manus said:

Alright. I was going to make two square openings in the castles for the ladders, but that is going to be an issue, and here's why. The forecastle is two small for a hole. A hole (say, 2x2 feet) would considerably reduce the amount of standing space there is on a castle. And on the sterncastle, the hole would mean that the ladder goes right through the arc of the tiller swing. 

Looking forward to seeing how you solve this one. I was aware of the standing-space problem on my own nef. Though I had a hole for the ladder in each of the castles, I put it at the extreme inboard edge. Nonetheless it had a crossbeam at the outer edge of the opening that you'd have to duck your head to avoid (this was for structural strength). 

9 hours ago, Ferrus Manus said:

The only other significant piece of deck furniture is the capstan,

I'm not sure they existed at this time. I've seen one on the Bremen cog, but that's dated 1380 or so, but windlasses are a pretty definite thing.

Coming along nicely. I look forward to the next instalment.

Steven

Basically the equivalent vessels - at least in the Atlantic - were nefs but without castles, at least as far as the pictorial evidence shows. As I mentioned above, the first I've seen with castles were c. 1225, and they only had a single castle, at the stern.

Steven

OK, taking on board (sorry!) the constraints imposed by the plastic model, that it's impossible to achieve all the changes that may be desirable for historical accuracy etc, plus the public the model is intended for (i.e. people who don't know - and probably wouldn't care - about the things that distinguish a nef from a longship with castles added), I think it's just a matter of seeing what's possible - to get as close as you can to what you have in mind - and don't sweat the small stuff (even, though it pains me to say it, to the point of leaving the mast step as it is).

Steven

PS: You might consider changing the date a bit - the earliest date I can find for a nef with castles is 1225 (though the seal of Dunwich is dated at circa 1200, that circa covers a lot of ground).

7 hours ago, Ferrus Manus said:

I will likely have to keep the mast step, because i don't know how to remove it and keep the deck salvageable. If i can find a way, i could probably get it gone. 

Perhaps make a new deck out of wooden planks? If you widen the ship and lift the deck as I mentioned, the existing plastic deck will possibly be too narrow anyway. (just part of my evil plot to steer you to the Dark Side of working in timber).

6 hours ago, Knocklouder said:

Build an early one that has free standing castels, looks better to me.

To me as well, but it's a matter of aesthetics and personal choice.

4 hours ago, Ferrus Manus said:

the (likely triangular) castle

Can I recommend against that? I've seen pics of models with triangular castles, but the pictorial evidence suggests they were rectangular, or at the most trapezoids tapered towards the ends, as the castles weren't big and heavy enough to warrant tapering to a point at this time, as they were later with carracks (even the early carracks had rectangular or polygonal forecastles). Regarding supporting the castle against the sternpost, I can't see that there would be anything wrong with that. There was probably a period of transition between free-standing and integral castles when that was tried out.

4 hours ago, Ferrus Manus said:

Steven, is your San Marco Floating Hearse a nef, a type of Mediterranean cog, or something different? 

Took me a while to get the reference - of course, it has St Mark's body on board. But I'd call it a reliquary, not a hearse. No, this is c. 1150; cogs hadn't yet been developed in the Atlantic and certainly hadn't made their way to the Mediterranean. They seem to have come into use in the 14th century - at the very earliest maybe the end of the 13th century. My ship is a nave, or perhaps a nave (ro)tonda, a round ship; so-called to distinguish them from long thin galea sottile (galley).

3 hours ago, Ferrus Manus said:

Are they oar holes, or are they freeing ports/scuppers? 

I'm afraid they're oarports. Nefs don't seem to have had them at all, so I suppose you'll have to close them up - perhaps car-bog would do the trick.

3 hours ago, Ferrus Manus said:

My supports will not be completely fused to the sides of the hull, but they will follow the outward angle of the hull.

Hmm, not sure I agree with this. Not as strong, for a start - as the vertical force (weight of the castle) acts on a non-vertical column it would tend to make the column "overturn" (pivot around the lower support). And this would be exacerbated by the motion of the ship in the waves loosening the connection. As I see it, these supports were vertical and somewhat inboard - the deck beams would be amply strong enough to support the columns, particularly if the structure is stiffened with horizontal beams at deck level as shown below.

Steven

In a few words, it's swivelled from side to side as you do with a stern rudder. Works just the same as a stern rudder, right down to having a tiller. But Mediterranean ships usually had one on each side, often with a single steersman holding both tillers at once. Side rudders also swivel in the vertical plane, but that's just to get them out of the way (i.e. out of the water) when the ship enters port/is in shallow water etc. Or so you can use just a single one.

For more information on the whole side rudder thing, I'd recommend you read The Development of the Rudder A.D. 100-1600: A Technological Tale by  Lawrence V. Mott of Texas A&M University. It used to be freely available on-line along with a huge number of other master's theses in the University's website, but when I checked recently it went to a general site that just told you about the University itself. A terrible shame; it was a really good resource. Apparently it's now published as a book which you can buy, or access through inter-library loan.

BTW, Mott makes the point that side rudders are actually more efficient in steering a ship (of this size and type, presumably) than a stern rudder, as they're freer of the turbulence caused by the hull. BTW, traditional whaling boats still use a steering oar - they race them here in Victoria, Australia. I've seen them in action.

Steven

Yes, frames can be boring sometimes, but once complete they certainly add to the verisimilitude of the model. Coming along nicely.

Steven

You're doing a good job of this. I've seen others that had quite a bit of difficulty, particularly with the upper planking, but you seem to have taken it in your stride. Nice clean work, too.

Steven

Ok, I like the idea. I would incline toward a nef - if only because they appear so rarely in modelling. (Oh, and I might have a personal interest, I suppose).

A couple of points. First the name. If it's a nef, I wouldn't call it Beowulf. Though written down (probably) in the 11th century and in a Christian mileu (references in the text comparing Grendel to Cain, for example), the story describes event from many centuries earlier, which is probably when it was first composed, but equally probably not written down until the 11th century. Having said that, you're at liberty to call it anything you want - it's your model. But as nefs are a phenomenon of the late-13th and early/mid-14th centuries, I'd be thinking of a name more appropriate to the period. Easy to say, not so easy to do. At the moment I can't think of any known ships' names from this period, but later ones seem to have been either religious or royal - Holigost, Grace Dieu (both early 15th century), Great Michael, Mary Rose, Peter Pomegranate (after the coat of arms of Catherine of Aragon - mid-16th) for example. If I think of any more appropriate to the time I'll chime in again. The ship which sank and drowned King Henry I's only son in 1120 (leading to a civil war over the succession) was known as the White Ship, but I believe that was a description, not its name. Then there was William the Conqueror's ship Mora, but that's back in the 11th century, and the names of Viking ships such as Ormen Lange (Long serpent) are earlier still. Oh, just found the names of two English ships captured by the french in 1338, in raids that culminated in the battle of Sluys, 1340 - towards the very end of the nef's period, when cogs were taking over - the Christopher and the Cog Edward - as you can see, one Biblical and the other royal.

Secondly there are two kinds of vessels that get categorised as nefs - the earlier ones with free-standing castles and the later ones where the castle is somewhat incorporated into the hull. Choose whichever one you like more.

In the first type take note of the shape of the stem and sternposts. They are VERY characteristic of nefs and of no other ship. There are more examples in my build log. See also https://www.pinterest.com.au/lowe1847/mediaeval-nefs/ And also note that many of the earlier type have only a single castle - always at the stern.

Regarding the hull shape, as it's a plastic model there's nothing you can do to change it, so just go with what you've got. But I believe you could alter the stem and stern somewhat to be closer to a nef. 

To make it resemble a cargo ship more closely you might think of building up the sides somewhat, and raise the deck to allow more cargo storage. And I'd get rid of the (admittedly beautiful) mast step - whatever shape it was by the late 13th century (and we're talking maybe 300 years of evolution) it's more likely to have been hidden below decks. 

I suppose that's all for now, off the top of my head. If I think of anything else I'll let you know.

Have fun with it.

Steven

Yes, happy to help. I take it you haven't started a build log yet.

Steven 

Nice to see progress happening again.

Steven

Thanks, mate. A lot of work and very fiddly, but worth it.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled program.

Steven

On 8/25/2023 at 12:31 PM, Ferrus Manus said:

actual evidence as to whether or not gads were actually used on Spanish ships as late as 1607?

Sorry, can't help you there. I have no information either way. You might try looking at https://www.pinterest.com.au/lowe1847/galleons/ to see if there's any evidence of them in those  contemporary pics. But to be honest, I doubt that they'd have continued in use that late. Once heavy ship-killing cannon became common, the previous tactic of defeating the enemy by boarding his ship would have been largely replaced by cannon duels, so getting close enough to use gads would have been less a part of the scene. However, that's just my opinion, and maybe I'm wrong - maybe close-range combat and boarding were still a large part of common sea warfare, which would perhaps mean that gads still had a place. OTOH, use of fairly efficient anti-personnel firearms night also have replaced them by this time.

On 8/25/2023 at 1:06 PM, Ferrus Manus said:

a name for the galleon

Probably a saint's name would be good. Or, there was a ship called Cacafuego (sh*t fire) to indicate how well armed she was. Or perhaps "Neustra Senora de ("Our Lady of . . .something or other). Check reports of Francis Drake's fights with the Spanish for ships' names you might like - also Grenville's battle with them in the Revenge.

On 8/25/2023 at 2:37 PM, Ferrus Manus said:

I got the idea to use a staple from Steven's Great Harry build. 

(Blush).

Steven

Depending on how steady your hand is, you could hand-paint it. I used acrylic paint on a piece of (I think) cotton fabric, though mine was dark paint on light fabric - you might have to do more than one coat of paint if you did it this way, but it is a fairly simple design.

Steven

That's the modern name. The Ancient name was the Aegates. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Aegates

Steven

Some more photos of rams from the Egadi finds.

Apparently 26 of these have been found so far, along with helmet cheekpieces, coins and a sword . . .

Steven

Here's my first attempt to do a calcet based upon the mosaic ships. There was quite a bit of guesswork involved - even guessing that the black things above the tops actually were calcets rather than something else - I'd originally thought they were either the mastheads or flagpoles, but their strange shape, pretty much consistent in 4 out of 5 of the mosaics got me thinking they must be something else, and the only thing that seemed to fit was a calcet.

Why a calcet would be that particular shape, I have no idea. But I can understand that there could be a wide variety of shapes that would still do the job. So rather than get too involved with the mystery of the shape (that can be for later) I just made one that seemed to be the right shape and would do the job. Based on pictures of calcets - both drawings from some centuries later than this model, and the photo of the Ma'agan Mikhael calcet referenced above, I've given it two sheaves. I worked out a possible configuration to make that work, but again, this is pure speculation.

There are two tyes attached to the lateen yard, each of which runs through one of the sheaves in the calcet (at the top of the mast) and down. They come together to form a strop around a block which connects via the halyard to a knight at deck level. There's no direct evidence that this is how it was done, either iconographic or written, but it should work.

So here is the calcet for the mizzen, with a scarph joint to connect it to the mast itself.

Note: The scarph joint doesn't line up perfectly - this is a prototype; I've cut it right up at the top of the mast, above where it's supposed to be, just to see if it works. As it seems to be ok I'll now do the real joint in the correct position - the bottom of the joint should be in line with the base of the "crow's nest". I think I can arrange things to the tyes don't foul the sides of the crows nest, which is an open framework (see pictures in post #155 above).

 I've also added more deck beams for the main hull and finished the deck beams for the aftercastle, with openings for the mast partners and for a companionway coming up from the cabin space below.

And then I removed the aftercastle to work on the deck beams and sides.

I added a railing around the aftercastle, which is how I interpret the mosaics.

Next I plan to do all the rest of the deck beams (allowing openings for two hatches - one between the aftercastle and the central mast, and one between that mast and the foremast). And make and install beam clamps for the deck of the cabin below the aftercastle. Unfortunately my cheap soldering iron which I've been using as a plank bender, up and died today, So it looks like I'll have to get another one - unless I can make the vegetable steamer do the job. Worth a try.

Steven

Nice work on the planking - and on getting the hull to separate from the strongback. Now for a whole new adventure with the rest of the vessel.

Steven

You're off to a good beginning.

Steven

On 8/22/2023 at 1:09 PM, Ferrus Manus said:

Notice how the streamer is on a pigstick. This is to prevent the flag from fouling against the mizzen lateen sail's peak, by raising the flag above the mast truck. 

Good idea.

Steven

On 8/20/2023 at 9:45 PM, Bryan Woods said:

I carved wedges to place on either side of the keel to hold #13 planks tight.

Clever. I might steal this idea sometime.

Steven

3 hours ago, mtaylor said:

 Start easy.... X-acto type knives, tweezers, some sanding paper then build from there.

And clamps! Lots of clamps of all types and sizes. I have a wide array of clamps, from bulldog clips to clothes pegs as well as proper clamps designed for carpentry. I also find a small vise that you can attach to a table is often helpful.

Steven

My brain hurts.

Steven

I've temporarily (with a couple of small dabs of glue) fixed the aftercastle deck to the hull to adjust the position and verticality (is that a word?) of the mizzen mast, with quite pleasing results. There's still a little wriggle room in the mast partners which will allow me to get it exactly right.

Additionally, I've removed the deck framing below the aftercastle, which was in line with the main deck. I intend to make everything below the aftercastle into cabin space, with a lower deck level. I'm not sure at the moment how much work I'll put into this cabin space, as it will be hidden anyway, but I'm thinking of having a crew member climbing up through the companionway onto the after deck to add a bit of interest. The masts haven't yet been cut to length - I'm still thinking about exactly how I'm going to configure the tops and calcets

And after referring back to the paper by Lawrence V. Mott of Texas A&M University entitled The Development of the Rudder A.D. 100-1600: A Technological Tale, I've realised that I'd misinterpreted the rudder shape somewhat, as it was intruded on by other items in the picture I was working from (refer to the mosaic picture in my previous post), and that I'd missed the fact that both rudders were shown in the mosaic (though the artist seems to have got the nearer rudder facing backwards).

And, following Mott, here is the aerofoil (or perhaps aquafoil?) cross-section of the rudders.

That's all for now.

Steven

Mock-up in balsa for the side rudders, based on one in the mosaic pictures.

And the roughed out rudders. I discovered too late that one of them was too thin at the handle end, so I glued another layer of wood to thicken it up. I'll post a pic of the completed ones when they're finished.

The deck for the aftercastle under construction:

And my first experiment in curving timber really tightly - to form the top. Worked fairly well, but the wood started to char - I can't lower the temperature of the soldering iron. But I have hopes of a vegetable steamer that I have permission to use outside the kitchen.

Steven