Louie da fly

Yes, I've finally got moving after a long period of doing nothing (life getting in the way) and cut my first pieces of wood - see here.

I'm pretty happy with the result, though it's very early days yet.

Steven

Well, I’m finally back onto the dromon after a lot of waffling about trying to work out how best to build it.

The true shape of a dromon’s  hull is unknown and my build will be based on the theoretical reconstruction in Professor  John Pryor’s book Age of the Dromon, plus very valuable insights from  the wrecked galleys found at Yenikapi in Istanbul. These vessels are not dromai but the smaller lighter galeai, and I’ve extrapolated from these to get the shape of the larger vessel.  It will evolve very much by trial and error.

The Yenikapi galleys were incredibly lightly built – necessary when ships have to be powered by human muscle. Though they were about 30 metres (90 feet) long, their keels are made of timbers only 150mmx150mm (6”x6”), and the planks are only 20-30mm (3/4”-1.2”) thick.

I’ve finally decided to build it plank on frame, but as the planks are going to be 0.5mm (1/50 inch) thick and the frames 1mm (1/25 inch) square, I’ll build it around a plug, which I’ll then remove and insert the frames within the hull. Otherwise I’m likely to smash the planking when I pick up the ship to work on it.

Dromons came at a time when ships were in transition from being built planking first to frame-first, so I’m sort of following in their footsteps.

I’ve been inspired by Druxey building his Greenwich barge around a plug, which has given me lots of ideas for my own build ( though I don’t think I’ll ever approach his quality of work). I’d already started making a plug out of a single piece of pine, but realised I had no idea how to get the two sides of the hull symmetrical.

Taking a leaf out of Druxey’s book I’m going to make a new plug out of narrow pieces laminated together horizontally, mirrored each side of the keel, which should pretty much solve that problem.

 Unfortunately though the keels of the Yenikapi galleys have been found the stemposts and sternposts weren’t recovered, so I’ve had to base mine on contemporary pictures.  I’ve made these, along with the keel, which is 3mmx3mm (1/8” square) in the model.

A keel this thin is very given to warping and I found when I’d made mine it was a bit bowed sideways. I tried putting it in boiling water and then between two sheets of glass, but though that helped reduce the bow, it also made the keel hog, so I’ll have to try another tack – steaming and clamping.

Once that’s done I’ll be putting the plug together and shaping it.

Druxey, your work is inspirational. I'd been planning to use a removable plug when building my dromon, but your build log has already solved several problems I'd been struggling with before I even started; for example I'd been wondering how to get the two sides identical - your solution of building up the two halves of the plug as separate mirrored units is simple and elegant. Same with the gesso and beeswax. I'll be sure to use these in my own build. I hope the plug technique works as well with carvel as with clinker construction.

Many thanks.

Steven 

Nice to see you back again, Dick. Excellent work as usual. You're producing a real gem.

Steven

That's a nice job. Looking forward to seeing progress on this build.

Steven

I've decided I'll have to strip most of the planking off after all. I'd hoped to keep a lot of it and just change the frames, but I got a lot of splitting when I was separating the old frames from the planking and it looks like I'll just have to discard most the old stuff and re-do it. I should be able to keep the forecastle, though, as it won't be affected by the changes.

I've roughed out the new frames in balsa, as the original frames were. Still have to trim them down smooth. I realize they look pretty rough, but they'll be invisible and they'll do the job. As I mentioned above, this project is basically to restore the ship to the way it was when I built it - sort of a snapshot in time -  and at the time I wasn't all that careful  with stuff you wouldn't be able to see . When I start the next project I'll be taking much more care to get everything precise. 

Below are pics of the ship as it is at the moment. I've still got to get the rest of the planking off that needs to be replaced, then I need to get some veneer that matches the original (the suppliers are currently off on Christmas holidays), and get started on fixing her up properly.

Kees, though the information is somewhat limited, there's far more out there than you might think, in archaeological finds, contemporary illustrations and academic papers. Have a look at Woodrat's excellent nave tonda thread to see what I mean.

Steven

Those are some ship names to conjure with - many referring back to the great heroes of ancient Greek history and mythology. And of course St Nicholas is a patron saint of seamen.

You've done a nice job collecting all these wonderful pictures.

Steven

That's very true, Druxey, and Landstro"m got his midships section for his Great Harry reconstruction from William Baker's diagrams.

But as you say, these were quite a few decades later, and we now have the evidence of the Mary Rose, which was almost a sister ship to the Great Harry (they were built and rebuilt at almost exactly the same time as each other - but the Great Harry was one and a half times the size of the Mary Rose).

I'm taking Mary Rose's shape as being more representative of the period, and that's why I'm changing the midship sections, as that way they'll be much closer to the Mary Rose.

Steven

Here are the only contemporary pictures of the Great Harry, from which Landstro"m did his reconstruction. The first is from the Anthony Roll of 1545 and the second is from a picture representing Henry VIII's embarkation at Dover for the tournament at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in France. Though it depicts an incident from 1520, it is thought to have been painted about 1545.

Note that both pictures have to be taken with a pinch of salt. Firstly, they disagree with each other. Also, the forecastle on the Anthony Roll depiction seems to be far too large, the number of guns is probably wrong etc etc - but it has some interesting details, such as the crown on a 'spritsail mast'. Given that  a "rose" emblem depicted as a figurehead on the Mary Rose in  the Anthony Roll has been discovered among the remains of the ship, I'm prepared to believe the Great Harry had a decorative crown.  

The Embarkation picture shows a square sail on the mizzen and there are several other errors - but it does show the sails as painted to represent cloth of gold, which is in keeping with decorated sails on near-contemporary ships, and I will endeavour to replicate this on the model. Generally, I'm going to be following Landstro"m's interpretation, as I did when I began the model.

I've worked out the shapes of the replacement frames, and they're shown below. The one in red is the midship frame as it it at the moment, with a black addition showing how I'm going to round it out.

Steven 

Brian: No, I drew the plans myself based on the reconstruction drawings in The Ship. Took a lot of work, and I'm amazed it worked so well, given that the only shapes I worked out were the frames themselves - I didn't know about the other "lines" one normally uses when designing a ship.

Jbshan: Yes, it's a lot easier that way. I've already drawn up the shapes of the frames to replace the ones I took out, and I'll just be gluing a bit of balsa onto the outside of the ones I keep and cut them to the desired rounded shape.

Druxey, on reflection I think I may have even been 16 or 17 when I started on this. When I was 20 I was drawing up plans for a model of the Batavia (which I never built), so the Great Harry must have been complete by then. My only regret is that I didn't take a photo of her at the time. I even built a longboat out of very thin bamboo (taken from an old roller blind) - unfortunately long since lost. I put it in a safe place . . .

I cheated a bit when I made the original model, though in retrospect I think I actually made things harder for myself. Rather than individual planks, I made wider "planks" and then carved them to look like there were individual ones of the usual width (you can see it if you look carefully at the photos above). I won't do that again - the curves in the wider planks were very complicated and I didn't have the skill to cut the grooves between the "planks" well enough to make it all look tidy. Interesting, though.

Next thing is to remove the planking of the superstructure - I'll try to keep as much as I can intact, but with the different curvature I think I'll have to adjust the joins between the wide "planks" somewhat to follow the curve properly.

Thanks everybody for the "likes".

Steven 

Well, it's something I've wanted to do for years and never had the opportunity. In the holiday season I get at least a chance to make a start.

Steven

The frames were built up from balsa wood, butt-jointed together with PVA glue. It's rather amazing that it all held together all that time, but PVA glue is amazingly good (though I was a bit over-liberal with it) and balsa is stronger than most people give it credit for.

The planking, superstructure and the masts and spars were made of Queensland Walnut, a native Australian timber from the laurel family. I bought a single long sheet of veneer and made everything from that. The masts and spars were made from many layers of veneer glued together with PVA and then carved to shape.

The paintwork was done with Humbrol enamel and the cordage was sewing cotton. The ratlines were simply glued to the shrouds.

I was about 19 or 20 when I made this and I think it holds up quite well, considering. I'd certainly do a lot of things differently today, but given my age, ignorance and lack of experience at the time, I think it's pretty good and deserves to be preserved and restored.

I've taken out several of the frames and will be drafting up  new set to allow a smooth transition to the narrower stern. I couldn't get the foremast out of the hull without causing damage, so I've left t in place.

I'll probably still use balsa - it won't be seen and time has shown it's certainly strong enough for the job. Basically what I want to do is fix the ship up as I would have done back then if 'd had the opportunity, as it shows where I was at the time. The only things I'm likely to change in the light of present knowledge is to make the underwater section rounder in line with the Mary Rose discoveries, and make the rigging more complete, as I've learnt quite a lot more about it in the intervening years.

Unfortunately I didn't take photos of the model when it was in good condition. What I have now might give some idea of what it was like before I stated messing with it and time and carelessness took their toll.

I built this model of the Great Harry back in about 1970 when I was a teenager. I'd previously made models from plastic kits and carved from solid blocks of wood, but this was the first time I'd tried a plank-built model. It was based on the reconstruction in Björn Landström's excellent book The Ship, which showed a copy by the author of the Anthony Roll illustration of 1545, and the author's conjectural reconstructions of a midship section and a side view of the ship above the waterline.

All of this was before the raising of the Mary Rose, so it was based on far less information available than we have now. I drew up a set of plans and proceeded to build the model. I got the hull complete and painted, added masts and spars and sails, and was adding shrouds, deadeyes and ratlines (nowadays I'd do this before I added the spars, but I've learned a lot since then). I even had a couple of figures on deck and another in one in the mizzentop.

Unfortunately I'd made the stern far too wide and when I saw another picture of the ship by the same author, showing her with a far narrower stern, I decided to pull the stern off and fix it.

Then life got in the way. Suddenly I had to move to the other side of Australia, about 4000 km (2500 miles) away and never got a chance to revisit the model. It stayed in its box, getting progressively more damaged as I repeatedly moved house. I've lost track of a lot of the stuff that broke off over the years, the sails went dark brown and started to rot.

Finally, after all these years I've had the chance to revisit and, I hope, return the ship to her former glory.

The classical idea of Charon is that he was just a ferryman . . . as in the images here and here. Maybe a bit forbidding, but not ghoulish.He was part of the ancient world's catalogue of mythical figures, not something to scare kiddies with.

On the other hand, tastes have changed and what you portray is totally up to you.

Steven

An excellent job beautifully done. That varnish really sets her off magnificently.

Steven

Oh, well spotted jbshan! I hadn't thought to put the letters together to make words. Makes sense, though. It becomes an easily remembered mnemonic for the sailors to use - assuming at least some of them could read. But even if not, they just had to match the letters up.

Steven

I've seen this picture of the Santa Caterina do Monto Sinai (c. 1520) so many times but only just really had the penny drop.

The Mainsail and bonnets have letters of the alphabet written on them. If I'd thought about it at all it was that it was like the annotated pictures of ships from the 17th century with each number telling you what part of the ship/rigging it was.

But now I think about it I realize it was for the crew to know which way to attach the bonnets to the course - like when you make a cardboard figure - join tab A to slot A, tab B to slot B etc.

Simple when you think about it, but it's stared me in the face all this time without me realizing.

Steven 

Whilst browsing, I came across this site - discovery of the animal figurehead of Gribshunden, a Danish royal ship which burned and sank in 1495. 

Though it's from the far north,this figurehead is very similar to examples in the pictorial record, including ones from Spain as outlined in this site, and I've also seen at least one of a Mediterranean ship (though from a German source - it's a record of a German man's pilgrimage to Jerusalem).

And here's another report with LOTS of pictures from several angles.

Dick, this might be applicable to your nave tonda. At the least it's very interesting!

Steven 

Yes, I think so. It's battle-ready, with masts already removed . . .

If you were undertaking a voyage under oars, however, you'd keep the mast and yards in place - apparently they were accustomed to combining oars and sail when the wind was in the right direction.

Steven

There are quite a few contemporary pictures of boats "of all nations" in Woodrat's carrack/Nave tonda build at http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/4915-venetian-carrack-or-nave-tonda-by-woodrat/?hl=%2Bnave+%2Btonda- scroll throug te pics and every so often there's a representation of a boat. Most of these are within 20 years or so either side of Columbus' voyage so you should be fairly sure you're on the money with them.

Steven

I love these things. So beautifully ugly. Not so much a swan as a pelican  . . or perhaps a dugong.

For an absolute feast of these ungainly beauties, see https://www.google.com.au/search?q=french+battleship+carnot&espv=2&biw=1280&bih=685&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwigu7mnpLrJAhXk26YKHc8_CZUQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=_

Which confirms me in my original impression - one of Carnot's funnels was square!

It would be interesting to see an analysis of amphibious operations from earlier centuries. There's no lack of examples to work with, from Nelson right back to antiquity!

Steven

I hadn't head of the Mars discovery. This is very exciting! I can see the mizzen mast, the capstan, some of the chains, as well as a beautifully preserved after part of the hull. Arched gunports on the upper gundeck, a couple of rubbing strakes  . . . oh, glory!

Steven

 The Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trireme says the Ancient Greeks took down the masts and railings before battle (in the paragraph entitled Tactics. I read somewhere recently that they actually threw the masts overboard before going into battle and retrieved them afterwards. Certainly most battles were fought near land, so it's not unlikely they sent the ashore if they knew they were in for a fight.

In Byzantine times the same thing applied - masts were lowered before battle. They were nothing but an impediment and could actually be a danger if, say the enemy managed to cut the shrouds and make the mast fall.

Furling a sail by climbing out onto the yard was the common way to go until the development of footropes in the 17th or 18th century. Pictures of of 15th and early-mid 16th century ships show this, and there's no reason to suppose it wasn't done this way throughout history.

Steven