Louie da fly

Banyan, there seems to be a missing word in your post. "A long . . . what?" (not a criticism - I really want to know). Steven

When I built my dromon on a solid wooden plug, I covered the plug in cling-wrap and it came off with (relatively) little trouble (see If you ever do another strongback model, you might consider covering each bulkhead with cling-wrap as a "resist" rather than tape. I dunno. The techniques are different, and the clingwrap might interfere with planking. But she's looking very good. Did you find she squoze (past tense of squeeze) inwards due to the springiness of the planking when you removed her from the strongback? Or did she retain her shape? Steven

Yes, your diagram makes it clear. Nicely done. Do I agree with the interpretation of the Anthony Roll picture? Not sure. To me it seems the shadow is nil where the forecastle meets the gunwale and gets wider towards the bow, which would be the case if there were no overhang except what is caused by the bow curving away faster than the angle of the (triangular) forecastle. But I'm just throwing that idea out for your consideration, not saying your interpretation is definitely wrong. BTW, are you also thinking of having the forecastle curved in the vertical plane, as shown on the Science Museum model? To me that doesn't seem likely, but I'd like to hear your ideas on it. That all makes a great deal of sense. The reduction in height of the aftercastle, plus the addition of more guns lower down - and probably heavier guns at that, as despite my earlier comment, I do believe there was quite a bit of progress in gunmaking between 1512 and 1536; note the Lomellina, probably built about 1503, just had iron "stave construction" guns with iron strips welded edgewise into a tube and held together by iron rings, while the Mary Rose had those, but also big bronze guns. She certainly sounds BIG. Good luck with that. At least you won't have too many problems with reaching in to make fiddly details. Yes, time-zones can be a bit confusing. But no problem. Keep up the good work. A very interesting discussion. Steven

Thanks, Mark. I've tried weak white glue solution - it works to a certain degree, but I don't want to push it too hard in case I mess it up. Wetting the thread seems to help. I'll just keep experimenting. Steven

Hi Johnny, Jeez, you don't give people much time to think over an answer, do you? Let me see, I'll try to reply to both the previous post and this one. First point - I'm not really sure I understand your point about the forecastle having a wider base than the gunwale below. To me it seems that the picture shows the after end of the forecastle is flush with the hull, which then curves away forward to form the bow. But perhaps I'm misunderstanding the point. Do you mean the forecastle is cantilevered out sideways where it meets the hull at the break of the forecastle? And I'm not sure about the curved support you describe - do you mean the gently curving horizontal line that forms lower border of the forecastle? Perhaps that could be interpreted as a curve in the horizontal plane - or is it in the vertical plane (as shown on the "pointed version" Science Museum model - 6th picture in your post #15 above)? Regarding your point (1) in post #15, that's definitely a possibility - I have seen somewhere it proposed that these guns had that function. But depending on their calibre they might still be intended as anti-personnel weapons to defend against enemies who have achieved the weather deck, which would form a "killing field" fired on from both front and back with no means of escape, a common principle in castle architecture of the time. For example, 'hailshot pieces' which fired small iron cubes (a forerunner of canister) could perform that function. As you're surely already aware, I'm in the 'pointy forecastle' school, for two reasons. The first is that almost all representations of carracks and the later ships like the Great Harry (which I choose to call "great carracks") show them with triangular forecastles. Exceptions are the picture of the Battle of Zonchio and some pictures in one of the Cowdray engravings http://www.dominicfontana.co.uk/dominic/maryrose/calaissmall.jpg (which in any case are 19th century copies of a lost original, which allows two opportunities for misinterpretation - once by the original artist, once by the copyist - instead of just one). See the pictures of "great carracks" at https://www.pinterest.com.au/lowe1847/great-carracksnaos/ The second is structural - that amount of weight cantilevered over the bow would force the ship's head down and make her unwieldy to sail, as well as being vulnerable to being shaken apart in heavy seas. I believe this is the reason the triangular forecastle replaced the earlier rectangular one as ships grew bigger. However, I believe they weren't sharp points all the way up - as shown here: Saint Auta altarpiece of 1520 from the Miller Atlas, 1519 It seems to me the forecastle stepped backwards as it went upward, and that would mean the higher 'stepped back' decks would be wider at the forward end, as in the forecastle of my own Great Harry (the 5th picture in your post #15). But even if it came to a sharp point, it seems the bowsprit was often off-centre to miss the foremast, so the problem with it passing through a pointed forecastle might be moot. And another point - galleons, which seem to have come into use about the 1540's, had sharp beakheads, with the forecastle 'proper' further aft - in my view for the same structural reasons as triangular forecastles in carracks. Well, the 'extension of the keel' would be the stempost, but I guess you're talking about the horizontal extension of the stempost, for which I don't have a name either. And interestingly, I hadn't really noticed up to now that Anthony Anthony's Great Harry didn't have a dragon figurehead - I was just assuming it did because Landström's reconstruction picture had one. However, the definition in the images of the Great Harry available on-line is rather vague, to the point that maybe the dragon-head is there after all. Though I agree with your idea of 'seats of ease' toward the front of the forecastle, I think there would still be plenty of room for them in a triangular forecastle. Okay, now onto post #16. I think many contemporary representations of carracks falsely show them as "bulbous" at the bow, and I think this is not so much an accurate representation of reality as a problem with the ability of the artists to show what is, after all, a rather difficult shape. See Woodrat's Venetian Carrack or Cocha - in which he follows the contemporary text-books to determine the shape of the hull, which turns out to be eminently slim and seaworthy after all - a fact supported by the better artists of the time - Carpaccio and Botticelli. I'm not sure the flat stern gave a wider platform for artillery - round carrack sterns should still have been sufficiently wide for artillery where it mattered. Though I agree with your observations about the stern rudder, it had already been in use for quite a while - at least since the late 14th century (though some Mediterranean ships retained it right into the late 15th century). 1487 Mediterranean Merchant ship, Ragusa. von Grunenberg's Beschreibung der Reise von Konstanz nach Jerusalem (Record of the journey from Konstanz to Jerusalem). I agree. OTOH, when Woodrat built his carrack, he was surprised at the amount of space still available in a quite sharply pointed triangular forecastle. The earlier ships with rectangular forecastles (which certainly did exist) were considerably smaller, and I think the problems with structure would have multiplied dramatically as ships got bigger. Finally, as you want to represent the Great Harry as she was when built in 1512-1514, this adds yet another difficulty of interpretation. There are no contemporary pictures of her at that time. The Embarkation at Dover is thought to have been painted around 1545, so is not a reliable record of the ship before her rebuild. I would recommend you look at other pictures of ships of this type from around the time she was built - such as the "marriage" painting (thought to be of the Santa Catarina do Monto Sinai, built 1512), the Saint Auta altarpiece of 1520 (above), the Miller Atlas carracks of 1519 and Lourinha's St John the Evangelist at Patmos of 1510-14 (both below) from the Miller Atlas, 1519 Lourinha's St John the Evangelist at Patmos, 1510-14 I have to say they're not all that different from the Anthony Roll depictions. We know she was up-gunned in the rebuild - according to Wikipedia when launched she had 20 heavy guns - after the rebuild she had 45. Guns from 1512-14 were only little more primitive than in 1536. Quite sophisticated bronze guns were already available by this time, and iron guns when launched weren't all that different from the ones recovered in the 19th century from the 1545 wreck of the Mary Rose. Again according to Wikipedia, when launched she was found to be top-heavy and the height of the hull was reduced in the rebuild. That plus the weight of the additional heavy guns low down would presumably have lowered the centre of gravity and made her more stable. So it seems to me that in 1512-14 she would have had a pretty high forecastle and summer castle, but how high that was is anybody's guess - again, I'd use the pictures I mentioned in the previous couple of paragraphs as a guide, but not rely on them too much. Well, that's about all I can think of. I haven't commented on the purely modelling aspects of your post - I don't think I can usefully add anything to that aspect of things. I hope this is of help - at least it might give you a few things to think about. Best wishes, Steven

This is a magnificent model. Something to be proud of. Congratulations on this build, mate! Steven

Don't worry about it. Even my own hand-carved blocks are considerably too big for my Great Harry in many places. Who's going to know except you? (and us, of course!) Steven

Yes, that would make sense. Go for it! Steven

Hi Marvic, and welcome. My immediate observation is that the guy on the left, though he's in pseudo-classical armour, is wearing a bascinet on his head, which dates to the 14th century. Towards the end of the century the point at the top of the bascinet moved further and further back, so from the bascinet only, I'd guess this is maybe middle-late 14th century or possibly early 15th. Bascinet in the Deutsches Historische Museum Bascinet with visor, dated 1390-1400 in the Philadelphia Berlin, dated to 1360-1370 Museum of Art. This is a fairly extreme example of the "back point" They weren't all so pointy or so far back. However, the fact of having a lateen mizzen suggests a somewhat later date. The earliest pictures I know of that show vessels with a square main and lateen mizzen are early 15th century. This is a pair of pew-ends from the Church of St Nicholas, King's Lynn, UK (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London), dating to 1419 Note it has a square mainsail and a lateen mizzen, and also a bowsprit. It also has a rectangular forecastle, something that disappeared in the 15th century to replaced by a triangular forecastle as ships grew larger (as it would make the ship unwieldy in a heavy sea). Unlike the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean there was a tradition of multi-masted ships, but they were all lateen rigged until the advent in the mid-late 14th century of the single-masted square rigged Atlantic cog or kogge, which seems to have been copied in the Mediterranean and give its name to the cocca. The earliest Mediterranean ship I'm aware of with a combination of square mainsail and lateen mizzen is this one of 1425 by Gentile Fabriano of St Nicholas saving a ship from a storm This one has a tiny lateen, a big mainsail and a bowsprit, and the forecastle is polygonal, tapering toward the bow, presumably to overcome the problem I mentioned above. Another point with your painting is that the mainmast is built up from more than one piece of wood, with rings called wooldings around it to keep it together. This is very characteristic of the 15th century. By the way, to my eye the rudder appears central, rather than to one side. It's a bit hard to make out in the painting, but that's how it seems to me. And the rudder has a horizontal tiller which appears to go through an opening in the back of the hull - as in the painting directly above (though nobody seems to be steering!). The stern rudder seems to have come in around the middle of the 14th century and was common among cogs and of course carracks. So, my guess is that the painting is early 15th century. The lack of a main topmast would put it before the end of the 15th century, as they started coming in about 1480 or so, but anyway, the other characteristics make me feel it's in the first few decades. I've made a collection of early 15th century depictions of ships which may also be of assistance - see https://www.pinterest.com.au/lowe1847/early-15th-century-ships/ I hope this helpful to you. Best wishes, Steven Lowe PS: I also have a collection of pictures of carracks arranged in date order. If you'd like them for reference, send me a personal message with your email address and I'll send them to you

You could always go to the Dark Side and make your own . . . Steven

Ian, I've posted some information for you on your quadrireme build log. Steven

Ian, replying to your query regarding mast steps on Woodrat's build log so as not to derail his thread. I came across this information when I was researching my dromon. Unfortunately there's almost no information on how dromons' masts were stepped, but for ancient Roman, as far as I know, the mast was "hinged" and when lowered rested on a fork called the istodoke. I have the following pictures: Istodoke from an ancient Greek bowl showing Jason and the Argonauts Istodoke from a 3rd century AD Roman mosaic, Therma, Tunisia, North Africa istodoki from Roman mosaics in Themetra Tunisia Hellenic ship, mosaic (ca 1st century BCE-1st century AD) istodoki on Trajan's column, Rome c. 114 C.E. The same general system was later adopted in the 18th century by the famous ship designer Chapman in Scandinavian gunboats. The "pivot" was called a pulpit, for obvious reasons. I hope that helps. Steven

Nice work, mate. Steven

Very nice. I think you've captured the shape of the figurehead (as shown on the far left fragment of the the first picture) very well. Steven

To me it looks like the "collectioner's" vessel is too high - it would probably be crank and unseaworthy. Even though it pretty much duplicates the height of the forecastle on the Anthony Roll, I think Anthony got it wrong. AS far as I know, the aftercastle could be estimated from that of the Mary Rose; as she sank on her side, just about all of the upper works survived. There is still hope that they'll eventually get the funding to go and find the forecastle, but in the meantime we just need to work on 'best guess'.. Nice to know you got into doing "Hastings" at some point. The Big One in the UK is a real experience - I've done it twice and loved it. https://www.google.com/search?q=hbattle+hastings+2006&rlz=1C1NHXL_enAU770AU770&oq=hbattle+hastings+2006&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i8i13i30j0i390i650l4.7532j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:b1403b79,vid:EOwW04V4NA4 By the way, additional to the model Tudor figures I mentioned above, the sailors should be easier to obtain as their clothes were simpler - see http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/imagelarge69119-.html Steven

Linear-B make 1:72 Tudor figures - see https://www.1-72depot.com/1-72-scale-plastic-model-kits/figures/strelets-linear-b-012-age-of-tudors/ - several aof the poses aren't suitable for your ship, but quite a few are. Also Camisado has Tudor arquebusiers (musketeers) - most not suitable unless your ship is in battle, but a couple in civvies. http://camisado1500s.blogspot.com/2014/04/tudor-arquebusiers.html Steven

The spritsail - the last sail to be added. The spritsail is supported by a (fake) parrel truck and held in place with a halyard/ties through blocks at the end of the bowsprit and on the yard. The main sheets finally tied off and fixed in place. And the tacks And the foresail sheets And tacks Still working on getting those catenary curves in various ropes (not all that easy). I may have to just accept that some of them won't fall right. Ditto the sails at the clews - the tacks probably affect them differently in the real world, but that's all part of the learning curve, I'm afraid. And here's a new courtier being carved to go with the King (he needs friends around him, right?). Sorry about the definition - it's the best I could get with my phone. And here he is in place, with two others re-positioned (the guy in the yellow who I accidentally knocked off the deck while I was doing the rigging, and the one in red, who had to be moved because the mizzen sheet was running across his nose). And here's a (not terribly good) photo of the ship without most of those pegs hanging off it. Steven

Ahoy Johnny! I hadn't realised you were a re-enactor. Me too, but mostly mediaeval - in particular 11th century Anglo-Saxon (my big triumph was getting to play King Harold's brother Leofwine and "lead" the English right wing at the Battle of Hastings re-enactment on the actual battlefield in 2006. Not re-enacting any more, but my wife and I toyed with doing Henrician (i.e. Henry VIII 1545 - same year as the Mary Rose went down, so a lot of artefacts available to reconstruct), got as far as a shirt and doublet for me (and underdaks) then changed our minds. Me with my hearth troop, Senlac Hill, 2006. I'm the tall one, standing third from the right, with red hose and a big axe. Regarding colours, the paintwork on the Anthony Roll picture is a bit hard to make out, but is either (as you propose) alternating red, yellow and white diagonal stripes or perhaps just red and yellow. And as you're doing pre-1536, the earlier you go, apparently the less paintwork, though it does depend on where - Bruegel's ships are completely without painted decoration, as is the "marriage" ship and the ones on the St Auta altarpiece of 1520 but others such as this one from a Portolan of 1521 by Iacopo Russo seem to show paintwork on the upper works. Regarding shield decoration, the Anthony Roll shows alternating "St George" (red cross on a white background) shields and pale blue shields with possibly a white band at the top. The definition is very bad, but the Embarkation at Dover painting (thought to have been painted around 1545, well after the event), http://gallery.nen.gov.uk/imagelarge69119-.html shows three shields any of which which might be what is portrayed in the Anthony Roll. They are all per pale (divided in half vertically) blue and white - one with a gold fleur de lis, one with a red Tudor Rose and one with a portcullis (which I think denotes London). It's a very interesting model. I'll look forward to seeing what you do with it. Steven

Pulling up a chair and putting the popcorn on the cooktop! It'll be interesting to watch this one - the assumptions Sergal made vs those of Landström in reconstructing the Great Harry, vs what is now known from the excavation of the Mary Rose. Are you planning to follow the Anthony Roll's colour scheme? If I had a time machine I'd go back and fix the colours on my own Great Harry. But everybody back then seems to have gone with Elizabethan colour schemes which though really cool, are maybe 30-40 years wrong. Steven

Oops. I didn't realise I'd left the word "unfortunately" in there when I did a previous edit. It's removed now. Yes, that's my opinion too. I believe the triangular forecastle developed as carracks grew bigger. All that weight cantilevered over the bow wouldn't have been good - for stability and for structural integrity - so they turned the rectangle into a triangle. The picture you posted above says 30+ metres (= approx 100 feet). Can you let me know know where the 200 feet figure for overall length comes from? I doubt very much that the mast was twice as high as the length of the ship, particularly in the days of no topmasts. I'm still of the opinion that the guy just meant "very high". He's unlikely to have measured it. And I think the same applies to the height of the forecastle - reconstructions that try to fit such a high forecastle onto a ship the size of the Grace Dieu just look weird and (more to the point, considering we're talking about carracks which do look weird to the modern eye) out of proportion for a carrack - though I suppose it's possible that maybe she was experimental, and she really did have an oversize forecastle to be higher than the Genoese carracks, I just think the guy didn't expect his figures to be taken too seriously. Exaggeration for effect was pretty common at the time - numbers of people in a battle, sizes of things, you name it. Unfortunately I can't find the original eyewitness report about her size. It would help to have that quote and see what he actually said. [Edit - his name was Albizzi, and he was a "Florentine captain of galleys".] Steven

Me too. I've seen the Time Team episode, and somewhere on the internet there is a 3D diagram of her lines (those that survive) - I just tried to find it again, without success, but ther's something on her, anyway - https://www.academia.edu/3113962/HIGH_RESOLUTION_ACOUSTIC_IMAGERY_FROM_A_SHALLOW_ARCHAEOLOGICAL_SITE_THE_GRACE_DIEU_A_CASE_STUDY . There's a fascinating blog about the River Hamble wrecks at https://ianfrielhistorian.wordpress.com/tag/grace-dieu/ - well worth a read! Oh, and he's published a book about Henry V's navy - see https://www.amazon.com.au/Henry-Vs-Navy-Agincourt-1413-1422-ebook/dp/B01491XDEU. There is a contemporary account by a Venetian(?) mariner who visited her when she was new. He claimed the mast was 200 feet tall. I don't believe him - more likely that's shorthand for "Very tall", and I think they get the height of the forecastle (which I also find hard to believe) from the same source. But if you like early carracks, you'll probably like this one. It's from a pair of pew -ends from St Nicholas' church in Kings Lynn, England (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London). It dates to 1419, contemporary with Grace Dieu. Note the rectangular forecastle! Steven

Oh, yes. I'm very familiar with that one - just never heard it called by that name. Yes, it's wonderful - and it's been pointed out that all the 'round ships' in the pic are smaller versions of the main one. I keep going back to it for information because it's so full of detail and interest. I had at one time thought of building a model of her, but there's too many other ships I also want to build. Yes, Henry V's "super-ship". Some of her still exists below the mud in the river Hamble, along with another they think is the Holigost. Steven

Thanks everyone for the likes and comments. Druxey, thanks. I've also changed the colour of his jacket, as they were all looking a bit same-ish. Ferrus Manus - exactly. The outrigger is made, but won't be put in place until right near the end -too much chance of breaking it. Steven

Johnny, I think the pre 1536 GH (my abbreviation) would have been rigged as you suggest, and perhaps the post-1536 would have been similarly rigged, though it's possible she had topgallants as shown on the Anthony Roll. You're probably right about the forecastle and aftercastle being reduced in height in the rebuild. Yes, I've read that GH was built as a reply to the Great Michael (which never really got used, and ended up getting sold to France IIRC. I've read that GH was 1500 tons burthen, (while the Mary Rose was 1000) but I don't know what date that relates to. I certainly don't think she'd have had lateen topsails or topgallants in everyday use (though the Embarkation shows topsails on both mizzen and bonaventure, it also shows them as square rigged!) I've been told that the Embarkation was probably painted about 1545, despite showing an event of 1520. Can you refer me to the painting of the marriage party of 1521? I don't know this one. I've taken most of my interpretation from Landström's reconstruction, which based on both the Embarkation and the Anthony Roll depiction, also of 1545. I included the cloth-of-gold sails because - well, they're way cool. Now, here are the latest additions. Parrel truck for the bonaventure lateen "course" Mizzen topgallant with sheet, lift etc. "Outriggers" for the bonaventure lateen sail and topsail. More work on the bonaventure parrel truck. A bit fiddly, but I got there eventually. Note also the matchstick being used to form the "belly" of the mizzen lateen - I'd had the buntlines too tight and the sail got a kink at the lower edge. So I dampened it and gradually smoothed out the curve. You might also notice that Henry now only has two courtiers with him - one of them got dislocated while I was trying to install some of the rigging. I've left him off until there's no more rigging to be done and then I'll put him back in place. Same thing happened to one of the grapnels at the ends of the mainyard. It'll go back when the model is complete enough so I don;t accidentally break it off again. The mizzen topgallant in place and rigged. And the match further along, forming the belly at the foot of the lateen. And jumping ahead, here's the ship with all the lateen sails on it and rigged. Only the spritsail to go! Steven

Wonderful work, amazingly detailed! Steven