Louie da fly

Jim, your pictures are up to your usual excellent superb standard. Dave, I do like the fact that most of the scene in your picture is obscured by smoke. I'm sure that's how it would have been.

Here are a bunch of contemporary pictures of various docks from the late 15th and the 16th centuries. Sometimes it appears there really aren't any docks as such - you just walk down a gangplank and hope for the best. View of Venice 1500 - Barbari Venice 1500 - Barbari Venice 1500 - Barbari 1460–1475, Bruges, Flanders. Scenes from the Legend of Saint Ursula, by the Master of the Legend of St Ursula 1465 Tavola Strozzi. Italy/Spain. return of the Aragonese fleet from the battle of Ischia 1474-1475 France Philip II embarking for 3rd crusade 1487 Pietro del Donzello departure of the argonauts 1490 Carpaccio from the Legend of St Ursula (Venice) - next 5 pics 1515 Antwerp, Holland 1515 Antwerp Roadstead - close-ups in following pics 1510 approx. detail from Aeneas at the court of Dido, attributed to Bernardino de Donati Italy Cristoforo de Grassi Port of Genoa - dated 1481 but ships look later 1493 Genoa - from the Nuremberg_chronicles_f_58v_1 1544 bird's eye view map of Amsterdam, by Cornelis Anthoniszoon Altarpiece of Sant Jordi by Pere Nicart. Detail. Palma's Port. 15th century. Diocesan Museum. Palma. Mallorja. Balearic Islands. Spain Calais and fortifications - 16th century Unknown port - looks Dutch or German, probably late 15th-early 16th century by the clothing. Danzig (that's the coat of arms on the stern of the ship and the flag of the other ship) - 1st half 16th century, judging by the clothes and the ships. 1526 livre des fontaines de Rouen, France

By the way, do you have the rest of the reports? Not sure if you haven't already got this, but there's a website that contains everything relating to this ship at https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/newportship_2013/downloads.cfm I have to say I don't agree with their reconstruction. The person who did it doesn't seem familiar with the proportions of carracks.

As far as I know there's simply no information for or against. The two extant examples can be dated by the decorative style to the late 10th-early 11th century. But that's all that exists, and those only survived by chance. If others existed, the likelihood is that they were melted down for the gold. But there's nothing to say they didn't exist in the 9th century, any more than that they did.

Wow! That's a lot of progress!

That describes my own experience, Dick.

Please tell me you're not going to duplicate the engraving on this thing. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire . . .

Very worthwhile information for those of us interested in the vessels of this period. Interestingly, no sign of blocks with sheaves, just heart blocks. Which is strange considering that in the Mediterranean sheaved blocks go way back. As I understand it, this ship was Spanish, or possibly Basque. Surprising that the technology doesn't seem to have travelled from one side of Spain to the other. On the other hand, she has a parrel truck, which was a fairly recent development at the time.

Yes, but not directly caused by his dalliance. And that wasn't his only dalliance, either. A bit of a naughty boy, Horatio. The only thing about the Parkinson book I didn't like is his taking it upon himself to "let the cat out of the bag" about the accident that occurred to the Captain of the Renown when Hornblower was a lieutenant . . . those who've read Lieutenant Hornblower will know what I mean. Oh, and C. Northcote Parkinson is the same man who discovered Parkinson's Law: "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion" It started as a satire, but its truth was very soon universally acknowledged.

Very nice Ringericke style (late 10th - early 11th century Viking) decoration on that vane.

Unbelievable work, Greg. Another masterpiece!

I love the research you're doing, Dick. By all means take a break if you need one for the time being, and wait for inspiration to strike again. You're not on a deadline with this, and it's supposed to be fun, not a slog. A fascinating build, though. Whether or not the prevailing academic theory regarding hulcs is correct, you're doing the physical research to show its practicality or otherwise, and I regard that as a very valuable addition to the sum total of knowledge in this area.

Yes, those nails are to hold the hatch doors together (the doors obviously have a wooden support structure the planks are nailed to), not to the sides of the hatch itself.

Looking good, Clare. Keep up the good work (when you get a moment to spare . . .)

The glue I used was supplied by the people I bought the [Edit] polycarbonate acrylic [/Edit] from, so presumably it's the right glue for the job. It's not superglue.

It's certainly different!

It's no criticism of the reconstruction itself - it's a good representation of a carrack - just rather later than Victoria. In fact it looks quite like this one from about 1530: Carracks in the roadstead of Zierikzee circa 1530 As I mentioned before, this was a time of considerable evolution in carrack design, and a matter of 10 or 20 years produced quite significant differences.

Eric, that's a nice reconstruction, but again, has features that make it too late for Victoria - in particular she has a flat stern, the aftercastle's too big and the sail plan incorporates features that didn't come into use till quite a few decades later - the thinness of the mainmast and the small size of the mainyard, the large size of the main topsail and the height of the foremast and presence of a foretop and fore topsail. All these things did come into use a little later, and she's a good example of a slightly later carrack, but they aren't appropriate for a ship of Victoria's likely build date.

Bradley, I've found [Edit] polycarbonate acrylic [/Edit] very good. Nice and light, and rigid so long as you do your gluing properly. But be cautious with the gluing - I got spots of glue on the [Edit] polycarbonate acrylic [/Edit] surface when I squeezed the air out of the (really thin!) nozzle as instructed, and drops of glue flew into the air and landed just where I didn't want them to. And once they're on the surface there's nothing you can do about it - trying to wipe the glue spots off just smears them and makes it worse. And if you squeeze too hard when applying the glue down the length of the joint it spreads out onto the surface instead of just staying within the join. I think it's mostly just a matter of practice, but forewarned is forearmed. You run the glue along the inside of the join and surface tension "pulls" it into the space between the two surfaces. It's really quite cool to watch. It doesn't take long to dry solid, either. I found one joint came apart a bit and had to be re-done. But once everything's successfully glued together it's light, strong and self supporting. Pretty cool! Making the first join is the hardest because you have to somehow hold everything together in exactly the right configuration while you're gluing. Once the first two panels are joined it becomes easier because they support the following panels.

Nice work, Eric, and a good research-based save. I like your oarports. Very attractive.

Beautiful crisp work, Lapinas. I like the fact that you've made your own wooden gun carriages to replace those provided in the kit. The "backside" would be called the transom, and the "captain's deck" would probably be best called the poop deck. But many of our modern terms for sailing ship parts weren't in use at the time Santa Maria was built (apart from the fact that they would have been Spanish words anyway).

Hmmm, on reflection and re-looking at my picture collection I realise I gave wrong advice in my previous post. Main topmasts and bowsprits were certainly in use by the mid-1460's and main topsails by the early 1480's, at least in larger ships. And I now recollect that the Santa Maria is recorded as having had a main topsail in 1492. However, the main topmast and topsail were quite tiny - you can see them in the pictures below - and the foremast is relatively small and never has a topmast or topsail. And no spritsail on the bowsprit. 1482 Grazioso Benincasa, Italy. Map detail 1490 From the Legend of St Ursula. Carpaccio, Venice, Italy. The Marisstella carrack might be worth bashing - the forecastle and aftercastle seem rather high, more typical of carracks from a little later, but that's something you could probably handle with some judicious kit-bashing. However, it does have a flat stern, which was (almost) unheard of for carracks in 1519. Roger, I printed off the sheet showing the surviving frames for the Newport ship, with the projected hull shape superimposed. Here's the sternmost surviving frame (F60), which as I understand it is the basis for the "flat stern" theory.: And here is the side view showing where F60 is (the sternmost vertical dotted line). And I have drawn a curved red line crossing the line of this frame at the point where it becomes concave - showing how a round carrack "tuck" could be fitted in without disturbing either the frame shape or the line of the planking. This line would also mean that the (missing) sternpost would be further forward than they have shown, making the ship somewhat shorter. By the way, I also have doubts about the concave waterline at the bow. That seems to fly in the face of all I know of treatises on shipbuilding of the time. And as the shapes of the timbers (presumably including the planking) had to be calculated compensating for the considerable deformation and flattening caused by the weight of soil above it, I don't know how much can be deduced from the shape shown in the picture - how much is reliable and how much (educated) guesswork?

The auction model is what they call a "decorator model", based on imagination and that's about all. The other looks pretty good, the hull shape is ok but probably a bit late in sail plan - it looks like the sail plan is based on a galleon rather than a carrack. More likely not to have topmasts or a bowsprit, and the mainsail and mainmast need to be huge. Is that 161 Euros and 16 cents? You could probably re-do the masts and sails to make it pretty close to right. But of course it's a generic carrack, not the Victoria, because nobody knows what she really looked like.

Just be aware that [Edit] polycarbonate acrylic [/Edit]has disadvantages as well - the main one is that it scratches easily, and if you get glue on the surface where it's not supposed to be, the surface goes "cloudy". But if you're careful enough (not like me!) this won't happen - but I found the glue sometimes spurts unexpectedly out of the nozzle of the tube of glue as you squeeze it. So take care!

Unbelievable! I just can't get over how real that looks!