trippwj

Here is the link to the painting: http://prints.rmg.co.uk/art/496525/american-corvette

A Captain in the Royal Navy. 1804. Observations and Instructions for the Use of the Commissioned, the Junior, and Other Officers of the Royal Navy, on All the Material Points of Professional Duty: Including Also, Forms of General and Particular Orders for the Better Government and Discipline of His Majesty’s ships..With an Appendix ; Being a Complete Set of Forms for Watch, Station, and Quarter Bills for Ships of War. Printed for P. Steel. http://books.google.com/books?id=eVwMAQAAMAAJ. A very interesting document. Here is the TOC: I found this next piece quite enlightening - the stations for the men during mooring or unmooring. Note the number on the capstan bars for a 44 gun ship!

For a look at rigging during the late 18th early 19th century, including the how's and why's of it, you can't do much better than Lever, D. 1853. The Young Sea Officer’s Sheet Anchor; Or, A Key to the Leading of Rigging, and to Practical Seamanship (American Edition). E. & G.W. Blunt. https://books.google.com/books?id=HmJJAAAAYAAJ. While he is contemporary and not modern, he is readable and very detailed. Others, such as the Swan Class book and the Petersson books are fantastic but very specific to a type of ship. Lee's and Marquardt are amazingly detailed but cover such a broad period and array of vessels it can get confusing. Combined, those are good modern additions to the library for anyone interested in rigging ship models. Here are some sample pictures from Lever.

Congratulations, Bob - this is surely a model to be proud of! A most beautiful result and a quite educational build as well.

I have always found this from Gen. Eisenhower to be so very true: “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

Maybe this one? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Gault

Any clue as to the age of the model? very nice model, but unless somewhat contemporary (18th or early 19th century), it is just one builders best guess at what she looked like. This model looks much newer than that.

Following are notes on the Pennsylvania and the Santisima Trinidad in the Humphreys notebook (date to sometime after 1829) Dimensions of the Santissima Trinidad, Spanish three decker – in English measure. Length between perpendiculars 204 feet 9 inches, beam moulded 54 feet Tonnage of Ship of the Line Pennsylvania Made out for Comm Stewart- June 1829 Keel for Tonnage Custom House Measurement 183 feet Beam for Do Do Do 57 ft 9 Burthen in tons Custom House Measurement 3212 18/95 (say 3241 tons corrected tonnage) Burthen in Tons Sheer carpenters (old) measurement 2940 83/95 Tons Length between perpendiculars from the aft side of Rabbet of Stem to fore side of Rabbet of post at crossbeam 210 feet Deduct Thickness of apron & Transom 3 feet 6 inches will leave the length of Gun deck 206 feet 6 inches. Length of Spar Deck 220 feet 8 inches Tread of the deck. Length between perpendiculars 210 feet Beam moulded 56 ft 9 Depth of Hold 22 ft 3 Length of Keel Carpenters tonnage 173 feet 6 inches Beam Do Do 56 feet 9 inches

Bill - Found your build log!

Check out the scratch build of the Annie M. Parker by Canoe21 (Lawrence) - there may be some ideas there.

I concede the older, but respectfully decline to accept any insinuation of wiser!!! In terms of seeking out information on some of these, the Pennsylvania Historical Society in Philly is a good starting point - they have the Humphreys' archives and others, including (I think) those from Marion Brewington. The Peabody Essex Museum has a very nice archive, among others, related to the early years of the Navy in the US. As the Ol' frolicky one mentioned, the National Archives has quite the collection, as does the Naval Academy. The Mystic Seaport Library is more focused on merchant shipping, but also has some fantastic materials on the shelves. Most of what I have come up with is internet sourced - amazing amount of information there, it just takes some digging to get to it! Archive.org and Google Books are amazing repositories, as is the Hathitrust website.

Charlie - You may want to peruse the plans presented in Knox, Dudley, ed. 1945. Register of Officer Personnel United States Navy and Marine Corps and Ships’ Data 1801–1807. Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers. U.S. Government Printing Office. http://www.ibiblio.org/anrs/docs/E/E3/nd_barbarywars_register_shipdata.pdf.

Interesting topic, sir. There could be some spiritted discussion here. Let me start by suggesting that, even in Great Britain, it was not the norm to show the stern decoration on the plans. The level of detail and type of carving would be included in the written specification documents, and then only in general terms. The builder did what he felt was appropriate within cost. The plans were to build by, not to record what the ship looked like, in the US. Next up - the dirth of documentary records, and some possible sources.

Very nice! If interested, it is also available as a PDF at Google: https://books.google.com/books?id=1UcOAAAAQAAJ

Looking sweet, Denis. Not sure if you saw the build by Gene Bodnar over at MSB http://www.modelshipbuilder.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?4038.20 His was a tiny bit larger than yours... "This ship doesn't look all that large in these photos, but it's 71.5" long on 1:144 scale"

Well, not much progress to report, but have brought the Harriet Lane back to the table and gotten some detail rigging underway. Thus far, have finished most of the braces and the main sheet. Next up some clean up, then the catheads are calling for attention.

First layer of paint on the hull (all painting done by Cricket, though I did the masking for her). Next step is a light sanding and then another coat of black. Will then re-mask and Tiger (her 10 year old brother) has asked if he can do the lower hull. Not period accurate, but will go with a hull red bottom painting rather than copper sheathing for this one.

Not much of an update, but have not been totally slacking! The deck beams have all been installed, as well as the covering board. With additional helpers here, we have done some preliminary work on the building slip (the 2 young ones, 8 & 10, think it is fun to be able to spread glue and sprinkle cleaned beach sand for the base). Next step is to start planking the hull (and adding details to the building slip).

FYI, there are no pictures of drawings in the article. There are only a few models identified specifically - this is more a narrative concerning how they came into the possession of the US Naval Academy, the history of the collection and the provenance of the items.

Greetings, one and all. We have visitors here for the summer, including my grand daughter Cricket (aka Kimber, but Cricket will suffice). Some of you may remember her from a couple of years back assisting with my Harriet Lane build (see the post here for a "then" view http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/48-harriet-lane-by-trippwj-model-shipways-1144-scale/?p=747). Well, after landing here in Maine late last night, then driving the 2.5 hours to our home, she asked if she could help build a ship model. Well, since none of the ones I am working on are at a stage where she could dig in, I offered her the opportunity to build her own ship model. She accepted, and has begun work on a Phantom that has already had the hull shaped by her uncle. Rechristened the Elsa, she is now underway! So, here is where we are as of just now: Hull faired, she has sanded it thoroughly and just applying the primer. I am hoping to keep her interested and moving along on this build - we have 6 weeks to get some good progress done!

The Dallas was actually named for Alexander Dallas (1759-1817), who served as Secretary of the Treasury under President James Madison beginning in 1814 (the Revenue Marine and latter Revenue Cutter Service were a part of the Treasury Department at the time). Dallas succeeded in his efforts to establish the Second Bank of the United States, which was chartered by Congress in 1816. He retired the year after the new bank was organized.

These may not provide an answer, but they may steer you to further information: Middleton, W.E.K. 1973. Giovanni Alfonso Borelli on the Construction of Galleys. The Mariner’s Mirror 59, no. 1: 3–8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00253359.1973.10657869. Renn, J., and M. Valleriani. 2001. Galileo and the Challenge of the Arsenal. Preprint 179, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. presented at the Letture Galileiane, Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza. http://echo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/content/shipbuilding/venice_arsenal/lettura_gal_html/LetturaGal.html?backLink=http%3A%2F%2Fecho.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de%2Fcontent%2Fshipbuilding%2Fvenice_arsenal&startLink=lettura_gal_html%2FLetturaGal.html%3FbackLink%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fecho.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de%252Fcontent%252Fshipbuilding%252Fvenice_arsenal. I need to go back and figure out where I found these next 2 drawings:

Agree with Dave - the only constraint would be the proximity of appropriate timbers to the shipyard. It would of necessity be within fairly small distances (at most tens of kilometers) and most likely less. There are some interesting studies out there looking at dendrology of ship timbers (archeological stuff). See, for example, Loewen, B. 2000. Forestry Practices and Hull Design, Ca. 1400-1700. In Fernando Oliveira E O Seu Tempo. Humanismo E Arte de Navegar No Renascimento Europeu (1450-1650), ed. F.C. Domingues, 143–151. Patrimonia. https://www.academia.edu/5766940/Forestry_practices_and_hull_design_ca._1400-1700.

Thanks, Druxey. Pondering the implications - we know Baker is said to have shown waterlines on many of his drawings - but not certain the method used to determine. Perhaps they were as in this example - the maximum draught of water is based on shape, and then the weight of the vessel fully outfitted is limited by that depth. In other words, you may want 28 guns, but to stay above this point you may only have 20. Given that Mungo Murray (1754), while discussing the more scientific methods used by Duhamel du Monceau, spends a great deal of ink discussing whole moulding - similar to the approach discussed in the 1620 manuscript above. This would result in determining the swimming line based on sweeps rather than on any predetermined displacement (weight/volume relationship). Perhaps, and this is still only a hypothesis, the swimming line (load water line) on many of the early plans were either (1) post construction or (2) desired, based on the whole moulding design method. The total weight was restricted post-construction to remain within the design criteria, rather than the design criteria based on the intended weight?

I was able to obtain a copy of Salisbury, W, and R. C Anderson, eds. 1958. A Treatise on Shipbuilding: And a Treatise on Rigging, Written about 1620-1625. Occasional Publication No. 6. London: Society for Nautical Research. Here is the method described for laying out the midship bend and determining the swimming line (see the Figure 1 attached below from the document for the points of interest). Breadth – 36’ Depth = 15’ 6” Draw parallelogram ABCD A-B = 36’ A-C and B-D = 15’ 6” Floor KG= 1/2 the half the difference between depth and breadth = 10’ 3” Wrong Head Sweep (GN) radius (LG, LN) = 1/3 the depth and the difference between depth and breadth added together = 9’ 8” Sweep of Breadth or Naval Timbers (BO) radius (MB) = 15:19 of the Wrong Head Sweep = 7’ 8” Futtock Sweep (ON) radius (PN, PO) is 21’ 8”. Point P found by taking an arc from M and L. The desired swimming line, then, is the point where a line from P to M extended out crosses the sweep at O to the outside of the planking. The height above the baseline (CD) is the draught of water. Care should be taken by the master to never load the vessel such that she sits below that level. My next step is to compare this with Barker, R. 1994. A Manuscript on Shipbuilding, Circa 1600, Copied by Newton. The Mariner’s Mirror 80, no. 1: 16–29 and with Barker, R. 1985. Fragments From The Pepysian Library. Revista Da Universidade de Coimbra XXXII: 161–178 to see how the methods relate. Then it is on to Sutherland and Mungo Murray. Thoughts?