Kenchington

Last year, I got to drive 12-inch bronze carriage bolts lengthwise through 4-inch square teak sheet bits. The bits were glued from separate halves (4 by 4 teak being unobtainable here), so I started the bolt holes on the router table, making half-round grooves before gluing, then cleaned them up with an auger bit before trying to get the bolts through. It was still terrifying! What if the bolts stuck when half way through? There would be no way to get them out again. Fortunately, with the right lubricant and the capability to screw the bolts through, all went OK. But compare that to the drift bolts (no screw threads) that MacKay's men drove! Worse, consider Great Western, the first of the big purpose-built Atlantic steamers. She had four rows of iron bolts driven fore-and-aft through her floors and futtocks, the bolts in each row overlapping one another. Each bolt was 1.5 inches in diameter and 24 feet long. How on Earth did they bore the holes precisely enough to be sure that the bolts would not bind long before they were driven home? Come to that, how do you pound the end of a 24 ft bolt with a sledge hammer and drive it into its hole, without the exposed part of the bolt bending? And yet the job was done. Trevor

Sorry, ClipperFan, but I don't agree that the published dimensions are inconceivable. I'm not saying that they were correct, just that they could have been correct. A 46-inch total depth of keel, with 7-inch thick garboards and 39 inches of the keel outside those garboards would mean that the floors sat flush across the top of the keel. That wasn't the universal way of building a wooden ship but it was one way. The other option was to notch the floors so that they hung over the sides of the keel as far as the inboard edge of the rabbet (either of which options could have the added complication of a deadwood between keel and floors). Notching the floors meant starting with a very deep, very expensive piece and then cutting away strength where it was most needed, so there was a major incentive to lay the floors flat on top of the keel, if that could be arranged without either critical weaknesses in the structure or extra costs elsewhere. Note that the published report says that the garboards were through-bolted (each bolt passing through both garboards, edgewise, and the keel between). Thus, there was no need for solid timber to take fastenings driven from outboard, through the garboard and into the keel -- though I don't doubt that the garboards were trunnelled (from outboard) to the floors, which themselves were bolted to keel and keelson. Then again, all those copper bolts will have been expensive, not to mention the labour for boring the bolt holes and driving the bolts. Trevor

March ("Sailing Trawlers") detailed what was lashed to what else in the smacks of the early 20th Century (i.e. several decades after Ranger) but said nothing of what knots were used. His photographs are not clear enough to deduce how things were tied. Ashley (with a focus on practices aboard larger vessels) gives three alternatives: his #2119, #2120 & #2121. All of them require an eye of some kind in the end of the boat gripe (the strap, sennet or other broad material that contacts the boat without digging in to its gunwales). The lanyard is attached either to that eye or else to the ringbolt in the deck, then a bight of it is led through the other of those, the free end passed through the bight, forming a crude tackle, and heaved tight. The end is secured with a half-hitch or two, often slipped so that the boat can be freed swiftly when needed. I'd not want to suggest how to replicate that at 1:64. The simple thing would be to tie off at the ringbolt with a round turn and two half hitches, but that wouldn't look much like the full-size version. You could try a trucker's hitch: Tie an overhand loop in the rope at about the right spot, pass the free end through the ringbolt, then through the loop just tied and tighten up. (It's a brutal way to abuse rope but that's not much of a concern in a model.) Trevor

I don't think so. What looks to have been the upper edge of the angled strip is still p[resent and outside the lower edge of the plates on the garboard. Could be. I was looking at: I think that's one of the staples (is that the right term?) holding the false keel. The copper plate on the side of the keel looks to be overlying the staple, while there seems to be a break in the nailed strip along the lowest edge of the keel, where the staple passes. But, even if I am interpreting the image correctly, the bottom of the keel could have been coppered, then a rabbet cut (so that the staple would lie flush) into keel and false keel, cutting through the copper in the process, with the coppering of the side of the keel following. There's probably multiple other examples along the surviving keel remains, so whoever is working on the material may be able to figure out the sequence. Trevor

Thank you for those images! I think they will help lot of us. Back in the day, I and many others picked over the wreck of the frigate Tribune -- ex-French but captured, refitted and in RN service when lost while entering Halifax in 1797. I think (though I'm not certain) that I have some bits of her copper kicking around, if anyone wants measurements of distances between nail holes or the like. Interesting that Braak had the nails in the midst of each plate set at the corners of squares, rather than diamond fashion. It's been a long time since I paid much attention to the detail but I remember a diamond arrangement as normal. Maybe I'm wrong on that or perhaps there was a change over the decades. That's how it looks to me. Yet the narrow strip is gone, presumably from being more vulnerable to long-term corrosion. I wonder whether bending it to fit the angle between keel and garboard introduced micro fractures, which then promoted corrosion. Or perhaps the narrow strip came from a different batch of copper and electrolysis across the dissimilar metals attacked it. Yes, it looks that way. And the copper on the keel seems to cover the (bronze?) staple that held the false keel, where that lay across the keel but not where it lay on the false keel, so the copper plate was presumably trimmed around the staple. Yet that would mean that the false keel was in place when the coppering was done, so the edge of the lowest plate would have been pushed in, between keel and false keel, then nailed. A detail I would never have guessed! Always good to learn something new every day 🙂 Trevor

There's an embarrassing story to that one. For one thing, it was supposed to be the first of a series, each exploring one of the English texts. Then I found paying work in my own field and never did get the second paper finished. The one manuscript that I did submit was a complex tangle, as any account of shipwrightry must be. I was expecting to get an amended typescript back from the editor, after which I could find a third set of words that would express my meaning, while accepting his amendments to my poor expression. Instead, he went straight to typesetting and sent me proofs of a paper, with all of his amendments incorporated -- amendments which made the text much easier to read but introduced many, many technical errors. I had to scribble suggested changes into the margins. I was so disappointed that I have never been able to face reading through the published version to see what was finally produced, whether unreadable, wrong or both! I'd like to be able to offer copies of my original submitted text but I doubt that anything of that vintage is readable with modern software versions. As for Pepys: You are probably familiar with the published version of the so-called "Admiralty Manuscript" from the 1620s. When Salisbury edited that for publication, he was confronted with a difficult manuscript and made an excellent job of correcting problems and inserting missing words. Back in the 1990s, I was in regular contact with David Roberts (translator and publisher of Boudriot's books). Around that time, he was looking through the library at a large country house in England (a still-private collection) and came across what at first seemed to be two unknown manuscripts of shipwrightry. On closer inspection, he saw that they were versions of the "Admiralty Manuscript", so he photocopied them and was kind enough to send me copies. I never completed the task but I started on a three-way comparison of the versions. It was immediately clear that the problems confronting Salisbury resulted from phonetic spellings by clerks who did not understand the technicalities. I could not be sure whether all three versions were produced at the same time but they were very obviously created by one person reading an original (perhaps the now-lost 1620s manuscript), while another (or others) wrote out copies of the dictated words. I forget the details now but at least one version had the initials of the man who wrote it out and they corresponded to one of Pepys known assistants. My guess is that Pepys (who took his position on the Navy Board much more seriously than many another did) gathered what old manuscripts he could get his hands on, while also persuading Deane to write out the then-modern design methods, the better to understand ships and shipbuilding. I like to think of the man himself reading a borrowed anonymous manuscript aloud, while his clerks made a copy for Pepys own collection and perhaps others for presentation to patrons. In contrast, Pepys seems to have acquired Baker's papers, so the originals survive amongst his other material (now in Cambridge), rather than copies. All that was likely in the 1670s (late '60s to mid '80s, anyway), when Baker's work was already nearly a century old -- hence "ancient" to Pepys, though to us innovative new ideas of the very late 16th Century! Trevor

I'm in the same boat, though I my case I wish for translations into English. However, before anyone could translate them, somebody would need to understand them well enough to bring them into modern Spanish, Portuguese, French, English, Dutch, German, Danish, Swedish or whatever, with accompanying explanations of the meaning meaning. Then someone else would need sufficient understanding of modern technical German, English or whichever language is wanted, on order to make the translation. However by that point, we are left delving into somebody's modern interpretation and not the original at all. Trevor

Waldemar, When I got drawn into nautical archaeology (as an amateur in the field), 40 years and more ago now, most professionals working on Post-Medieval sites did not look at the ship-structures under their eyes any more carefully than to (mis)interpret the material in terms of a supposed (but largely erroneous) notion of 19th-Century practice. To read the reports of that era, you would have supposed that the approaches used in the last English shipyards that built in wood had somehow been adopted, fully-formed, when carvel construction reached Northern Europe from the Mediterranean. Some actually declared that there had been no change at all though those centuries. Archaeologists trained in the typology of potsherds did not readily grapple with the subtleties of shipwrightry and preferred to ignore the principal artefacts lying on their sites. I'm glad to say that that has changed over time. Study of the shape of ships has evolved along a similar but somewhat different course. It's not something that can be easily approached through surviving wreck structure, because of the distortions in the available material as well as the difficulty of gathering precise data while working underwater. So it is more in the province of the historian than the archaeologist, though each should learn from the other, if they could but bridge the disciplinary divides. And yet historians struggle with the subject too. We have only obscure writings, in older forms of (modern) languages, using archaic mathematical concepts and notation, which would challenging a modern engineer. Yet understanding those writings needs skills (and patterns of thought) more associated with engineering than with the humanities. In short, recovering knowledge of "ancient shipwrightry" (to borrow Pepys' term!) needs a collaborative approach, spanning disciplines, with flexibility of thought and a willingness to learn -- none of which comes easily to academics, who are necessarily immersed in their own disciplines. I like to think that amateurs, able to dip a toe into each discipline equally, have something to contribute, though they (we: for I am one) have to have the humility to listen to specialist experts, and that's a rare gift too. Doubly rare in a world where books and television "documentaries" get promoted by the notion that an outsider can see what the insiders have missed (reassuring the lazy reader or viewer that they themselves need not study, as everything taught by school or university is wrong anyway, while the "truth" is excitingly different). I no longer have time to keep up with the literature on nautical archaeology, but I think we are all moving forward together and slowly recovering understanding of secrets long lost. I'm no longer making active contributions but, from what I have seen through this thread, your work is making a valuable contribution to the progress! Trevor

Knots for stoppers not to be confused with stopper knots! Nautical English ought to be a model for clarity in technical communication but it is knot not 😎 Trevor

The figure-of-eight is the modern recreational sailor's standard stopper knot, often used at the end of some piece of running rigging to prevent it unreeving through blocks or fairleads. But, while I would not argue with Ashley's statement that it is less likely to jam than an overhand knot, it can still be awkward to release if pulled up tight. I wonder whether your leech and buntlines were secured by stopping the loose end to the standing part, forming a temporary loop with the sheave of the last block caught in that loop. It would only need a few turns of a scrap of marline, tied off like a crude, quick version of a seizing. Then it could be released with a simple knife-cut through the twine. However, that would be a painful way to rig a model, so go with stopper knots instead! Trevor

My guess, and it really is not much more than a guess, is that Sovereign's halfdeck (if I can call it that: The first step up above the waist) did not extend aft beyond the portion exposed to the sky. The next step up (to what might be called the quarterdeck) was not man-high (as is clearly shown in the Morgan drawing and the Payne engraving), so there was no space for anyone standing on a covered portion of the halfdeck beneath the quarterdeck. If I am right, then the space under the quarterdeck was extra high, from upper deck to the quarterdeck beams. When she lay in the Thames for King Charles to visit, that extra-high space would have provided a dramatic lobby, likely with a staircase leading to the upper stateroom and doors opening directly to the lower stateroom. At sea, the same high space would have provided for working the whip-staff, with its rowle set in the upper deck. Lifting off one of the quarterdeck gratings would then have given the helmsman a direct view of the weather leeches of the main tops'l and t'ga'n's'l (if that was set) -- which is what he needed to fix his eye on when steering by the wind. Contrary to some recent claims by people who should know better, it is sure that the tiller port was just under the upper deck beams. Combining Heywood's account of the decorations he had designed for the ship with the view of her stern in the Peter Pett portrait leaves no doubt of that whatever. And a tiller under the upper-deck beams means that the rowle had to be set in the upper deck. Trevor

Two thoughts: Beware other people's drawings of knots. The "Fig 51A" that you posted looks nice but it shows a rope with only one end -- an impossibility. I'll guess that what was meant was that the roband was to be spliced to the sail, leaving a single free end, but (if so) it's not clear where the splice lies, so hard to copy the knot. Also, a roband (or a lacing, come to that) should be made of much thinner stuff than the boltrope on the sail, with strength (in full-size practice) from either multiple robands or multiple turns around the spar. If you make the robands out of thicker cordage, you'll have chunky knots and you won't get the boltrope tight against the spar. Trevor

Yes, I think that's a big part of the story. Half-a-century before, there would have been men aboard deep-water sailing ships whose roots in other regions were in the coasting trades. They would have carried good ideas back home. After 1900, deep-water sail was almost done (not completely before 1939, of course, and not quite entirely even after 1945), so a new innovation in the Bass Strait region would not have reached, for example, the topsail schooner fleet that still operated in England at that point. Not so sure about the speed thing, though. You have quoted: But that's to make the sail-handling quicker (important when racing), not to make the boat go faster. Maybe there were times when swift handling of boom tackles mattered on a trading schooner. (Working through the channel at Port Philip Heads, perhaps?) But I'd wonder whether the concern wasn't more about making do with one less man aboard and saving on labour costs. Trevor

Thank you for posting all of this great information, Waldemar! If you are coming to an end, I must start over and try to assimilate everything you have offered. However, I still get the feeling that I am missing the foundations of your conclusions. Are there earlier threads in which you developed your arguments? Trevor

And interesting that a specific development (i.e. permanently rigging a pendant for the boom tackles outboard) should have spread so widely in its local area without being picked up by the operators of similar vessels in other regions. That must say something about the flow of ideas, locally and across distance, but I'd need another mug of coffee before figuring out quite what it tells us 😎 Trevor