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Ian McLaughlan

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Everything posted by Ian McLaughlan

  1. Good morning everybody, well at least it is morning here in Blighty. Thank you for your comments on the business of the Sloop of War. The principal publisher of nautical books in the UK is Seaforth, who are an imprint of Pen and Sword. Apparently books on the age of sail are not as commercially viable as they one were, at least in this Country though probable not in the USA. Were a publisher in the USA to be interested in a follow on volume then the first action would be to sketch out the main sections of the book and then find an author to take each one on. This could of course be a publisher's nightmare. Over the period we are dealing with several different countrties were deploying small warships, which could loosely be described as Sloops of War. For example: the American Colonies seeking independance, the French with their brigs, cutters and privateers, the Spanish, The USA and UK again with their privateers and all the states bordering the Baltic. The privateers are an essential part of this story, for instance those captured by the RN from the USA and France/Spain were commissioned into the RN and rated as sloops. for example "Rattlesnake and Prince de Nieuchatel. Thus there would be a mountain of information to master in order to produce a worthwhile volume. From my particular angle as an elderly marine painter there would be a lot of illustration, although more paintings are available for this period than there were for the earlier one. All in all a quite daunting prospect and one which any publisher would need tyo consider very carefully.
  2. Charlie, as far as we know the Salvini plans were discovered well after Davis published his book so we have to accept that the Salvini Plan B's similarity to Davis' plan is pure coincidence. And there the matter rests unless someone else finds some new facts. The brig in Steele is certainly very like a Cruizer class Brig. I must investigate and compare. Ian.
  3. Charlie, good morning. I have the two plans in front of me. The differences would appear to be that Davis' model has a more pronounced sheer line than the Cruizer. The waterlines are similar in the run of both but Cruizer has a finer entry below the load waterline. Davis' model has greater deadrise to her midships sections though both have similar drag to their keels. It is a pity that the buttock - bow lines are not shown on the Cruizer plan I have here as they would provide a useful comparison. I could of course plot them from the information already on the plan but do not have the time right now. Also I need to check the length to breadth ratio. I have to say that I find much more similarity between the Davis plan and Salvini Plan B than I do between it and the Cruizer plan. That similarity may of course be pure coincidence. Ian.
  4. Druxey, I may be wrong but the Salvini plan A also has station lines shown at right angles to the waterline, which is wrong, but the Salvini plan B has them shown correctly at right angles to the keel. Strange! Ian.
  5. For Druxey. I am a bit confused by your remarks about the Salvini plans. Plan B is the one that interests me. The station lines shown vertical and at right angles to the keel on the elevation plan are correct practice and correspond to the sections shown on the body plan. The waterlines are also drawn correctly as parallel to the load waterline. So I can see nothing wrong with Salvini Plan B. Am I teaching Grandmother to suck eggs or have I got it all wrong?! It may be that we have different terminology on this side of the 'Pond'. For Charlie Zardoz. I have had a good look at the lines of our Cruizer class brigs in that lovely book 'Modelling the Irene' and find that here are some considerable differences in hull shape so I guess that Davis, being a naval architect, just drew his own lines adding a bit of British and a bit of American together. Anyhow his model has the sweetest lines. Keep going. Ian.
  6. I take the point about the similarity to the cruiser class brigs of the early 1800s. Interestingly enough my first reaction on looking at Davis' plan was that it did look a bit British! However there is a considerable difference in profile. That said the body plan looks similar. I will do some comparisons. The idea of Davis using a British brig as an example is interesting, but I am doubtful that he would go to our National Maritime Museum rather than use a USN authority. I will be having a closer look at Vixen and Salvini Plan A. I did note that there was a considerable difference in LBR between that plan and the Davis draft. I am afraid that Davis' book made me angry in that giving the name of Lexington was utter speculation totally unsupported by research. As a result there are kit manufacturers and a mass of model makers, including Donald McNarry who have been fooled into building a model that is not what it says it is. I think that all that can be said of his model is that it is a USN armed schooner c. 1800 very similar in form and dimensions to the armed schooner Enterprise before she was rebuilt and lengthened. Funnily enough you mentioned HM Sloop Wolf. I am building an earlier incarnation of her launched in 1754. Keep going, I am enjoying this stream!
  7. This is a late comment on the subject of the Enterprize but I have been trying to relate plans that are in a book by Charles G. Davis, 'The Built up Ship Model', published first in 1933, with those of the Salvini Plan B. Davis labels the subject of his book as the Lexington of 1776, however we know that his model is not the Lexington; the Lexington looked totally different. However I was struck by the similarity between Davis' model and the Salvini Plan B so having brought the relevant drafts to the same scale I superimposed them and found that the body plan was almost identical, that the profile held true and that the rake of stem and stern post was the same. Also the length to breadth ratio was close with the Salvini Plan B being very slightly longer than the Davis draft. I did not expect them to match perfectly due to the lengthening of the vessel. The strange thing is why did Davis' label his model as Lexington and how did he come to make a draft so similar to Salvini Plan B. Many model makers have been hoaxed into naming this model Lexington, but given the evidence that this stream has brought forward, perhaps they should change the name of their models to Enterprize III. An image of the Davis model is attached as are the superimposed plans.Davis-EB_comparison[11862]
  8. I am a new member and based in UK. My main interest is in the Sloop of War about which I have had a book published (Seaforth Publishing 2014). I am also interested in and make models of these small warships. I am an amateur marine artist and cover sloops within this subject. The book, "The Sloop of War 1650 - 1763" was reviewed favourably by NRG in 2014. it is my intention to write a follow on volume, which will deal with the period covering the American war of Independence, the wars against France, the War of 1812 and the ending of the Slave Trade and unlike the first volume which dealt with the development of British and French sloops of war, it will cover the vast contribution made to the design of these ships by the United States.

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