Martes

View comparison of a 74 (Colossus) with a frigate (Liffey):

And if I am going to go over all the models and blacken the guns, I could, as well, fix a couple of other issues. The gunports on the open decks of the large ships were, unlike the frigates, painted bright red, and retrospectively that was a bad idea. So now I made them darker except the ones that should have lids because they are located inside a roundhouse:

Something I haven't noticed for a long time, and a somewhat painful stylistic decision. The guns, generally, were painted black and should not appear as bright metallic muzzles. Stylistic, because there are many paintings that have it either way. And painful, because it looks I will have to go over all the ships and darken them, just like I darkened the gun emplacement texture. But after a thorough consideration, it does look better.

To illustrate one of the small design decisions I had to make in the process of working on La Salamandre - remember, I said from the beginning I am going to modernize her to fit the style of ~1810: After a series of versions I settled on a single hawsehole on each cheek forward instead of the usual double set. This configuration is common to late/post-napoleonic head designs for small ships and keeping in mind that on the original the cables were worked through the forecastle railing, this leaves enough place for pleasantly and proportionally looking chase ports. And yes, this implies the internal arrangement is also somewhat different from the original, with flush deck and non-isolated forecastle, different arrangement of the capstans, etc. So now I have to finalize the decorations and make the mortar with it's well for the bombardment state. What remains here is settling the framing around the royal arms (I like the current version, but on decoration design plan it is different and I am not completely sure which I like better) making background panels on the counter, and then join and polish all the different parts from which the decoration set is assembled.

Lots of things are not finalized, textures, decorations, etc, but the she is already so lovely.

La Salamandre with added false keel (thanks to invaluable advice by @G. Delacroix ) and rudder protector.

@Frank Burroughs, it all very much depends what do you need the tool for. Blender and similar tools (Maya, 3DMax, etc) are suited creating computer game models and 3D printing, and, while everything they produces may look very pretty, it would never be exact, because down under it is still a polygonal extrapolation consisting of vertices connected with triangular faces. Various CAD software, on the other hand, can produce geometrically exact shapes. However, if you want to 3D print it afterwards, the model will still have to be converted to polygonal extrapolation, but the programs do that more or less automatically. The techniques of working with them are entirely different and require separate learning curves.

Thank you very much, Gerard!

Thanks, Gerard! So do I understand correctly: - when such a report was submitted, with a captain's request of adding a false keel because the ship is leewardly, the (Toulon) dockyard would most probably simply add ~15 cm parallel to the existing keel, and be done with it? - if the design was, for any reason, repeated a decade or two later, this additional false keel would be included, but the underwater shape of the cutwater forward would essentially remain the same?

Concerning the Salamandre, I asked a friend who knows French much better than myself to translate the handwritten report that is present in the book. And I was very surprised with the result. I half expected it to be very similar to the one for Etna I posted above, but... Which he translated as: The question (primarily for @G. Delacroix ) is therefore, how to add a correct false keel and gripe per French practice. The ship has relatively pronounced inclination aft, so adding a full false keel that is parallel to the original would increase the draft, which I am not sure would have been welcome. Tentatively, I looked at several contemporary ships after British refits (Embuscade, Unicorn series, which were copies of the privateer Tygre, the corvette Cygnet, ex-Guirlande), which usually did not extend the keel, but added a very dinstinctive gripe, and did the same: Another way I thought of was adding a triangular false keel that wouldn't increase the draught aft, but increase to certain degree the draught forward. And then there is always a possibility to add a full false keel similar to the Psyche, but at a cost of increasing overall draught: What would be the most correct here?

While I am procrastinating with the Salamandre, I did a couple of fixes for Liffey and Schpitzbergen, correcting the run of the deck aft on both, and replacing the boats with a slightly better placeholder models.

It is a point. The way I see it, she's about the size of the ships in the foreground, ~100 feet in length, and with comparable mast height. One of the first images google gives, of course I've seen it. But it's not comparable to the size of the depicted ship, nor the rig is close to proportion.

Thanks, I saw those small and early ones. What I am looking for are any depictions of very tall, modern-looking, schooners with gaffless triangular sails that can be with any confidence dated between 1750 and 1840.

Unfortunately, there is nothing decisive there as well. The examples given in the book show either small gaff, or divided sail, or sliding gunter (featured on Preble's gunboat), which is still separate from the mast. That's the closest, but still not that.

Thanks, I checked those books. Unfortunately, there is no indication for similar ships, again, before mid-19th century. Every example before features at least a small gaff above, or the sail is actually divided to two.

First of all, it is a watercolor, indeed, hence the transparency. And second I think I was misunderstood a little. It wasn't a question of what this rig is. And I didn't even say it's impossible to have at the time, but just extremely rare and therefore worth a bit of exploration. What I was interested in are any additional documentation or depictions of this exact type of Bermudan schooners earlier than 1830, because I can't find any. Especially with this ratio of ship length to height of the masts. And yes, it was a joke about the time traveling, but still, the ship that we see differs from even from the Bermuda schooner in the third post, having considerably longer masts for shorter hull, and implying a very different hull form with an extended keel.

There are, unfortunately, very little depictions of ships with this kind of rig from 18th or early 19th century. This is dated 1843 and it's the earliest I could find, with earlier images being closer to this: Continuous triangular sails are extremely rare. I don't say it's impossible, but very curious nevertheless. Also note the height of the masts and the sails on the original image.

https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-103243 View of Bridgtown and part of Carlisle bay in the Island of Barbadoes by Captain Edward Pelham Brenton, circa 1820 Was this type of rig already used? Because otherwise it looks kind of like a modern yacht

Oh, I know, but I just consider some scenarios if similar ship has survived or was built in 1800s. Quite like the model from Musee de la Marine.

Captain of the Etna wrote: In the three months that I sailed her, I found that she steered perfectly well, that she carried the sail sufficiently and waved in the wind. Its most advantageous course is the closest with a fresh wind, she rarely fails to tack, with the wind ahead, and loses very little when tacking, the movements are very gentle and the mast only tires by its extreme height. At least that's what Google translate gives me I think a similar description for the Salamandre may be present on page 63 of the book, but the text is in handwriting and it's very difficult to make out with my very rudimentary knowledge of French terminology.

@Lieste, I had some thoughts if I can substitute the 6pdr (French) guns on Salamandre with 32-pounder carronades - after all the battery is relatively low, the ship framing is very heavy, but the basic establishment for a bomb vessel was 24-pounder carronades. And there should be something on the upper deck - 12-pounder carronades, maybe. Do you have any information about how a French-built bomb ketch would behave under sail? Speeds, maneuverability? The book says Etna was quite handy, while the handling of most of the British ships of this class was very lamented.

You have a config file, that indicates the hull model, the textures (damage set, colour per country, if you want it to by dynamic), the positions of masts, sails and flags. For Constitution that would be something like 44gfrigate_us.cfg Then you have a database (usrships.cfg), where you set up named entries, that contain the ship's data, weapons, etc, and references the cfg file. When constructing a scenario in the editor you insert an entry from a database. Of course, you can add/remove/copy/edit database entries.

Each model is done in three paint schemes - yellow, white and red-with-narrow-white stripe. Then it's just a question of the config file selected for the ship in database. I just like the white better than others, so they feature on the screenshots mostly. What I didn't try is earlier variant, covering the upper bulwarks in blue or red with gold decals, but it seems a little bit too archaic.

A couple of screenshots underlining subtle differences between a "typical" French frigate and her "anglicized" version:

Reluctant as I am usually to post early images, allow me to present is my interpretation of the bomb vessel La Salamandre. She's still very much work in progress, and many details will are subject to change. The 998 (21 MG 32) model provided me with necessary justification of applying Napoleonic era style (which I, of course, intended to do anyway, but imagine my happiness when I discovered it was actually done by someone at that time!) and changes to the layout (flush decks, enclosed bow, solid bulwarks), and I intend to follow this model by replacing two fixed mortars with one rotating emplacement. She also differs from the book plan set in being based on the original Coulomb plan rather than on reconstructed one, for the main reason that the original plan was aligned to the waterline and I thought it would be much easier to use it than to make the model on even keel and then rotate it. My initial plan was to use rotated layout for the stern from the reconstructed set, but it turns out that - while it is certainly not the rule - in this particular case the decoration proposal for the ship fits the original plan very well, as if the designer was, in fact, familiar with the ship's plans and layout. This fit is even better than the reconstruction's, so I extended the purist approach and tried to apply the proposed stern design as is to the model. The difference is primarily in the height of the counters and arc of the taffrail. For the decorations (which are also far from finalized) I used elements from renderings of absolutely marvelous work by @Bernard Huc, with his kindest permission. When ready, the model will, probably, have at least three variants. First is the travel configuration, which you can see here. An installed foremast, the bomb well covered with deck and boats. The bombardment configuration will feature visible mortar and have the foremast and the boats removed, and finally a sloop configuration will be similar to the travel, but will instead have a full battery deck with 9 armed port pairs. All that, though, is still a long way off.