Martes

One could suppose that some Cromwellian rogues, but since 18 and 19 carry the same inscription it is more feasible that those were flags of the ships that switched over to William of Orange.

@Richard Endsor, thank you very much for looking in and welcome! Indeed, at this stage we used the 3D mesh to simply verify the feasibility of the hull and spot problematic places. And there are lots of them. The premise of this undertaking was the hope that, unlike later ships in 18th century, a ship of this period can be "recalculated", if a method of the design was determined, and utilizing @Waldemar's familiarity with period methods to reconstruct the profile and, eventually, the appearance of the ship. For London we know the most basic dimensions (Winfield, and it is a separate question of where he got them and if there is something more there) - the keel length, the breadth and depth in hold. Initially it was hoped to derive the missing dimensions of the ship - rake of the stem and the stern, room and space, distance between stations and the length of middle body from this set, however we soon understood it to be impossible due to the inconsistencies that plague these plans. My suggestion at that stage was to look at the closest reference we have - the 1650s model from RMG that is generally identified as the Antelope and while narrower is very close in size and time of construction to the London. We have photos of the model and some measurements in the Franklin book, including measured parameters of the stem, stern and R&S, however it is not entirely clear how they would relate to those on the London, which is only slightly longer, but considerably wider. I suppose it would be of enormous help if there were lines taken off that model, but I am unaware of such a set in existence.

And it was first rate intel then. Also that the real lion's share is dedicated to midshipmen (pages and pages of them!) is understandable given their relative numbers, but still very funny.

And that's done as well. https://modelshipworld.com/topic/33926-album-of-drawings-of-cannons-and-mortars-from-archive-of-peter-the-great/

Album of drawings of cannons and mortars Mostly mortars, but I spotted at least one naval gun.

Eugen @greenstone, I can't express enough thanks for pointing us to those documents.

I wonder what Gerard would say.

Browsing the same folder, I saw two very interesting documents relating to Sweden (naval articles and a general report on the country) and a book on French naval signals (all for 1690s), but they are written in more elaborate and dense font and are slightly more difficult to read.

Done! https://modelshipworld.com/topic/33925-the-state-of-the-french-navy-july-1st-1691/

The state of the French Navy, July 1st, 1691 Another absolutely incredible document, listing all the ships, the organization and the officers of the French Navy down to midshipmen. Written in Russian, but otherwise very easily readable.

Album of drawings of cannons and mortars Mostly mortars, but I spotted at least one naval gun

The state of the French Navy, July 1st, 1691 Another absolutely incredible document, listing all the ships, the organization and the officers of the French Navy down to midshipmen. Written in Russian, but otherwise very easily readable.

What a find! The language is very official and lively at the same time. I wonder if he really spoke like that.

Stem posts, hm.

I have posted some here: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/29046-plans-from-russian-state-historical-museum/ https://modelshipworld.com/topic/24626-plans-found-in-hermitage-collection-st-petersburg/ There is a lot to do with identification of many of those plans.

The document may have been brought to Russia in 1695. Absolutely fantastic find.

Convenient to fix a towing cable for example. Or pass two cables in parallel. It's something that usually gets lost now, but operating a sailing ship (and especially sailing warship at the time) reminds this old game more than anything else About the gunports. I meant to say, they should have a cant so you can - potentially - fix the lids there and the lids would not fall into the port.

The second variant of the line of breadth aft looks more natural, I'd say. And corresponding to the forward part.

Ships belonging to some periods may be considered more handsome than others, although it ultimately would be a function of personal preference. However, there is something in the English architecture of precisely mid-17th century, a style that disappeared afterwards. At least I fell in love with this model the moment I saw it's photos.

She gets incredibly lovely.

I meant lids on the stern ports. The side ports would usually have no lids, as they are useful for draining excess water, same as on ships of other classes that did not have lids on most of the upper deck ports. Later, circa 1820-30 style would introduce half-ports to brigs, but that's really later, and usually lower halfs. And curiously enough they opened up and were, I assume, removable:

https://modelshipworld.com/topic/33641-location-of-bell-on-a-cutter/ for some ideas. Probably some makeshift stand forward, or, if you would go for a flying forecastle, between it's supports. Nothing more concrete at the moment.

I only said it should be verified to be possible. The chase guns on the brig were usually 9-pounders (although there were cases of long 24s (!) fitted). They were, by default, mounted at the bow, but not at chase positions. There was a long, international discussion about how the poop and the flying forecastle obstruct the use of chase guns, providing very little head room, etc., but on the other hand they were useful for sail tending and provided some degree of protection from weather, which was kind of critical in long commissions. This discussion went well into 1840's and ended with the end of the age of sail practically. Anyway, the sailing ship is not a fixed structure, and if there was a real need to fire astern, a way could be found. So if you needed to really, really fire astern, you could remove the deckhouse partitions (they should have been removed anyway when the ship went to quarters, but just in case), unship the tiller, pass the control of the rudder to those chains via ropes overside (this works for the situation), bring the gun from the front of the ship, and fire. It is unlikely that you can position both guns there and fire (and reload) them both, but that would depend on how desperate the situation is, I guess. And then, if it works out, get everything back. Another thing is that the ports should be able to be closed. I am not sure there were permanent lids fitted (most likely not), but, again, there is a number of situations when you could want them to be shut with something. She still rides very high, as if underloaded

Look between gunports 2 and 3 down. You also can give some more curve and volume to the quarter galleries, they look somewhat flatter than they should be. Everything else looks more or less plausible. The difference between 4th rate and 3rd is in size and number of gunports, architecturally they are practically identical (unless you go for a flush-deck version of a 44). Frigates were in the 5th rate There are a lot of high-res plans at wikimedia commons.

A small clarification of what I meant. If the blue line goes towards the keel at a certain angle, the red should not curve outwards. It should be either straightly tangent to the last segment of the blue, or even slightly concave, if in the lower part of the hull, and it's rather the blue segment should be slightly curved to ensure the red hits the intersection with the keel.