NAZGÛL

Thanks for the comments! jbshan, I'd prefer to get a look that feels right then think out the decks from that result. I plan to have the weatherdeck in different heigths, the middle part lower. Here is a crude line up, nothing detailed or final.

Nigel and Jan, I also heard that the ships decks would follow the wales curvature at this time, like Vasa has. Stronger hull, but horrible for the boatsmen handling havy cannons... Glad for your tips though!

Cheers Zeh, I'll check that out!

Here is my try to combine the gunports from A to the proportions of B. Aren't the gunports rather close to the water?

/Matti

I started to look at paintings by Vroom, De Veldes and Willaerts to see how they portrait  the ships. And I found none (!) with the gun ports like the way I based my sketches on. They all have them on a lower deck (at least from how I can interpret them).  That together with your advices earlier made me decide to get back to make a new drawing with guns on a lower deck.

Still the above pinass drawing above has that high up cannons setup, and I think the Berlin and Papegojan models share that design, and the Kalmar Nyckel replica. Am I missing something here? 

/Matti

Thanks for the suggestions guys! Wayne, that book seems really great!

jbshan, I imagined the bottom wale at the pinass would look kind of like how the Batavia replica looks:

I went on and made some changes to the last sketch. I took the gunports down slightly and cleaned up the lines a little.

/Matti

I agree, there will be some guessing on my behalf when deciding on the look. I'm no Vroom expert, but to my eyes the ships look pre Vasa on Antons last pic.

/Matti

Thanks for the info all! Man, I've been riding horses alot earlier and also transporting them in trailers. I can only imagine the troubles the men and animals had during these travels. Lovely model Chuck!

/Matti

Thanks for the food for thought gents!

I hope I haven't missunderstand what you mean, if so please tell me.

jbshan, the lower wale o the small pinass is not at the waterline, or did you mean any other pics?

Anton, you raised a question about the allround or warship type of ship. In my imagination I think Duke Karl (later Karl IX) would have much use for allround ships in his fleet as he used them for transport of goods to and from his duchy. If this is true or if Gripen was a more strict warship, I can't know. But I like that logic and plan to do her like that. I planned to give my model a deck setup like Kalmare nyckel or the pinass above. I haven't thought throuh how all the decklines would run.

I think the old pinass sketch is fairly close to mine when it comes to the gunports. I didnt do any railing above them like that has, but if you remove her railing its pretty close. I think the gun ports height needs to sit higher up on a smaller vessel, or she would need to have a bigger belly, bringing the water line up. I actually think it would be dangerous to put the gun ports one step lower on the Kalmar Nyckel replica, wich is pretty close in proportions.

I will look for more pictures of smaller dutch ships to see the placements of their gunports.

Thanks again for telling your thoughts, it's really helpfull!

/Matti

Thanks for the information guys!

About the height of the gunports on my sketches: Does anyone else have thoughts about them?

Do you think the gunport location on A or B is more plausable for a ship this size?

A

B

Looking at videos and images of Duyfken sailing, it´s obvious how high up the water goes.

/Matti

Hi!

When transporting an whole army, like Gustav II Adolf did when entering the 30 year war, how did they manage to transport animals like horses and oxes? Did they have special ships designed for this? Also bigger things like wagons should have been rather hard to load on a ship back then. I suppose they could be disassembled before loading and then assemble them again after arrival.

This has puzzled me when reading history books.

/Matti

Thanks you very much for the comments and ideas!

About the lower gun ports, I raised them from the first version as they to me seemed to sit dangerously low for a ship the size. I will consider reworking them again.

The small low port on Vasa is described by Fred Hocker as a message port. It was used for going in and out and when delivering things to the ship (I suppose that could have been ballast as well). If I remember correctly he said they had no cannons in them. I don't know if that was something used on the bigger ships because on some old drawings of smallar sized ships I've seen there was a cannon in the port positioned at the same place. 

Here is the latest sketch. I moved the "message port" higher. The lines are really close to version II, but I reworked the stern. I wanted the balcony/gallery to be more integrated in the ship lines, the last ones where inspired by the Kalmare Nyckel replica, and when looking at it I decided I didn't like how it goes outside the ships lines.

Looking at it now I feel the curve going above the balcony is perhaps to big. But making the curve smaller would leave little room for a person standing on the balcony. This is what I get for trying to scale down a big ship design to a smaller vessel... Thinking about it  I'm not even sure a more simple ship of this size would have galleries at all, but I really like the personality they give the ship.

/Matti

Oh yeah, you are right! That's totally off. I need to decide on the gunports size also.

Thanks for the feedback!


/Matti

Edit: Here's a quickfix on the poorly placed port:

Working on the next sketch now.

Cheers for the info guys! Lot's of new things to get into my thick head...

I have worked more on sketches. I really really like Duyfkens lines and this one has lots of her lines in it but scaled up. Since Gripen probably was a more simple ship compaired to the more exclusive ships ornaments will be sparse and focus will be on the painting. I think that is more correct for the time she was built in also.

Any feedback, advice or comment is appreciated!

/Matti

Hi! If you decide to go for a wooden kit you could perhaps use the Berlin kit as I think it's fairly close to the Kalmar Nyckel in shape, at least with some reworking.

Don't fear the wood kits. I don't think it's harder, just different and with more stages. On the other hand it leaves lots of room for tweaking and making the model the way you want. A big plus for an idea like yours

The carving would be some work, but if I did this, I wouldn't make as many sculptures like the Kalmar Nyckel replica has. My guess is that thee are far to many for a basic ship like Kalmar Nyckel. The odds of her being blue is probably slim also as it was expencive to make blue paint. Just my opinion though.

/Matti

Hey all!

I´m sitting and trying to make some reasonable guesses for the size of the ship Gripen.

Being new to this, I'm getting more and more confused. Displacement... did they even use that to define their ships in the 16th century? If so, how could they have any idea how much it would be? Is it something we sit today and guess? And why is it interesting without other information? If I build a wide ship with lots of ballast, it would make the displacement higher right? But it doesn't say much of how the ship would sail, size etc, making the information uninteresting without info of the size. I would be more interested in how big the ship is, how many men it could carry and what armament it had. But still, todays lists focus on displacement. At least the lists I found on the ships of my interest.

I'm not even sure how correct the displacement numbers are even if the sources in the matrial seems correct. From my understanding shipbuilding of those days had lots of guesses when designing them.

The Batavia replica has the same displacement as Vasa if remember correctly. Is it the engines on the replica? Because they are very different ships.

Sorry for a ranting post, but I have a hard time getting the focus on displacement.

Edit: Found this this explanation by professor Jan Glete about how he uses displacement in his lists of old swedish ships:

Yet he makes no ? marks on many old ships like Gripen. But I see no reason at all to think we can give a certain number like 400 in this case. The lists themselves are very well made and use the only sources around.

/Matti

Beautyful work Karl! And I saw the finished images earlier, gorgeous! You can be proud.

/Matti

Thanks for adding more information!

The original Storkyrkoskeppet model is a huge inspiration in this project. The wonderful paintjob and aged look of it is just awesome to look at. Thanks for sharing the pic of the reconstruction. There must be a lot of speculations on it as so much of the original is destroyed.

/Matti

Thanks for all the info guys, it's exactly what I'm looking for!

Jan, I will look at that site closer when I have my laptop, my phone doesn't like the site.

Mark, to me the proportions of the half moon seems more fat if you get what I mean. I have lots of parts left from the Vasa build, as I got my hands on an sparepart billings kit from the local hobby shop earlier. I plan to reshape them totally and scratch the rest.

Thanks Marcus for taking the time posting those great pics, most helpfull!

/Matti

Thanks for the input guys! The Duyfken looks pretty close to how I would have guessed the ships looked like. I made a drawing of what I'd like to build. Just to get the proportions and the level of details. The drawing is not very detailed, but just to get the lines set before the next stage.

What do you think? Could it pass for a small swedish (dutch style) warship made in 1591?

/Matti

Thanks! Yeah the thread linked is made by me. Fred gives a great explanation of the constructions and diferences between dutch tradition and other traditions.

Now I am more curious if there is any information of how they looked, or if there are models of ships from this era. Half Moon was made early 17th century, but her look is quite different from how I thought warships looked at that time.

Yeah there is much great info of Kalmar Nyckel! It's built later than Vasa and even if the replica is a truly beautyful ship,  she to me seems to have many things that is not historically correct. I still love how she looks though.

/Matti

Sounds good! Yeah planning the gunports should be done early.

/Matti

Hey JM! The images not working is likely because the site crashed earlier.

The blue Vasa with gilded details is an old guess that later turned out incorrect. Today they have made research on the paint pigments left and know she was red and had polychrome sculptures. From what Ive heard red was the traditional color for the swedish navy. The polychrome look was the northgerman style.

/Matti

Hi all!

I'm researching for my next project that I'd like to be one of Karl IX (Gustav Adolfs father) ships. Little except basic numbers are known and I think that gives room for artistic freedom.

If someone could give some pointers to images or drawings of ships from between 1580 to early 1600 that would be really helpful!

I also wonder how different the ships made in the 1590:ies would be in construction and appearence from ships like Vasa, Batavia or Kalmare Nyckel.

If a ship was smaller like 400, would that say anything about how she was rigged?

Thanks for taking your time!

/Matti

Cheers mate, means a lot! Actually I am in the planning stage for the next build. I'd like to make a ship of the Swedish king Karl IX, Gustav II Adolfs father. Not much documentation about them so I will have some freedom when designing it. But it takes some time to think through it all.

/Matti

Ah, yeah, the instructions are not very linear. Some jumping back and forth is needed.

I've done some scratch building so I don't use plans very much, just to get what part is what.

Just relax , I'm sure you'll do great.

/Matti

Thanks mate! Ha, that very picture is where I first fell in love with that look!

/Matti

Ok, hope it will go smoothly!

/Matti