Waldemar

I can read it, I used to learn Russian... 😜

I also found this one on the Russian Academy of Sciences library website. And it is again such a unique album that it probably also deserves a separate thread.

Martes, this is just another gem! You should definitely move it to a separate thread with an appropriate title so that it is more visible and searchable. What do you think?

Perhaps you are in a position to change that...? At least for documents on maritime matters.

Eugen, please accept my sincerest apologies. But maybe there are some other relevant documents? I promise I would not interfere anymore... 🙂

@Richard Endsor Mr. Endsor, first of all I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your excellent books and, from my point of view, especially the outstanding chapters on ship design and building methods in your book 'The Master Shipwright's Secrets. How Charles II built the Restoration Navy'. Even more so, as these aspects are very rarely addressed in such a detailed and clear way. I would also like to clarify that the purpose of this exercise is precisely to try to identify the original way in which this drawing of London 1656 was made, as you splendidly did with John Shish's Treatise, and that the 3D model is actually just a by-product. Anyway, this drawing of London is so badly deformed in so many different ways that simply retracing the frames outlines would miss the point, whatever the purpose. Besides, despite the difficulties, there is still a chance to determine such obscure features of the ship as e.g. the rake and radius of the stem post, and only the analysis of the original drawing method can help here. * * * You state quite emphatically that the floor sweeps could not have been of variable radius for almost the entire length of the days of sail, as they would have required separate templates for each frame. However, variable radius floor sweeps are covered in a quite detailed way in 'The Ship of the Line. Volume II: Design, Construction and Fittings' by Brian Lavery, with both references and examples. I will not quote this material here as it is too extensive, just add that William Sutherland 1711 uses variable radius hollowing curves, and the reconstructed lines of the Restoration yacht of Charles II, on the basis on its 3D scans, also have variable radius hollowing curves (besides other frame sweeps of variable radii), which of course required separate templates for each frame (or at most a group of just a few frames). Frames shaped or even just corrected by design waterlines or diagonals (practice starting presumably in the decades around 1700), also actually required separate templates for each frame in order to accurately transfer their designed shape to the timbers. Otherwise, the effects of this correction process would have been lost. However, the most important argument in this particular case is probably the drawing of London 1656 itself. The floor sweeps radii are gradually increasing in a quite noticeable way, and that reading I am absolutely sure of (as opposed to a few other things), and only my reconstruction of how they were actually drawn by the creator of the plan may be considered a modern interpretation here. For confirmation, I've also attached a diagram below, where it can be seen that the 10 feet (fixed) radius arc clearly doesn't match up with the original line drawn. This is also the case with all other floor sweeps in the forward half of the hull, except that of the master frame, of course. On the other hand, in the somewhat easier to shape smoothly aft half the hull, the floor sweeps are already of expected, fixed radius. * * * Finally, I would add that in the quite possible case of the reconstruction of the hull lines of London 1656 (as opposed to this attempt at the reconstruction of the drawing method of her supposed plan), I would certainly not leave the smoothing/fairing the hull surface to the automatic mechanisms of the computer software, but I would rather manually correct the longitudinal construction guides (i.e. both lines of the floor and the breadth), conforming to the known contemporary methods, and also apply appropriate hollowing curves in order to obtain the best possible with this design method shape, or at the least – acceptable. Just as an experienced shipwright of the era would have probably done. To conclude this point, the suggestion to simply retrace somewhat spoiled original contours and spoil them up even more haphazardly using today's CAD software does not seem particularly attractive to me, as it is more akin to carpentry than real shipwrightry in its design aspect. Regardless of everything, even a possible difference of opinion on certain issues, once again thank you very much for your interest in this thread and of course I invite you to post again. You are always welcome. Waldemar

After all, it's higher society and official documents! But it's probably like today: only lawyers speak in the language of legal acts, and even then in more formal circumstances. When Eugen (@greenstone) showed these wonderful Dimensions of Ships on the forum and at the same time pointed out the source of this document (the library), all to be done was to follow up and look through all the digitised documents of the period there...

Yep, a perfect circle with a radius of about 3/4 of the ship's breadth and a very short beakhead deck, as can be also seen on all the period models and drawings. This is why the lettered frames on London 1656 should be moved at least one station forward, disregarding altogether their Y co-ordinates on the stempost in the original drawing.

... and two more pages with some content, somewhat incomprehensible without a closer scrutiny.

Библиотека Российской академии наук (БАН) (rasl.ru) Most, if not all of them, have a character of standing orders for the fleet (duties, procedures, food allowances, wages etc.).

Some lacking scans from this manuscript:

Truly. It was only later that I also found this date on the first page of The Contractio of A 4th Rate built by Mr Taylor: This Indenture Made the 14th day of February In the Year of our Lord on Thou land six hundred Ninety Five. There is fantastic information here if only for the reconstruction of London 1656 that we have been looking at recently. Such as timber&room value, sweep and rake of the stempost, how floor lines were drawn, etc.

Or: „Another way for drawing or building as was practised by Sir Phineas Pett”.

Yet another passage dating one of the tables: „A Table of Timbers Whose Scantlings are thought fit to be Ascertained In the Building of the 30 Ships Built by Act of Parliament [...]”

After a first, quick look through: this is a unique, extremely valuable document. Firstly, these are records from the 1670s (I spotted two dates: 1675 and 1677). Where did the date 1695 come from? And secondly, in addition to the scantlings, it contains very detailed information about the ships' design concepts, or to put it another way, the geometry (shape) of the hull. This is simply a fantastic document of unparalleled value!!!

Many thanks Eugen! Have you posted a whole document?

Below is a variant of the London 1656 hull lines probably more realistic, and the fruit of a very useful dialogue with @Martes in private. There have been some fairly major changes done, which more attentive eyes will no doubt notice: – timber&room value has been reduced from 36 to 30 inches, which is more consistent with contemporary contracts and specifications ( @allanyed hit the nail on the head with his calculations above), – the stempost radius has been reduced from 40 to 30 feet (which is more in line with other period material, although not already quite with the original London 1656 plan itself), – hollowing curves of a more advanced shape were applied than those drawn on the original plan, which also improved the hull shape, – some additional light fairing of the hull surface has also been carried out. I have also added some diagonals to better illustrate the shape of the hull.

A quick 3D model was still created at Martes' request. I made a few minor adjustments to it: upper part of the stempost is shaped a little more upright, and the aft run at the very bottom of the hull is made sharper, which I think the maker of the plans had rather forgotten or refrained from drawing. Overall, it appears that all hollowing curves have been drawn in a somewhat simplified manner. Unlike the use of wooden templates in the yard, they are quite cumbersome to draw on a paper plan and the designers have been taking some drafting shortcuts (see, for example, Sutherland 1711, The Ship-builders Assistant). Hence the probably slightly less than ideal hull lines on the original plan. While doing a full reconstruction of the ship, I would probably still straighten the bow wings quite a bit, as suggested by van de Velde's drawings.

Due to the apparent and quite significant drawing inconsistencies in the aft body plan, it was felt that an alternative solution should be prepared. Paradoxically, although this alternative gives a slightly inferior rendering of the original lines, it is the one that is rather more likely. In the first place, the shape of the line of the breadth is now more in keeping with known English practices of the period. As a result of this change, the two toptimber curves have become arcs of variable radius. Below, in addition, an updated diagram showing the ship's longitudinal lines as they finally develop from both body plans.

Oh, no...! Martes. That's my love! 🙂 And she could be so very useful in a more comprehensive reconstruction of London 1656. Also, it would be great to do a reverse-engineering of her lines based on the 3D hull scans of this very important model, just like here for London 1656, i.e. in terms of the design methods used. We just happen to have an information gap for this particular period, and it turns out there was so much going on....

Yes, indeed. Old sailing ships are perhaps the most beautifully functional man-made objects. Now that the concept behind the design of London 1656 is better understood, one may be tempted to make a handful of concluding remarks. As stated earlier, the design is clearly more advanced than the methods as described in early English works on naval architecture from the first decades of the 17th century, and this is expressed primarily in the very extensive use of variable radius arches. This in turn translated into greater flexibility in forming the desired hull shape. Of course, this came at a price – now each frame (or at most a group of just a few frames) had to have its own separate templates, which certainly complicated shipyard work. The line of the floor is used in forming the shape of the frames in practice only in the midship part. At both ends of the hull, on the other hand, its role is taken over by hollowing templates. In general, the architect flexibly uses a variety of geometric transformations, freely selecting them as he deems most appropriate for a particular application and place. This seems to be the most advanced variant of the 'hauling down/pulling up futtock' method in its classic form. The next stage could be the reconstruction of the entire hull including all projections, but this requires an equally large amount of work...

The way the toptimbers aft were originally drawn can not be reproduced, as it was done apparently wrong. Instead, it is proposed the similar method as employed for the fore half of the hull, except that the upper breadth sweeps have a fixed radius of 15 feet, and there are only two arcs for a toptimber. Rather than logarithmic scales, it is even more proper to use (for both halves) guides similar to the line of greatest breadth, as described, for example, in Bushnell's 1664 work on shipbuilding. Naturally, they would first have to be defined on other projections. Again, thanks for watching, Waldemar Gurgul

It has to be said that for its time it is a geometric masterpiece. It is as if the shipwright wanted to show off his drawing skills. Either way, it shows the capabilities of the designers of the time, which was not so obvious until now. Even Deane is not so advanced or maybe better: so open with his professional secrets. Note, of course, that just drawing skills does not necessarily translate into a successful design. The topsides of the frames for the fore part are made up of three arcs, and they are all arcs with variable radii! Their construction can be seen in the attached diagrams. One important update has also been made: the rising line of the breadth fore is a simple arc now. This removes the kink in the area of the main frame, is more 'in line' with known English practices and reproduces the lines of the original plans even better. I rate this reconstruction as quite difficult.

However, it is still worth mentioning here that this is the area where the designer employed variable, increasing radii for the floor sweeps (only for the fore part of the hull; thin red arcs on the above diagram). They increase from 10 feet (for the master frame) to roughly 13.3 feet for the „L” frame. Also, look at how the length of this floor sweep vanishes, going towards the bow. These were the methods used then and there to achieve as smooth hull surfaces as possible, as opposed to the diagonals and waterlines only used later in ship design. And the physical ribbands could at most be used to help position the pre-designed frame elements that had already been cut out before actual assembly.

Martes vigilant as ever 🙂. Thanks for asking. While there are quite a few small kinks in other places (one of which I've shown before), right here is perfect. I've prepared an additional sketch where you can see how the transition of the shapes in this area takes place. It is, I hope, so clear that I will no longer describe it verbally.