Waldemar

Perhaps the number of likes was the deciding factor? For example, from the giants.

@T. Pevny Thank you, Mr. Pevny. There is no rush, as I too have a lot of work at the moment. In the meantime, I show a graphic strictly based on the content of the publication criticised above. The graphic shows a comparison of the original scanned lines with the lines obtained by the authors, exactly to the scale at which they were printed (scaling makes it even worse), and aligned with the hull axis. In particular, the compared frame lines cross each other, the breadth of the hull is too small, the radii of the curves are quite random and have little relation to the original lines, which is particularly noticeable for the hollowing curves. Sorry, but this cannot be considered a correct reconstruction of the lines (or at least my reconstruction standards are incomparably higher). This way one can draw anything similar and then claim anything. Also evoking, why not, a group of some 'giants'.

As a kind of host of this thread, I thank you Effie for your input, and as a contributor to the debate – I stand by everything I have written so far on this issue. Thank you again.

I should add that this probably only for the most accomplished shipwrights at the forefront of design. Most others were possibly content with rather simpler methods, such as from Bushnell's 1664 manual, republished many times well into the 18th century, which is the best evidence of its popularity among adepts of the profession.

@T. Pevny In the context of the variable floor sweeps of the London 1656, it is still worth recalling my reconstruction of the lines of a yacht from the Stuart Restoration period (ca. 1680), based on 3D scans of a period model, and which I have already presented in the thread William Sutherland's concept of ship hull design, 1711 on this forum. There is no exaggeration to say that the resulting conformity of the original lines and those resulting from the found method is perfect. The lines of the lower conoid in the reconstruction drawings attached below (in red), are nothing more than the equivalent of the floor sweeps in the classic hauling down method. As can be seen, except for the hollowing curves, and only for the fore part of the hull (unimportant anyway in the conceptual sense), there is not a single fixed radius sweep in this design. So the London 1656 with its variable floor sweeps is no longer so lonely for the 17th century, all this indicating that a quite sophisticated level of design in England was achieved much earlier than previously thought. Just for the sake of argument, I still have to mention here an alternative reconstruction of the method used to design this yacht, which I nevertheless find totally implausible: firstly, it is incomprehensible and it is doubtful whether it could be practically applied, secondly, it is not clear why the lines conceived as curves of the least resistance should have been applied transversely to the hull and thirdly, the correspondence of the reconstructed lines presented in the publication with the original lines is only illusory, as I have personally verified (for more on this, see Effie Moneypenny, David Antscherl, A Restoration Yacht's Design Secrets Unveiled: An examination of a ship model with reference to the works of William Sutherland, The Mariner's Mirror 2021, Volume 107, Issue 2).

Blocks. Meaning ship blocks. Not to a uniform scale.

@T. Pevny Mr Pevny. I would also like to say that when designing hulls using the ancient methods, the issue of tilting/sliding the futtock template in Mediterranean methods is not just a theoretical issue for me, but a fundamental and very practical dilemma to be resolved. Therefore, the clear description and diagrams in your 2017 study regarding this issue already cleared my doubts and gave me confidence, and the evidence found even later only confirmed the validity of this direction. This was a really important event for my needs. Thanks again.

One can conclude from this that it is precisely without the use of correcting lines (waterlines and diagonals) that these variable radii floor sweeps are particularly needed.

I didn't want to repeat myself (see my post #72 in the thread about London), but we also have a pretty concrete motivating factor. However, it can only be realised by those who also use graphical analytical methods, because it is a subtlety that cannot be picked up in the manuals of the period. And it so happens that I have already designed some hulls myself using the classic hauling down method (without correction). The thing about this method is that in the fading area of the floor sweep, going towards the bow, bumps notoriously form, and floor sweeps with variable radii help a lot to smooth out this area even without using correcting waterlines or diagonals. Below are graphics made by @Martes, my friendly partner in the London 1656 case so to speak, who kindly did an evaluation of the ship's hull shape, as it emerges from the original drawing, and also noticed this problem. In the first graphic you can see the dark spot in this area, and in the second the problem areas marked by Martes with rectangles. Admittedly, this drawing of London has variable radii, but still with insufficient variation to be fully effective.

@scrubbyj427 Scrubby, yes, there are, I even made a few during my last visit to the modelling studio, but I didn't get permission to publish them for publicity and advertising reasons. I am unwilling and unable to disobey this explicit request. Perhaps in a private post just for you... @Metaspace Many thanks, Roman, The size of the aft gun ports on the stern and the broadside gun ports on the lower (artillery) deck are the same, as the calibre of the guns is identical (6 lbs). Please don't take into account the last smaller port on the side as it is a cargo port (of the mail type etc). But the gun barrels themselves are not and cannot be the same. The broadside guns have to be short and the aft guns long for structural reasons, otherwise the gun barrel muzzles would be inside the ship. Please take a look at the attached renders to see that shown by graphical means. Instead of the iron 6-pounder guns, theoretically the bronze 3-pounder guns (also mentioned in the gun 1628 inventory for this ship) could be inserted into the constable's room (gunroom), but this would not be in accordance with the quite detailed description of the battle. Also for the same structural reasons the bow guns had to have very long barrels. You will also see this in the renders attached below, and these bow guns just cannot be moved forward any further. By the way, it must be stressed that during this period of dominant boarding tactics, the offensive bow guns were the most important artillery asset in the ship and these usually were of the largest calibre. This is not only evident from Dutch or English sources, but is also confirmed by the very description of the battle itself in which the Sankt Georg took part (in this particular case two 9-pounder guns mentioned in the gun inventory).

This is true. I find Richard's work particularly valuable, and I myself have been struck by the climate of exchange that has developed quite quickly. As for the variable radius arcs, now is perhaps a better opportunity to add to the statements made so far. For one thing, I myself was greatly surprised by their use at such an early date, and I really tried hard to rule out this possibility by applying fixed radius arcs in various ways, but to no avail. In the end I had to decide that a discussion with the source itself was pointless. Now I have not the slightest doubt that this is how they were drawn intentionally. In the next step I reconstructed a possible way of drawing them, obtaining a complete geometrical construction with a perfect matching of the contours for all the frames. This happens to be a method known, for example, from Williams' 18th-century designs, but even so, there seems to be no other way to draw these arcs with variable radii. The use of a single arc of variable radius for the underwater part of the hull is apparently questionable, but somehow no one has pointed out the toptimber curves, which consist of as many as three arcs of variable radii! After all, this is a more sophisticated geometrical construction, from which one can conclude that the use of one such curve for the underwater part was entirely within the capabilities of the draughtsman of this plan. * * * A separate issue is the use of correction lines (waterlines and diagonals) in the design process of the ship, which is of course directly related to the use of complete plans on paper. At the moment I have this working hypothesis that these lines were adopted in England from Continental methods, based for some time now on the harmonious division of the diagonals. This came to me after looking at plans of captured French ships from the turn of 17th/18th centuries, in which the traditional hauling down method attempted, necessarily rather ineptly, to reproduce the shapes obtained by the more advanced and more flexible Continental methods.

Oh yes, we even had an argument here recently in a somewhat jarring style with Richard Endsor about the use of complete plans and variable radius floor sweeps in 17th century England. Apparently we each stayed with our opinions....

@T. Pevny Nihil novi sub sole! I must repeat this paremia to myself even more often. Mr. Pevny, first of all my sincere thanks for your interest and your post in this thread. A few sparse hours were obviously not enough to thoroughly study the very work of yours that I was not familiar with until today, i.e. Capturing the Curve: The Development of English Ship Design in the 16th to early 17th century. However, the wonderful diagrams along with their commentaries already speak for themselves. I already thought that my findings came first, but it is now clear that the palm of precedence belongs to you, of course. Still, I am happy and elated because my analysis was independent and the conclusions turned out to go in the right direction, finding their confirmation in your particularly professionally conducted analysis. There may naturally be some minor differences of interpretation, but the substance of our findings really challenges the current orthodox order. I have this liberty because I am not part of a small community of people attending symposia and have not had to be careful not to offend anyone, but even here the reception has not been very enthusiastic and has even met with some active resistance. Be that as it may, your approach, as well as my experience, shows vividly how important research methodology is, and how different results can be obtained with limited methods compared to more complete methods. In this particular case, one simply cannot limit oneself to reading the text and looking at the pictures, because eminently graphic subjects must necessarily be analysed by graphic methods as well. And the result of using these flawed methods is that we now have a whole body of modern works containing a multitude of anachronisms and their authors unhappy with this turn of events. For the time being, let me add that your previous work, Capturing the Curve: Underlying Concepts in the Design of the Hull, 2017, impressed me greatly and also contributed significantly to my activity in this difficult and usually little understood matter. The best, Waldemar Gurgul

Thanks a lot, Scrubby. Are you more interested in building POB or POF models? The modellers here are already at an quite advanced stage of hull construction. They claim that the frame station shapes are ideal in the sense that it is very comfortable to lay the planks and get nicely profiled body straight away. In just one layer. But they also had the frames (bulkheads) cut with a precision CNC milling machine. As an aside, the hull shape was developed by the historically correct hauling down/pulling up futtock method, without spoiling it with later design waterlines or diagonals. I 'only' still have the rigging and decoration to work out.

Blocks are a great feature of CAD software as they allow multiple detailed assemblies to be inserted into the main file without size penalty, which in this case has already grown to almost half a gigabyte. This is shown here using the artillery example.

Thank you Chapman. Yes, it should, as I am making every effort to base this reconstruction solely on extant period sources. For now the priority is to complete the plans for the museum model in wood and at the moment I cannot promise a cardboard kit soon. However, thank you for the idea. I would only add that for a commercial kit alone it would probably not be possible to devote even 1/50th of the time consumed so far on this reconstruction.

Fighting tops. Five fighting tops.

Anything else? Don't be shy. Just why do you even read my posts?

To forum members. Do you guys really not realise that Richard appeared on this forum solely to attempt to discredit this reconstruction because he must have deemed it threatening enough to his own to destroy it? And there is another issue, far more important than London itself with her sweeps. It is, of course, about the use or otherwise of complete plans in 17th century England. To challenge this factually unsubstantiated presumption ruins the scholarly (or whatever the name is) record to date and, in a sense, the reason for the sense of exceptionalism. In other words, it is a heresy to be stamped out. It is a second possible reason for Richard's visit. I don't expect there will be any other in the future.

Wayne, now look up Treatise itself and see how the planes were actually named. But even more, see what exactly was drawn on paper on these planes. Do you even have the text of this manuscript available at your place? Also, do you know the contents of Newton manuscript ca. 1600 and Bushnell's 1664 book, which Richard is so carefully silent about in his statements? Deane 1670 must be regarded as neutral. Only Sutherland 1711 clearly makes the difference between drawing frames on paper and tracing them on the mould loft. I have evidence and you have only conjecture and some fire, which is nice, but not enough for me. Keep looking. Maybe not just in London itself, but elsewhere in the country. They may be for commercial vessels. I'm not being picky.

I see that not only do you not distinguish between midship mould and body plan, you also do not distinguish between body plan and plane. And look for the answer to your question in my previous posts of this thread. It's all there. Sorry Richard, but this really doesn't make sense. Maybe it's better about how many miles you've run?

* * * Magic. You can see it in my posts #5-39. * * * And to end the Treatise 1620 issue definitively already. Richard, you are a tease who can cheerfully ignore the following content in that document: "And if it [i.e. futtock timber mould] be too long to manage [it] must be cut asunder in the middle and have another sine mark there". Small paper template too long to manage? Another joke? And also: "... draw two other straight lines and upon them set the narrowing both aloft and alow as they are calculated in the table'. As it is, the table contains the values for the actual size. There is no other table. * * * Unfortunately, you are unprepared for this discussion, it just consists of you extracting information from me. As you can see from the above, you are not well acquainted with the content of the sources you refer to. I have already had to explain a few things to you, even basic ones. For example, as it has become apparent, you do not distinguish between body plan and midship mould, or have thought until now that ships of this general period could not have a floor sweep of variable radius at all. What else would you have liked to know before publishing your book on London?

A really excellent idea! In the meantime, you can also continue to entertain readers with stories from your childhood. Fell free to use this thread, pleasure on my side.

Richard, I'm sorry that you still don't distinguish between educational or decorative drawings of frames and those that were actually used to build ships. But I've wasted enough time on London without gaining anything helpful in return from you, and I certainly don't have it anymore to keep straightening out what you misrepresent. If you don't mind, we'll come back to this in a few weeks or so. Right now I really have more important things on my mind. Please respect that. You can use this time to finally show something of value about London on this forum or find the evidence I asked for. Thank you Richard