Waldemar

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

Thank you Richard for repeating yourself, but can you finally provide at least one piece of evidence other than a few drawings from the end of the century? Of course, the London 1656 plan, due to its obvious inaccuracies, does not even come into play here as a design drawing, as the best experts have already stated. Anyway, thank you very much again for your contribution. I look forward to the evidence.

In conclusion, up until the last decades of the 17th century, there is not a single piece of evidence for the use of complete plans. On the contrary, all sources indicate otherwise (Deane, although ambiguous on this point, does not mention frames correcting either).

Okay, please let me explain my perception of the Treatise 1620 (not to write defiantly anymore: „the correct perception”)... * * * After drawing the midship bend and the longitudinal guides, the author of the manuscript very clearly states: „These lines being all drawn the plot is finished”. Then, before proceeding to plot all the other bends, the author warns not to take their co-ordinates from the longitudinal guides ('principal lines') drawn in the small drawings, but to calculate them mathematically, as huge errors are made upon performing huge up-scalings. But why draw the frames on paper at 1:1 scale? That would be obvious nonsense. The confusion arises only from the fact that the author uses the term 'to plot' or 'to draw' both for the act of drawing on paper and for tracing (or whatever) on the mould loft. But there is more to it than that. As an alternative to drawing, the author suggests using moulds. Truly, there could hardly be a more obvious indication that this is about actual scale. Actually, I could end here, but nevertheless I see the need to clarify a few more things. * * * Drawing the frames contours on paper (apart from midship mould) was not necessary at all, because with this particular design method no correction of the frame contours was employed, at least at the design stage. Thus, looking at the resulting contours from a distance of 1 1/4 inches, 1 1/2 inches, or whatever, could at most satisfy the aesthetic sensibilities of the observer, but would serve no other purpose. Under these circumstances, drawing twice (to scale and then in actual size) identical, uncorrected frames would obviously be unnecessary, unprofessional nonsense, since an experienced shipwright with a spatial imagination could easily predict the shape of the hull just from the shape of the longitudinal guides and the midship mould. That is why Newton manuscript originally contained, above all, the proposed shapes of longitudinal guides for various types of ships, which were incomparably more important in the conceptual process of ship design even than the shape of the midship mould itself, not to mention other derivative frames. Making complete plans became necessary only in the methods where frame contours were corrected already at the design stage. This is naturally closely related to later diagonals and construction waterlines. In addition, they allowed for hydrostatic calculations, such as displacement or metacentric height. But that's another story too... * * * Richard, I hope you find these explanations useful. Perhaps they are not revolutionary in themselves, but somehow all these issues have so far escaped the attention of scholars.

Mr Endsor, I will spell everything out more fully, but in my own time, because right now I have a project to do with an imminent deadline and I simply do not have the opportunity to engage in a time-consuming discussion. I stand by everything I have written so far, I will only specify that I regard the last, say, two decades of the seventeenth century as a transitional period, the effect of which has already been the widespread use of fully developed plans since the beginning of the eighteenth century. But whatever the vagueness, this end of the century does not include London 1656. Now I only ask you at least to read very, very carefully the relevant passages of the 1620 Treatise, which you refer to in particular for this period. In fact, you do not even need to interpret it and conjecture anything, as everything is clearly written there. I am sure you yourself will shout 'Eureka!'. I cannot give a guarantee that I will return in time for the publication of your book on London 1656 (which I intend to buy, of course), because I do not even know when it will be published. But again, I beg you at least to read the 1620 Treatise without prejudice while there is still time to do so, as I really don't like to use the phrase "didn't I say so?". Waldemar

Before I take a long-needed break, I would like to thank all those who have found my posts worth reading, or even for finding them important and interesting enough to appear on this forum at all. But I make another rather important argument, which I think only those who have designed or evaluated hulls themselves are aware of. These variable, increasing floor sweep radii are very beneficial and even necessary in certain less favourable circumstances (such as a tight floor arcs in the midship mould) to achieve a smooth surface transition in this particular area of the hull. Unlike today's usually more or less theoretical analysts with a synthetic approach, the experienced shipwrights of the time were certainly aware of this issue. Incidentally, this is one of the effects of the inherent limitations of this method in its classical form. In other words, these variable radii are not there for the whim of the designer, but for a valid, very specific reason. Thank you, Waldemar Gurgul

@DonatasBruzas Donatas, thanks for trying, I've had a look at your drawings, but let me be clear. The fit of your curves is not quite satisfactory as in this particular place could be better. Besides, a few geometrical figures in more or less random places are not enough. You also have to figure out how to arrange them regularly to get a complete geometrical system.

@Mark P Mark, I will only comment on the controversial issue of variable radii. It is true that this is only one piece of evidence dating back to the 17th century, but against the total amount of other material available, even this one is a lot. Besides, the „whole” world has hitherto thought that 17th century construction plans were entirely graphic, without any evidence (or misinterpreted one). The explanation of this phenomenon may be quite simple, because we really only have two manuals from this period (Bushnell and Deane), and both are generally very simplistic, in virtually every respect, just like today's school textbooks for the primary grades. So it is difficult to expect them to cover every aspect, especially the more complicated and also rarely used ones. Almost the same thing was done by Mungo Murray, involuntarily only mentioning variable radii, but no longer describing their use.

@Richard Endsor 1. The drawings in Deane 1670 are educational rather than practical. They teach how things should be done to actual scale when building a real ship. 2. The drawing of the London 1656 was made after the ship had been built, as is clearly evidenced by its various features, such as its decoration, and in this form it would not even do much to be used in a shipyard. So it is not a builder's drawing either. 3. There is not a single body plan in Fragments of Ancient Shipwrightry. There are only master frame outlines apart from sheer views. 4. There is not even a need to analyse Mungo Murray's drawings. His statement is sufficient: "It is usual for all the floor sweeps to be of one radius". Only floor sweeps of variable radii can be the opposite of those of one radius. There is no other possibility. Sorry.