allanyed

Do you recall the source of this statement that the wales were to support the knees? Could have been for a particular nation or era? Aside from who knows what was done on galleons, you can see thousands of contemporary plans and models that confirm your conclusion that the wales were to support the knees is not true. Another example below, Hercules (74) 1760. From Peter Goodwin's The Construction and Fitting of English Men of War, page 53, ISBN 0-87021-016-5: The wales were bands of heavy planking on each side of the ship between the waterline and the lower gundeck ports. The purpose of the strakes was to stiffen the hull fore and aft, in an attempt to overcome the problem of hogging......... the wales were not laid parallel to the gundeck. but to the designed sheer of the ship. Therefore, the gunports at the fore and after ends had to be cut into the upper edge of the <main> wale. He also goes on to describe when the wale was a split pair of strakes and when they were wide bands of four or three strakes. There is a more in his description including determining thickness, tapering near the bow He describes the channel wales as well. They are where the channel chains were secured, thus the need for heavier planking. Goodwin describes the middle wales on larger rates but does not give a reason for their presence. Allan

Very good point Eberhard. Warpipe WELCOME to MSW. Do post a little intro about yourself in the new members forum if you would be so kind. The masts are never a straight piece like a dowel rod. It is sometimes easier to use square stock and a plane and sand paper to get the right shape. Regardless, if you go with dowels they would still be tapered upwards and downwards from where they pass through the upper most deck. There are many drawings of masts and spars on the RMG collections site and some very high resolution versions on the Wikicommons site that will show you what masts actually look like if realism is a criterion for you. Most important is that this is after all a hobby for most so go with what makes you happy. Example from Deptford, 1780, that has measurements for masts for 44, 36, 32 and 28 guns ships as well as the drawings can be found at It is 99 mb so will not load here, sorry. The high resolution version can be found at 44 GUN SHIP RMG J7802.png Click on the 17,00 pixel version then you can flip it to see all the notes. Lower res version is below. For all ship sizes, including larger ships from circa 1800 there is a wealth of contemporary information that you can find in David Steel's Elements and Practice of Rigging https://maritime.org/doc/steel/ Mast making starts on page 18 and continues with a lot of detailed drawings to go with text and scantlings. Allan

So simple yet brilliant. But, now I am questioning my own comments. Looking at galleon models at RMG (they are all modern (19th century and 20th century) the gun ports follow the sheer of the wales. Hmmmmm.......are these accurate or artists' licenses? Two examples are below of Great Harry (model made circa 1851) and a Spanish galleon created by James Lees and Philip Wride in 1988. Allan

That is the best line I have ever heard regarding our shipbuilding forefathers. Allan

Hi Steven Thanks for posting the treatise. This will be my afternoon read today. Hi Gregory. Thank you for posting that planking expansion plan but it has no real baring on the wales and outboard planking. On the planking drawing that you posted note that there are no wales which struck me as odd then realized it is the inboard planking drawing from the RMG site, not the outboard so a completely different matter. With the deck beam clamps being part of the planking and dictating the location of deck beams it makes sense that the inboard planking would follow the sheer of the deck. On the drawings I posted, you can follow the line of the gun ports which we know must follow the line of the deck. You can see that the deck sheer has no relation to the sheer of the planking/wales. On the Litchfield drawing you can see the deck beams as well and again there is no relation of the sheer line of the decks to that of the planking. Of a more modern nature, Brilliant (36) 1757, it is more detailed and obvious in the below plan if you follow the wale and compare to the sheer of the deck you can see there is no relation between the run of planking and sheer lines of the decks. Again, I cannot speak of the sheer of the Santa Maria as I have never seen actual evidence one way or the other. Allan

I cannot speak for the Santa Maria as there are no contemporary plans but I have never seen a contemporary plan where the planking follows the sheer of any deck so it is possible you got it right. Look at the attached and you can see this on the of plans the Charles Galley 1676 and Litchfield 1695 - (I know, much later than SM) You can see that the planking line is nothing like the sheer of the decks. Steven, ref: main wale on the Lomellina (sank 1516, probably built 1503) Can you share the source on this as it is different than anything I have seen in the past, so far, and I find it fascinating.

I THINK Eberhard (Wefalck) may be able to help you. PM him and hopefully he will have a contact for you Allan

Hi UV There are similarities in size and era of the two ships assuming you are talking about the Surprise, nee Unite captured in 1797 and the Enterprise of 1774. The idea seems like a fun project but I would use an additional source to confirm the rigging. The rigging on British ships changed a lot in 1794 so IF your Surprise plans are accurate they still may not be applicable to the rigging on Enterprise. For example. the length of the main mast was a proportion of the beam in 1773 but by 1794 it was a proportion of the EXTREME beam + lower deck. You can check all the dimensions using the Danny Vadas spread sheet in the Article database here at MSW. It is a match to Lees Masting and Rigging for the two eras of your ships so you can make a comparison of the two eras and your kit plans and go from there. Allan

As mentioned above, go with silk span. There is no cloth in existence that is to scale for sails unless there is a material with a thread count (TC) over 2400 assuming you want to replicate rough canvas which has a TC of about 50. There is a booklet on making sails that you can purchase for $5 from Sea Watch books. https://seawatchbooks.com/products/swan-iv-sail-making-supplement-from-the-revised-and-expanded-edition-by-david-antscherl

For your next adventure, should it be from the mid 18th century or earlier, maybe study some of the photos of the fully rigged models on the RMG site for some ideas. Lees has belaying drawings for pre-pin ships as well that show where lines were belayed before pins came into use. Allan

Hi Rock A bit late, sorry, but are you sure there were belaying pins on this ship? The English Navy did not use them until about 200 years later than when the Golden Hind sailed so I would think they would never have been used on the GH. Allan

I have seen a couple modern day cross section models of Victory that show shelves in the hold like in the photo above but I cannot find any contemporary plans or contemporary models or other contemporary based information that shows/describes shelves in the hold in midships. If anyone can provide information on these based on contemporary sources I would be very interested to see this and would also like to know if these existed on other rates and if they were appropriate to a certain era. Many thanks Allan

VERY NEAT AND CLEAN WORK!!! The more I see your pics the more I am impressed with Vanguard AND your workmanship. Allan

In order to get rid of the lifting at the bow from edge bending will you be pre-shaping the planks using the method Chuck Passaro demonstrates in the four part video series on your second layer of planking or spiling planks from wider sheets as explained by David Antscherl in the Articles Data base here at MSW? https://thenrg.org/resources/Documents/articles/APrimerOnPlanking.pdf Allan

Gary, I am guessing one end wheel could be removed or maybe ground down to eliminate it. Is it adustable? According to Goodwin the plates were sized as shown below so maybe this device is not a good idea for some scales. You may find the photo below useful as well. Allan

Great idea if it can be done, but there are so many Victory models and kits. I like that Vanguard comes out with ships that have not been built by the thousands and are of very high quality compared to many of their competitors. Allan

Hi Gary, Regarding the overlap, I agree with you. I have seen some plating lately that shows the dimples on one long edge and one short edge so when butted together they have the appearance of an overlap. Much more realistic looking than the riveted plates to be sure. At less than 1:48 it MIGHT be best to leave off any sign of the nails. From what I could find they were 1/4" diameter nails, thus a head of about 1/2" so even at 1:64 the indents would only be about 7 thousandths diameter. Allan

Hi Gary, Have you considered just removing all of them and using more realistic copper plates that properly indicate small nail indents on overlapping plates that would be present versus giant rivet heads on plates butted to each other that were never used? In your wonderful research of Victory, did you find drawings, specs, or photos of the plating? It would be interesting to see. Allan

Phil, Can you post a picture of the gun pattern(s) he shows with approximate dates (or PM me so we do not hijack this subject😀) Working on a cannon project with others here at MSW and would like to see how the pattern compares to the earliest patterns we have found in detail, that is the Pitt and Brown patterns of about 1600. THANK YOU

I agree with Dean. If you are intent on adding sails why not make your own, they are almost guaranteed to be better than the poorly stitched materials found in some kits. The booklet Dean mentions is by David Antscherl at SeaWatch Books for $5. https://seawatchbooks.com/products/swan-iv-sail-making-supplement-from-the-revised-and-expanded-edition-by-david-antscherl Regardless of which kit you choose, research the ship and others like it of that era IF accuracy is a factor for you. In the end get what is most comfortable for you and have fun. That said, by comparison, the one does seem to look more realistic albeit not very accurate in some of the details. Some examples, all of which you can change on your own,,,,, it has belaying pins which the British did not use until about 200 years later, the planking style is fantasy, the pintles are out of scale, and the cannon look a lot more like Spanish guns of that era than British. The book mentioned above is available on Amazon at what seems like a decent price when considering availability and will probably help you with a lot of these kinds of details if you are up for some kit bashing. https://www.amazon.com/Galleon-Great-Ships-Armada-Era/dp/1557503001 Allan

First and foremost, welcome to MSW J It would be nice if you would post a little intro in the new member section about yourself. To address your query, according to James Lees in The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War, page 40, the snaking came into use in the 18th century and he is specific that it was sometimes used during wartime. He does not explain why the lines were snaked together but as it was only rigged during wartime perhaps it was to prevent the stay or preventer stay from coming down if one or the other was parted by shot. He gives a very nice detailed drawing of how the snaking was lashed to each line rather than being knotted to the stays. Allan

Assuming you are correct Craig, and I think you are, I cannot believe how stupid of me not to just take the line all the way through to see such a basic thing by myself. Allan

Sorry guys it is not the deck. The deck line (top and bottom of the planking) is shown in red on the original draft. I will zoom in further to see if it helps. Will mark the line in question with arrows Druxey, good point. Thanks Allan Line question BBB.PDF

The below drawing happens to be the Artois, but it is similar to many others. Is there a name for the line marked below. I have traced it in magenta on the profile plan to see if I could figure it out, but it does not seem to hold any significance. I am sure it has significance as lines were not arbitrarily drawn on these plans so I am curious to know what it is about. The deck line can be seen in red on the original plan so it is not the deck. TIA Allan Line question AAA.PDF

This is a great subject..... what size are chain rudder pendants on various size ships? They were to prevent loss of the rudder if it became unshipped and needed to be sized to hold onto the rudder and hardware. I would not rely on Caldercraft having the right size without doing some research. 19 links per inch seems to be almost double the size that could be used. Assume an oak rudder on a 74 gun ship weighs about 7000 pounds. 3/8" chain can hold about 7000 pounds so with two chains, one port, one starboard attached to the spectacle plate, it can hold double that amount. 3/8" chain links are about 2" long. At scale these would be .028" long or about 35 links per inch. I cannot find any specifications so far, so hopefully a member will have sizes from contemporary based sources. (Walther railroad supplies has chain up to 40 per inch.) Allan