uss frolick

A heavy book-sized package from France marked "La Poste" just arrived at my door! Sadly, I am on my way to work ... Drat, it is going to be a long day. But, a review will be coming soon! Huzzah!

The end of August has come and gone, like my youth, but no book has yet arrived ... any new updates for us?

I've been informed by mail that there will be a delay in shipment, due to printing issues. It will hopefully ship at the end of August. Some things are worth waiting for, and I'm sure this monographs will prove to be one of them ...

Apple-wood bends easily and holds a sharp edge. It is readily available, and the sap-wood is much lighter than it's heart-wood.

It looks like a special port that opens astern the port, sideways like a door. On the Marlborough, it looks the clearest. Note that there are no upper and lower ports like on all the others. There is a hole in the door's center, and a side channel to the hole in the door so that it might be shut forward around a cable of some kind running through the bridle port. One might wish to secure the port in heavy seas while still passing ropes out to the jib, or anchor or something important outside and forward. Or it could be the external portion of a modern, Victorian Pissdale.

I just ordered it !!! A French 24-pounder frigate monograph, at last! A dream come true! Merci Beaucoup, Gerard!

Mention was made in the official court of enquiry of HM Brig Reindeer's (few) surviving officers, about the identity of the approaching ship prior to the battle, and Lt. Chambers recalled that he had correctly identified her as an American corvette, because of the white streak along her hull, and from the excess parlor, or whiteness of her sails.

Any update on your L'Egyptienne monograph?

Good theory! Might it also discourage an important object, say the jib or the fore-course, from accidentally hooking the anchor fluke when when being hauled in, during a brisk breeze and ripping the cloth? It could still snag with the net there, but it might be less likely to tear, while the net allows the hands a platform on which to stand whilst clearing it? It catches flying fish for the wardroom table? 😜

What was the purpose of the netting on the anchor on Bob's third picture, I wonder?

Horatio Nelson and Jack Aubrey: "Never mind maneuvers, just go straight at 'em!"

This was the modern Greek Cruise Liner Oceanos which sank off South Africa in the 1990s. Everyone got off safely, but the worthless captain was the first one to jump in a lifeboat. An old, rusted underwater hull plate failed in a storm, and the sea water flowed up through the sewage tank - who's back flow valve was missing - flooding the ship with sewage seawater through the sinks, toilets and showers, by-passing all the watertight doors. I suspect the sound effects were added:

Just to clarify, the fictional Surprise was based on the real ship of the same name, L'Unite, as CCoyle suggests. The ship was real, and Patrick O'Brien had copies of the NMM plans when he wrote his books about her fictional adventures. But the real L' Unite had 12 ports per side on the main deck. Her class carried 22 or 24 long 8-pounders in broadside, in French service, exclusive of the bridle ports. To this, the class added eight 36-pounder brass carronades and/or long 4-pounders to the quarterdeck and forecastle, mounting 30-32 guns in total. The British usually substituted carronades on one or both decks when they became available. Four identical ships of the L'Unite Class were built: L'Unite, L'Republicaine, Tourterelle and Cornellie. They were designed by Pierre Alexandre Forfait . All four were taken or destroyed by the British early in the war, and the plans of the Tourterelle also survive in the NMM. They are just beautiful. I like the looks of Tourterelle much better than the Surprise, and they are less faded. Tourterelle put up one hell of a fight against an 18-pounder British frigate, HMS Lively, before she struck. Tourterelle even used a hot shot furnace that she carried aboard her, but to no avail. Here's a link to the Tourterelle plans at the NMM. Note that they have deck-plans, both as taken, and as fitted, for RN service: https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections.html#!csearch;searchTerm=tourterelle

She’s rigged here as a bark. The white stripe extending over the stem makes her post 1815. I say she’s the ex-gun-brig Beagle because she had been rerigged as a bark, and, of course, she was famous enough to have had such a nice painting done of her.

How totally British! Enjoy. Cheerio! Part 2:

Which six unfortunates would have had their bunks in Montañés's poop deck-house, and which two in the poop-taferail cupboards? Warrant officers? Note no fixed gunport on the upper gun-deck. I wish auto-correct would stop substituting the word "gunlock" every time I try to write "gundeck"!

That plan of Montañés is beautiful!

The framing of that model looks of a later style, almost Harold Hahn-ish, with every station being a full frame with no filler frames. The hull looks sleek and more 'modern' too, like something out of the 1760's. Great article. Thanks for sharing.

The narration is kinda sappy and melodramatic - "some say she has a sole" - "and then she was gone" - perhaps it was produced for kids - but the film of the schooner is just lovely. Thanks for posting it! There are only two surviving plans for named, 1812 Chesapeake Bay Pilot schooner privateers: Lynx was one; and the awesome Grecian the other, both Kemp designed vessels. There are many other plans, but none can be tied to any specific vessel. The film ought to have mentioned how they were able to accurately reconstruct the Lynx.

Valparaiso, Chile, was also the scene of the destruction and capture of the US Frigate Essex in 1814, at the hands of the British Frigates Phoebe and Cherub. I have yet to read of a single Chilean account of that battle.

Local tourism dollars also come into play. From the Yorkshire Post: "The delegates at Filey’s White Lodge Hotel were the first to hear of it, along with news of the discovery of wooden figurehead of a lion and shield that adorned the bow, and a carving of a shepherdess from the stern. Mr Blackburn said: “We expect a task force to be formed that will get the visitor strategy in place. They can set up a Bonhomme Richard trail – people will land at Leeds Bradford or Manchester and make their way from there. “We’re talking about a generation of employment – it’s that far reaching. Once the Americans learn of it, it will generate a lot of interest.”

Mary Rose, like the Vasa, was in brackish harbor water, where the wood worms can not survive. If you don't know where a wreck is, somewhere out in the channel, then you can't salvage her cannon. Cold isn't a problem either, nor pressure, unless the cold affects the salinity, as in the case of the Terror and Erebus. Note that the Titanic's wood was all eaten away, except for shellacked mahogany mantlepieces in a couple of her first class staterooms. Seahawk, about the Adams. I saw an 1814 letter, written by Isaac Hull, commander of the Portsmouth Navy Yard, to Secretary of the Navy William Jones, (in the misc. 'area files' for the district), describing all the cannon, shot, pig iron ballast and even the caboose, which had been pulled from the charred wreck of the Adams.

Part of me is still suspicious. How did the figurehead, here conveniently battle-damaged, not get eaten by the Toredo Worms. If the hull sat upright on the bottom, then the figurehead hung two stories above the ooze that would have preserved it. BHR was the size of a conventional 64-gun warship. Ditto the height of the conveniently-burnt stern-carvings. Is the water close to the coast brackish, like Stockholm's, which kills wood boring organisms, or just normal salty channel water? The figurehead of the BHR is unknown. The "rampant lion figurehead with shield" motif was a best guess by Jean Boudroit, but the diver was able to describe his conjectural work exactly. Usually, the only wood to survive was the keel, the floor timbers and lowest strakes of planking. Seahorses and shepherdesses are interesting stern ornamentations, but rare for French vessels of that period. I thought BHR had drifted in the channel - drifted in some direction away from the coast - for two days while they tried to save her. And of the 42 cannon, the diver was able to find the one single 18-pounder that burst? I would love to be proven wrong. "Bad Frolick! Go to your room, and take your cynicism with you! And no pudding for you either, Mister!"

Saw this topic over at CivilWar Talk by poster AndyHall! It sounds too good to be true. A Lion figurehead, burst guns and surviving stern decorations ???? Well it isn't April 1st ... https://civilwartalk.com/threads/wreck-of-bonhomme-richard-located.152451/ It referenced the following article: http://www.oldsaltblog.com/2018/12/wreck-of-john-paul-jones-ship-uss-bonhomme-richard-located-off-yorkshire/ Here's "The Daily Mail" article of December 11th: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6341261/Historians-claim-discovered-wreck-Bonhomme-Richard-sunk-Yorkshire-coast.html But how would a wooden figurehead survive in salt water? Here's more info from the Scarborough News : "He said that other parts of the ship have also been found, including a carving of a shepherdess from the stern and a seahorse artefact that links the vessel to its previous days as a cargo ship in the Orient. "The figurehead we have identified is a rampant lion with shield. The ear and nose bear marks of cannonballs which hit the ship before it sunk. "The seahorse image connects the vessel to its French colonial days." He added that the shepherdess from the stern indicates the carving has burned legs, consistent with explosions that sunk the Bonhomme. " Full article: https://www.thescarboroughnews.co.uk/news/business/bonhomme-richard-could-bring-huge-tourism-boost-to-yorkshire-coast-1-9484782