uss frolick

Just be careful with any exotic wood. The dust can be irritating to some, or downright toxic, so wear a mask when milling. Padauk wood, for example, a beautiful red wood, is especially nasty, according to Father Bill Romero, who framed his 3/16th Essex in it. He had to stop building the model because of coughing spasms. I had heard that African Blackwood can be irritating to some, but not all, who use it. So be careful.

One of the members of the Tampa Bay Ship-modelers, Roman Barzana, used to sell loquat logs back in the 90's. He pops up here occasionally, usually in the 3D CAD section. He might know where to get some. There are two beautiful loquat trees here in my neighborhood, but neither owner wants to take me up my free tree removal offer yet ... (i.e., to get rig of all that yucky fruit on their lawns!)

Loquat - the perfect fruitwood. The grain is tight and makes clean edges like boxwood, it is colored like pear, and it bends without complaint.

That's why I used the weasel-words 'probably' and 'suspect'.

I think that it is now safe to conclude that all Cruisers had the square-tuck stern. This was probably done because nearly all (if not all) were built in private yards, where the standards were much lower than naval yards, using every dwindling bit of available oak timber, under emergency conditions, so it was thought that the stern, a potential weak point, would have to be built as strong as possible, even if that meant using a strong, tried and true, and ancient method of framing. I suspect that the earlier Swans had a much stouter frame. One of the editions of Steele's Shipbuilders Repository, c.1805, includes folded plans of the Cruisers, so I wonder if he mentions their unusual stern frames?

Surprisingly, while both were about 100 feet on the gun-deck, the Swans were just 300 tons, where as the Cruisers were just a tad under 400 tons! It seems counterintuitive, since the Swans were ships, built like miniature frigates, while the Cruisers were just flush-decked brigs.

Well, Beef W's log on his Snake model shows the Gannett's framing plan, and that shows the square tuck frame, so I'm guessing now that they all had them? (But why?) The answer to your question Charlie is, I don't know of any specifically. I just assumed that small oak ships were built according to the same rules of the larger ones. Why didn't the Swan/Pegasus Class Sloops have had them, since they were even smaller?

Thanks for the enlargement, Charlie! Lyon's pic is small. Is that the fashion piece shown on the body plan? It's very feint, but it looks like something is there. I'm leaning the other way now too. But why would an oak ship need one? Only six of the hundred or so brigs were built of fir ... The Scout's framing plan would be more decisive.

The square tuck appears flat from the side. That dark vertical line, about two feet long, at the back of the waterline, which is part of a narrow triangle, denotes one. Irene/Grasshopper has one too. Curious. Petrajus says, on page 62-3: "The Irene, together with a number of brig-sloops and ship-sloos and even frigates of the time, was not only built of fir, but had what was called a 'square-tuck' besides. It was a curious step back in history, which may have had something to do with the necessity for the Admiralty to have a great many plain, but serviceable ships built in the shortest amount of time. Normally, the connection between the transom piece and the stern post was achieved between athwartship timbers, called 'transoms '. The principle one was the 'wing transom'. It formed the base for the 'counter timbers', and the hooding ends of the planking were fastened to it, inasmuch as they could not be brought into the stern post rabbet. The lowest transom was generally short and sharp, like the letter 'V', the top one approached the shape of the beam, while the intermediate transoms formed a transition between these extremes. The transoms were dovetailed into the fashion pieces and let in on the stern post, besides being bolted to them. The did the same service to the planking of the stern as the frames did to that of the sides. The closing of the counter and the stern was affected by a frame of cross beams and stanchions, arranged in accordance with the number of windows, ports, etc. As already pointed out, the construction of the Irene's stern frame was unusually simple. 'Fayed' upon the fore side of the main post was a sort of inner post, on top of the rested the transom, let in on the stern post. Just as in the 17th century, the fashion pieces served to accommodate the hooding ends of the bottom planking as well as the planking of the tuck. There was only this difference that they were let now let into the rabbets, cut in the fashion pieces, so that these timbers remained visible for their greater part. That this was so, appears from the clause in the contract for the Raven, relating to the matter, and the expansion plan, mentioned before." The Raven's contract given in appendix 1, page 271, notes: "FASHION PIECES: To be sided 11 inches, rabbeted, on the outside, to receive the plank of the bottom, and on the aft side, to receive the plank of the tuck." According to David Lyon, in The Sailing Navy List, page 142, Raven is listed as one of only six fir built brigs. They are: Beagle, Elk, Harrier, Raven, Reindeer, and Saracan. Victor and Zebra were built in Bombay out of native teak. There are separate plans of for the oak, fir and teak versions. The plans of the Scout, of 1804, to which nearly all were built, shows, on page 140, no square tuck stern ... ! But Grasshopper was an oak brig. Did Petrajus make the Irene fit the wrong draught and contract? So I guess I was right the first time? Now I am really confused!

You may well be right. All fir vessels were square tuck, but oak ones could be too, I suppose. Was this a nod towards economy? The cruisers were built in private yards. Why would they all have such a old fashioned stern if built of oak? If their frames were lightly built, then would the stronger square tuck have been a precaution? But a square tuck places the plank end seams very close to the water, and this promoted rot and leaks. The round tuck placed those ends up much higher. Now I'm confused.

Nope. You got it backwards. All fir-built ships in the RN had anachronistic square-tuck sterns. Fir timber was too weak to form a modern round tuck, so the RN builders resorted to an ancient, much stronger type last seen on The Sovereign of the Seas! The area under a rounded stern was very high stress structurally. The fir frigates Leander and Newcastle, built of fir, and designed to catch the Constitution Class ships, show square tucks on their framing plans. England was running out of oak in 1812. The Sloop Levant, which fought the Constitution in 1815, and her dozen stablemates built in 1813-4, had square-tucks too, and she was built of fir. The famous Reindeer, which fought the Wasp in 1814, was fir, and her plans also show a square tuck. The Frigate Shannon model in Annapolis shows a square tuck stern, but she is actually a model of the Eurotas, later altered to represent the oak-built Shannon. HMS Eurotas was an 1812-built fir copy of the Leda Shannon Class. The problem was that fir tended to splinter much worse than oak when struck by shot. When Leander fought at The Battle of Algiers in 1816, she suffered 135 casualties I think teak was ok for the round tuck, but definitely not fir.

Notice that the above model wears a square tuck stern. HMS Reindeer and only five other fir-or-teak-built Cruiser-brigs did. Grasshopper did not.

Yep, I think so, just enough room for a vicious looking epervier - or sparrow-hawk.

British ships were not without decoration, but the styles were different, more subdued. Gone were the clunky allegorical figures of Truth, Liberty, etc., and in their places came modern scroll and vine-work, in the French fashion. The problem was that the scrolls, flora and intertwined hawsers were too fine to be represented in 1/48 scale, and so they no longer appeared on the draughts. Instead, separate drawing were made for both bow and stern carvings in 1/2 inch scale, where the detail could be better shown. The problem is that hardly any of those detailed little drawing survive. But some do, like the prize Frigates Imperious (Spanish ex-Fama) and Chlorinde (French), drawn in 1809 and 1810 respectively, following their extensive rebuilds. A brig much smaller than the Cruisers, HMS Boxer, was captured by the USS Enterprize in 1813, but not bought by the US Navy because she was too small. (She was a gun-brig, not a brig-sloop, because she lacked a continuous berth deck, instead having only fore and aft platforms.) Boxer was purchased by a Maine merchant, who used her for years afterwards as a coastal trading vessel. When she was finally broken up, her figurehead - a small lion bust - and her corresponding stern coat-of-arms-thingy were saved, and are now in a maritime museum in Maine. I saw pictures of them both a long time ago, but I can't recall the source.

Thanks for the information! Patrick O'Brian sometimes mentioned the Trabaccolo in his novels, and I wondered what they were!

The Irene book is a rare classic. You were lucky to score one.

When I read this thread title, I wasn't wearing my glasses. I initially thought it said "In Praise of Liquor".

Got it. Just started reading it last night, and it is really informative on 19th century US Navy life. Several gems so far. Mostly about life on board ship, and very little about the exotic flora and fauna of ports ashore - unlike most journals of the time. The Constellation contacts the school-ship USS Plymouth off the Azores on her 1859 training cruise, and she is crewed by 400 Annapolis midshipmen! Had she wrecked, there would have been no Civil War Navies! A fun read.

I just bought a used hardcover copy on e-bay for $11.32 with free shipping! Thanks for the heads up, Paul!

If you can find it, Loquat wood is the very best. It is pear colored, it is uniform, it takes a boxwood-like cut, and it bends without complaint. There is no other wood like it. It was planted here in South Florida by retirees over the course of many decades. Sadly, younger people are having them cleared out. It has light grey bark, and small clusters of grape sized fruit. Roman Barzana, modeler-extraordinaire of Tampa, enlightened me about Loquat.

The run of your hull planking is just wonderful, especially so, since they gave you a minimum of bulkhead stations to secure to. Really beautiful!

William James, in his "Naval History of Great Britain", Vol. 5, page 45-6, says: "...The French 16-gun Brig Corvette Nisus, Captaine de fregate Jacques-Gabriel La Netrel, was observed lying at an anchor, under the protection of a fort ...the Nisus had sailed from Lorient on the 30th of October with a cargo of flour, had arrived at the Hayes on the 1st of September, and, when captured, was agin ready for sea with a cargo off coffee. Being a fine brig of 337 tons, the Nisus was added to the British Navy, under the appropriate name of Guadeloupe ..." If James says "16-guns" then she probably mounted that number, as he was usually very accurate about such things.

Often, fitting out had much to do with proper internal accomidations. Many "foreign" brigs lacked a full berth deck, having only a fore and aft platform. (The technical difference between a "brig-sloop" and a "gun-brig" in British service is the presence of a full berth deck.) French vessels, even public navy ones, did not have the proper, permanent cabins and bulkheads below ships. One of the things that the RN changed at the first opportunity, was adding proper gun-deck and berth deck knees. The French just dove-tailed the beams into oversized clamps, and dispensed with most of the knees. This saved weight to gain speed, but did not make them strong or durable. The RN put proper knees in, because they had some hard-grinding blockading to do . The draught above does show gun-ports made for carronades, as they have no upper cills, the sides just mortised into the bottom of the cap rail. This was done to gain height, so the fully elevated carronade would clear. Did she have carronades when taken, or long guns?

For a comprehensive and well written history of the Epervier, one must read: McCleary, J.R., "Lost By Two Navies: HMS Epervier, A Most Unfortunate Ship", Part 1, Nautical Research Journal, Vol. 41, N0. 2, page 81-87, June 1996, and Part 2, NRJ, Vol. 41, No. 3, September 1996, page 131-141. Mr. McCleary did not have access to the above court martial proceedings, so with that in mind, it should be a fun re-read!

Here are my thoughts. The Epervier was a new fast sloop, built to the latest designs, launched in 1812, and she was constructed of oak. She had a complete battery of sixteen 32-pounder carronades, plus two 18-pounder trunioned carronades, and a complete crew with no vacancies, and no missing officers. Although the officers claim the the crew was indifferent, most of them had been in the sloop since her first days, with the same captain and most of her officers. It was the officers duty to train and inspire them. The crew may have been sick due to the cold weather in Halifax the previous year, they had been in the tropics for several months, more than enough time for all cold weather maladies to cure themselves. They may have only had 31 real sailors on board, but that was more than enough to sail a brig of her size. The rest were only needed to haul the ropes and work the guns. If they were not a strong, smart crew, then it was the officers's duty to train them properly, as they had been together a year and a half, much longer than the Peacock's had her's. The defects in the fighting bolts would have been spotted long before, if all the guns have been tested with powder and ball, which they were not, only one was, and the problem could have been fixed. Given the little damage to the Peacock, the British carronades were aimed too high, and the downward recoil might have caused the problem. If the guns had been aimed flat for the enemy's hull, they may not have popped out. The breeching bolts pulled out probably because, while underwater at Halifax, water soaked into the breach bolt holes, and after six months of rotting, the wood couldn't stand the repeated recoil of the guns, and let the bolts pass through. The sloop probably lay aground, partially submerged on her larboard side. It is surprising that they didn't try wearing around to bring their starboard guns to bear, as some had suggested. So if they were too close to the enemy, and had fallen on board, as they had feared, then they could have tried boarding the Peacock, since they still had over one hundred hands unhurt, including all sixteen of her marines, and apparently nobody had fired their muskets yet.