uss frolick

That's interesting about the Santee's new stern frames too. It mean that they took a lesson from the Adams lengthening and made the new midship section not so far aft along in the hull. The Portsmouth (NH) papers noted only that in 1855 Santee "was remodeled and her prow was made sharper".

Option One: Lengthening a ship can really only be done relatively EASILY amidships, where the task at hand is making a bunch of copies of the midship frame that would not interfere with the existing lines. This was done to the Adams frigate, in the extreme, but by creating such a long midships 'flat', it altered the ebb of the water around the hull so badly, that it created a 'chatter' at the rudder that it wore out the pintles and gudgeons after only a couple years. Since the Enterprize had to be so completely rebuilt after only a half dozen years since her visit to the Mediterranean dockyard, I suspect that the midships keel splice was equally as rotten as the majority of the new frames that had to be replaced. I suspect that they pulled out the keel splice and replaced it with a longer splice. I don't think that they would have added a eight feet midship keel splice in 1804, and then added a second five foot splice in 1811 right next to it. That would have been structurally unsound in the dangerous extreme. Option 2: However, in the 1850s, the navy lengthened the Frigates Santee and Sabine by replacing everything forward of the midships frame, including the keel, and re-lofting the lines to a new forward frame design. This was done in anticipation of a steam conversion which never came. If this was the method employed on the Enterprize, then it would have been more difficult, requiring a complete redrawing of her plans. But since the US Navy didn't even have plans in 1811 to 'redraw' (by their own admission) they would have had to take the lines off first, in order to have something in which to alter. So they might have just completely rebuilt her lines to a whole new set of plans, making use of the after keel and those floor timber which they could make fit.

Nobody knows how big the Fair American was. There is no scale on the model and no dimensions survive. The old Modelshipways kit guessed at the scale of the model with their solid hull kit and thought 3/16th on an inch was right. When they went over to the POB kit, they changed the scale to 1/4" sclae, even though the model was the same size! I think she was larger and the earlier 3/16th of an inch was closer to the truth. The model was thought to have been in 3/8 inch scale. So MS took the likes off, reduced the plans by half, and called it 3/16 scale. Later, for some unclear reason, they determined that the model was instead in 1/2 inch scale, so they relabeled the kit as 1/4th. I think she was closer to 100 feet on deck than 70-ish, so IMHO, MS got it right the first time.

Remember also, that not all heavier vessels pursuing you are behind you, like the classic motorboat chase in From Russia With Love ("Heave too, Mr.Bond! Spectre Three: You're firing too close!"). They only have to be to windward of you, most likely on your weather quarter where the stern ports are of no use. It seems that a recoiling gun could cut your tiller rope. In the heavier American sloops, like the Wasp and Hornet, the iron goose-necked tiller and its tackle were below in the great cabin, so perhaps the Enterprize was retrofitted with this device by 1813.

Remember, there's a big tiller with all its relieving tackle covering the deck aft the wheel.

Robinson said that he wanted to lengthen her, implying that he didn't. The lengthening must have happened in 1811. An additional 7.5 feet is substantial. Dumb question: Did Salvini use the English-measure foot or the slightly longer French foot? Carvings unknown. Probably a simple billet-head forward, and minimal astern: Stars - maybe a small eagle. All that we know about her stern, is that just an hour before they fought the Boxer in 1813, Burrows decided to chop away a section of it so that one of his nine-pounders could be run out aft, just in case he had to flee a stronger force. (A move which disheartened the men, according to a court martial held for cowardice against Masters Mate William Harper.) So no stern chase ports as re-built. Use similar USS Vixen for general appearance.

Sorry to hear about the lost half hull model. That's interesting what you pointed out about the lengthened section of the Salvini Plan. I didn't see that. Remember that the American Commander Robinson noted (rather strangely for a letter up the chain of command) that he wished that he could have lengthened her a bit. Perhaps Robinson and Salvini spoke of the idea, and were in full agreement. So maybe Salvini went ahead and copied the Enterprize, lengthened her (on paper, at least) and added all those European fiddly bits that make any Mediterranean naval officer's heart swoon, like a full projecting head, false stern windows, thick carvings and swivel gun posts for and aft. Were I to model the Enterprize, I would take that first plan, remove the lengthened center section and the swivel posts, redraw a simpler head, and space the gun ports to fit the paintings.

Excellent! As they say in Alabama, "Stop your fiddlin', and start your widdlin."

Cheers John! I'm not sure why you are comparing the body lines of the La Venus and the La Justice, two different ships, and expecting them to line up, even imperfectly. I've looked at so many draughts of Sane designed frigates over the years, that were supposedly sister-ships, and their outboard profiles don't even look remotely alike. Visually, it's almost like every French frigate is a one-off! If I were you, I would examine one of the MANY later British Admiralty as-actually-built draughts of Sane designed ships, and not one of the first earliest frigates like Venus. And I don't believe that every ship attributed to Sane was actually designed by him. The classic example is La Renomme of 1806, later HMS Java, "said" to have been designed by Joel Sane in the records. Although her specific draughts do not survive, there is a surviving contemporary rigged model of La Renomme in the Musee de la Marine. Photographs of her bow-on show a midship section shape drastically different from Sane's classic, French apple-body. Instead, it shows a frigate more attributable to Forfait with the long "V-shape" dead-rise. (Forgive my French spelling throughout.) As it turns out, Forfait built many ships in the Nantes region - where Renomme/Java was built - and the draught of one frigate in particular from the NMM, known to have been a Forfait designed frigate, bears a striking resemblance to the model, and even includes two features unique to only that model and not seen on other draughts. It's almost like since Sane designed so many ships of all types - hundreds - that whenever a question arose later on about who designed the mysterious "frigate X", about whom the historical records are at best fuzzy, the clerks might have said, "Uh, I don't know. The probability is high that Sane designed her."

There are two contemporary images of the Frigate United States made shortly after her launch. One is a painting, and the other a woodcut print. Both show not only a poop deck, but stern galleries, but the painting shows windows at gun-deck level only of the quarter-galleries. The wood cut shows the poop railings and a double decked quarter-gallery. The wood cut is certainly where Chapelle found his inspiration. The color painting can be found in "The Frigates", The Sea Farers Series, Time/Life Books, 1979, page 6-7. The woodcut can be found in "The Picture History of the U. S. Navy", 1956, Theodore Roscoe and Fred Freeman , Image 262. There is a small BW version of the painting on the same page as well. I highly recommend picking up both books used if you can find them.

I think there was only one in each gallery for a frigate.

The only probable connection between the lower and upper roundhouse "facilities' was a lead pipe which ran through the bulwarks and down through the gun-deck quarter-gallery to drop "Admiral Brown" into the sea. The flushing facilities was certainly only a bucket of salt water kept filled by the Captain's servant (failure to maintain a ready supply at his peril!). Detail-oriented modelers might also want to add a small basket of tow, oakum or, the nineteenth century equivalent of Charmin Tissues, corn cobs. Ewww ... The half windows are at the gun-deck level. But perhaps you might only need one roundhouse for the quarterdeck watch officers. Perhaps one side was a storage or signal flag locker?

Awesome, that's it Charley! The curved partitions (labeled "Z") in the corners, where the quarterdeck meets the taffrail, are port and starboard water closets for the officers, the last cramped remnant of when the Frigate United States had a poop deck and a complete quarterdeck cabin. Even then, there was barely room to sit. The post-1809-rebuild era officers were surely reluctant to give up that amenity. This feature is shown on no other frigate's deck plan.

It's amazing how the body plans all look so similar! So I guess anyone who wants to reconstruct the Enterprize has only to take his pick.

A while back, some good fellow posted a picture or two of two 1812-era 24-pounder US naval cannon that are currently on display in Savannah. I believe they were standing upright. They are marked as weighing 45 hundred weight apiece and have American Eagles cast on top where the GR crest would normally be on the English versions. I can't find them. Can you link me or repost those photographs? Thanks!

Who knows how she looked after her 1811 rebuild, but since she carried sixteen broadside guns, I would give her eight ports per side again. I bet she looked like the Vixen by that point. Although she always carried her pivot machinery broken down in her hold, the 24-pounder medium gun was borrowed and returned to the yard in New Orleans in 1812 after the hurricane, and so was not aboard when she fought HMS Boxer in 1813. She was also damaged in the storm and had to be repaired in New Orleans in 1812 also.

Report of February 24, 1811: "... after being dismantled and relieved of armament, her masts were taken out, and the structure of the ship altered as to move them farther aft. She was careened, keel out on both sides, and her copper cleaned. Rigging and sails were refitted, upper works and bends repaired and caulked, and she was repainted thoughout. After receiving new armaments and ammunition, and sailed from the yard on April 25th." But by October, 1811, she was "stripped down to her floor timbers and entirely rebuilt". Her new Commander, Johnston Blakeley, re-rigged as a brig, and rearmed her with mostly 18-pounder carronades. So much for for the Arsenal's prediction of her lasting "forty years"!

Excerpt from a letter from Robinson to James Barron of the Frigate Essex, March 4, 1805: "I am preparing for a heavy gun, and in such a way that the arrangement will answer for any other deck and shall carry all in the hold to the place of action." Again to Barron, March 14, 1815: "I have completed the machinery for a 24-pounder on the schooners deck, having experienced the inactive situation of this description of vessel was in last summer, I calculated her hatches and beams amidships for this mode of armament, the machinery is all carried in the hold & if when you see the Enterprize, if you do not approve of her carrying a heavy piece, its easy to apply to another vessel that you may judge better calculated. I would not make it a fixture without your approbation, but I am certain that she may carry it in any sea, & if so, what a nice tickler she may be for nightwork on Tripoly, & and altho her senrenades [sic] may not be so agreeable from the Guitar to a Turk, they no doubt will have a respectful audience ..."

Robinson's next report, dated February 18th, 1805: "... I have this day got her bends on and ceiling completed. I was obliged to put on a new stem and stern post. In doing the latter, I have taken out the square tuck and have also altered to small degree the fashion of her topsides, by not giving her so much tumblehome aloft, which will aford a better deck and room to manage her guns, but in every instance, I have been particular in preserving her model below, that she may continue to possess her good qualities as a fast sailor and a good sea boat. It astonished me how her stern hung together, it was at first a miserable piece of work, and when we broke it down perfectly rotten. The schooner is as full as I think necessary of the best timber I ever saw, the master carpenter of the Arsenal says (and I think with great reason) that she will be a good vessel after this repair forty years. Oh how I wish I had got permission to give her a few more feet keel and opened her a little, what a sweet brig I would have made of her, and with no apparent expense,but sir it is dangerous for officers young in rank to take libertys [sic]."

Excerpt from Master Commandant Thomas Robinson Jr.'s initial letter to the Secretary of the Navy Robert Smith, January, 1805, describing the state of the Enterprize: " ... She was out of the water and shored up in one hour from the word heave (they have five or six hundred slaves attached to the arsenal for this type of heavy work) -- When we came to rip the schooner to pieces we found her in a most deplorable situation, it was to the astonishment of everyone, how she brot [sic] us here. her beams are all off at the ends, the floor and futtocks perfect powder, and in fact to sum up it's only necessary to inform you that in addition to building a new schooner, we have to pull to pieces an old one -- but there is this pleasing reflection, she will be more durable than her companions, for better timber I never saw than we are puting [sic] into her.. I have the pick from frames of frigates that have ben from twenty to five years dressed out, numbered and piled away under cover for use.. There never was a pendant treated with more respect, or officers with more attention than the Enterprize's has been both here and at Trieste, being the first of our vessels of war in either of those ports, and her construction so different from anything they have ever seen, she astonished and delighted. Count Lespine, with whom I stand very fare ... has often told me 'if you don't put good stuff into the schooner, its your own fault, take the pick of the Arsenal for every thing."

Things that need to be done (but not by me.) 1. Some brave soul needs to redraw the lines of the Venice Arsenal brig plans to a common size, and superimpose them over the Chapelle unidentified schooner plans, as well as with those of the US Navy plans of the USS Vixen, a brig that had been intended to have been built to the Enterprize's model. This may lead to a proper identification of the plans. But that darn head on the Venice plans is too large for any American Naval Vessel to have grown during a repair overseas. It would have added way to much weight! No commander would have allowed it. At best, those plans are a design of a proposed new Italian brig BASED PERHAPS on the lines of the Enterprize. 2. Take the lines off that half-model and similarly compare them with the above. Now, we may never know any more about the hull form of the Enterprize than what we do right now, but anyone interested in building a model of her has options. Were anyone here commissioned to build a model of her, they could start with Chapelle's unidentified draught and alter it to fit one of the two contemporary watercolors. Both paintings were created by artists renown for their technical accuracy. But the Roux drawing shows the Enterprize with eight broadside ports, while the Baugean drawing shows her with eleven - or at least ten with an armed bridle port. Author Geoffrey Footner dates both paintings from 1806, but only the Baugean print has a date "1806" clearly marked on her. Since neither maritime artist would screw up the number of ports, we must conclude that each represents the schooner at her two stages, before and after her 1804 arsenal rebuild. Since we know that the Enterprize gained an unspecified number of ports as a result of the rebuild during her Venice stay, we must conclude that the Baugean print marked 1806 represents her as "post-repair". The Roux drawing must show her as launched in 1799. This is the opposite conclusion from what Mr. Footner has put forth! Fun fact: The Enterprize also gained a 24-pounder (a medium-Columbiad) pivot gun carriage that was designed to mount over the main hatch in battle, but to be stored in the hold when not in use. In 1812, her then captain Johnston Blakeley mounted the pivot gun and carriage when he sailed down Balize River to attack the 26-gun British Ship sloop HMS Brazen below New Orleans. An untimely hurricane permanently cancelled the fight.

If she's pink, does that make her the Victoria?

The Venice Arsenal plan shows a vessel with an enormous head, one fitting the Frigate Confederacy, while the two contemporary paintings show no head at all. Oddly, those who discovered and discussed the plans in print don't even mention that Jimmy Durante schnoz!

Strange model by Captain Ashley. The gun-port spacing looks too close together, and the space between the aft-most port and the tafferail looks too long. The profile of the hull reminds me of the Model Shipways Kit of the Brigantine Newsboy of 1854. Great post Charlie.

Bob, now that you have created the finest Essex since William Hackett launched the real one back in 1799, may I dare ask what your future holds, model-ship-wise? Something a teeny bit bigger, maybe, like the USS Pennsylvania ... ?