uss frolick

Great find, Michael P. ! Now I know where the 1920's restorers got their profile design from.

They are slow growing trees, hence the saying, "Plant pears for your heirs."

Solid hull kits are not easy. They are far from finished. You have to make templates, figure our where the templates go, mark the hull, and then carve the hull to fit the plans. No shortcuts involved if you do it right. I would love to get a perfectly finished solid hull to plank over.

I have an old, unbuilt Model Shipways solid hull Fair American kit. Her hull is the same size as the POB laser cut version, (I compared the two at the old Model Shipways brick and mortar store) and all the fittings are the same size. Yet the old "yellow shoebox" kit is marked 3/16th of an inch scale, while the new one is 1/4 inch scale.

Hey Rafine, the next time the USS Constitution goes into dry dock for repairs, they might request your assistance.

I suggest researching Samuel McIntire, the real Essex's carver. His works were unique for their day. He was known for his eagles (wet chickens) and richly vined scroll work, not so much for figures. His style was more Grandma Moses and less William Rush. The Essex's carvings were much admired for their clean, uniquely American simplicity, and they were said to have inspired the later, post Federalist navy's style: eagles, stars and scrolls. There are several books in print on McIntire's works. He was primarily a furniture and mantlepiece maker. The Essex's Indian looks a lot like the Indian in the then Seal of the State of Massachusetts, IMHO.

The stern carvings are on the NMM draught, and they are quite interesting. Oddly, they are passed over in the otherwise complete and superlative TFFM book series. Has anyone tried to carve them?

Arborus Nonspecificus.

I remember reading years ago a report of Captain John Downes of the US Frigate Potomac, following her return from the first Sumatran Punitive Expedition in 1832, that his ship's stove had been placed on the berth deck as an experiment. The idea was to create a hot air draught that would help circulate air better throughout the lower reaches of the ship. Downes thought the experiment a failure, as it was not worth the obvious difficulties, and asked permission to replace it back on the gun deck.

I'm glad Mr. Crothers is still around and active. I hope he produces more of his Sea Gull Plans series.

Wayne, I have nearly all issues, Vol. 31 - 55, (Jan. 1971 - Winter 1995), should you want an article contained within that range of dates. LMK.

You know, there was a Newbie who posted the question "Who makes the best model ships", over in another thread, and I almost answered "Rafine".

When as a kid - long, long ago - I used to think the wales were a thick bumper to absorb the damage when rubbing against the dock - like tires on the side of a tugboat ! Oh well ... Actually, the wales are a part of a system which include the frames, the clamps on the inside, the hanging and lodging knees and the beams, to prevent the ship from opening up sideways. Think of a frame as a rose. The natural tendency of this pretty flower is to open out or to bloom. In a ship, this would be catastrophic, obviously, and the above system evolved to prevent this. The reason that the 74's gundeck beam is, say, 12 inches molded by 10 inches sided , is not to hold the heavy weight of the cannon, but to secure the sides of the ship in place. Working in a heavy seas stresses the "rose", and in older ships, the knees can pull out of the clamps, the ship opens up, fills and sinks. See Patrick O'Brian's "The Ionian Mission", for when that happens to the "Rotten Old Worcester", and Jack has to cocoon his ship by wrapping his midships tight with his own hawser cable.

But whales taper at the stern ...

The Lumberyard (at dlumberyard.com) has 1/4" scale cast pewter cannon barrels for both medium 12-pounders and long 12-pounders, which ought to cover your Victory needs quite well. He even has 24-pounders if you wanna go down a deck. But the two 68-pounder smashers are another matter ...

Red paint was also used for the same reason that old wooden American barns were also painted red. Red was the cheapest and easiest paint pigment to obtain, although many an OFWT (old farmers' wives tale) will say that it was to help the cows find their way home in a snow storm! Anyway, a man who is struck by a cannon ball is going to splatter on the deck and on all things behind the bulwarks of which he was fighting. Given the direction of the shot and the ghastly physics involved, they should have painted the deck red, which of course, they did not. It was French practice to first nail cork board over the interior gun-deck frame planking, and then tack thick mesh netting over the cork, to help catch the splinters. (La Forte vs. HMS Sybille.)

On all flushed deck American corvettes like the Wasp, Peacock, Frolick, Argus, Hornet, etc., all the guns were, by definition, open to the elements. Yet in the US Navy, at least, all spar-deck gun-ports were fitted with "Half Lids and Bucklers", so called. These were split ports that fit around the gun barrel, or in this case, the carronade barrels. The lower halves dropped down on hinges, while the upper halves were completely removed inboard and held in place with two pair of sliding bolts on either side. On American frigates of 1812, the gun-deck ports were fitted with them too. Only after the war, did the upper halves of the gun-deck ports get hinged upwards (as is currently shown on the Constitution.) At no time did American frigates, or sloops of war, ever have full, one-piece upward hinged gun-ports like the Victory has. Even during the Revolution, the Continental frigate Confederacy was noted as having been fitted with half lids and bucklers. The was the French naval practice at the time.

Curious, does the book give any new insight on the Virginia's fight against the sailing Frigates Cumberland and Congress?

Part of the problem is the rather odds scales, like your 1/90th scale, that model companies make their kits in. Marketing tells manufacturers that the average ship kit-builder is looking for something about "x" inches long that will fit a display table about "y" inches long. Therefore, they scale their vessel down to fit the desired size, and in so doing, they end up with some pretty strange scales, to be sure. (This I got from the manager of the long-gone Sarasota Model Expo Store.) That also makes it hard to find replacement cannon, etc., should the kit be lacking. But you're close to 1/87th scale, which I believe is a common railroad modeler scale, (HO Scale - yes?), so you might find conductor and townsfolk figures to start with, should you want to modify them to look like sailors.

"Captain Porter, your ship is ready, Captain Porter ..." Beautiful.

The full title is "A Voice From the Main Deck: Being a record of the Thirty Years Adventures of Samuel Leech". This little book is a gem. It has been in reprint almost continuously since its initial publication in 1843, and is currently part of Naval Institute Press's "The Classics of Naval Literature" Series. It runs about 211 pages. Leech was a colorful English fellow with an eye for detail, and he had the good fortune (for us) to be present at one of the bloodiest battles of the War of 1812: the fight between the Frigates United States and the Macedonian. He had joined the latter ship in 1810. If you've read anything about this battle, then you would have read excerpts from this first hand narrative. Leech's description of the battle alone are worth the price of the book. "My station was at the fifth gun on the main deck", he writes, "it was my duty to supply my gun with powder." Here is a typical account of the battle: "I was eyewitness to a sight equally revolting. A man named Aldrich had one of his hand cut off by a shot, and almost at the same moment, he received another shot, which tore open his bowels in a terrible manner, as he fell, two or three men caught him in their arms, and as he could not live, tossed him overboard." Leech, survived the battle undamaged, and he sailed back to the United States as a prisoner of war. While the Macedonian was repairing in Rhode Island, Leech even started a profitable side tourist business, showing the local citizens shot for shot how the great battle played out. Leech eventually joined up with the US Navy, and landed a berth on board the 16-gun Sloop of War USS Syren in Boston. Leech writes about the Syren's final, ill-fated cruise in 1814, and as he was captured with her by the 74-gun HMS Medway, it must have been a frightening experience for a former British sailor. His account of Syren's cruise is very interesting, and it runs from pages 117 to 133. If you are one of the many modelers here who is building, or has built, the Model Shipways Syren Kit, then you will definitely want to read this book, and see the cruise from Leech's eyes. This is the only known narrative of the Syren's last cruise, unless you have the official letters microfilm series from the national archives, then you could read the transcripts of the court of enquiry for her loss. The Siren was one of four unlucky sloops of war that sailed from greater Boston in 1814; the others being the Rattlesnake and Frolick - both captured, and the Wasp II which vanished at sea after winning unparalleled glory. The Siren's Captain Parker died of an illness at sea not long after leaving Boston - not an inauspicious start. In 1812, the Syren had run around in the Balize River and her crew had to toss all her guns overboard, into deep mud, to get free. But they were unable to recover them, accept two. I remember coming across a letter in the microfilm stacks while researching the Wasp II stating that there were not enough replacement carronades for the Siren in Boston in 1814, and so she was reportedly supposed to put to sea with eight long nine-pounders, six 24-pounder carronades and two huge 42-pounder carronades. I never did find out if she sailed with that mixed battery. This is one of the better examples of the genre, and no War of 812 library would be complete without it.

OK, y'all outed me. I just want to express my appreciation for those of you here who bought a copy. and especially to those who enjoyed it. This was a eight year labor of love. It took me that long to piece together the life of Captain Blakeley, as the few surviving papers were scattered and it was all done pre-internet. The story of the life of Johnston Blakeley read to me like a Greek tragedy: A young, obscure naval officer with little influence, he being a recent orphan, climbs his way up the latter, performing thankless, but necessary service to his country's navy. He finally receives the acknowledgement and glory that he sought his whole life for - but at a terrible price. Blakeley's life reads in many ways like a bad novel. For example: Blakeley's planned June, 1812 battle in the Balize Rive between the Brig Enterprize, 16 guns, mostly 18-pounders, and the quarter-decked ship-rigged Corvette HMS Brazen, 28 guns, mostly 32-pounders, only to be aborted last minute by the great Hurricane of that year that destroyed New Orleans. The Thomas Paine inspired university riots, at the then religious UNC, Chapel Hill, that got Student-President Blakeley tossed out of college and sent into the navy - only to have Paine's illegitimate son come aboard the Wasp, 14 years later, as a midshipman. Blakeley then puts troublesome Thomas Paine Bonneville in a prize, to get rid of him, alongside prize-master Midshipman David Geissinger, the future highest ranking pre-civil war naval officer. They would be the Wasp's only two surviving officers The Wasp nearly meeting HMS Hibernia, 110 guns, in the English Channel in 1814, under the command of Admiral Sir Sydney Smith. Blakeley served under Smith's illegitimate son, Lieutenant Charles Grandison of the Hornet in 1806. And of course, Blakeley's triumph over two comparatively rated British enemy sloops of war, the Reindeer and the Avon, while out on the same cruise, a feat not equalled in the American sailing navy. Then there is the mystery of the Wasp's disappearance at sea, some time after October, 1814. It was thrilling to piece together all the known accounts and theories about her fate from contemporary letters, logbooks, and newspapers. Did she wreck on the African shore with her survivors sold into slavery? Was she chased by the Frigates Hyperion, or Horatio, or the Aquilon? Maybe. Did she chase two small English sloops of war off Tenerife? Probably. According to the Admiralty, some one who looked like her did. Did she put into Mogadore, Morocco? Did she wreck off Charleston, SC in November, 1814, after a chase with the Frigate Lacedemonian, as the papers reported? Blakeley's life was an amazing story, and I am grateful that no one had written his biography prior to my book. Lest you think that I am just trying to increase sales by writing this, be advised that "Blakeley and the Wasp" sold out of Naval Institute Press many years ago. But I do encourage you to pick up a used copy ...

Well, you got the reclusive part right ...

Do you feel that the kit manufacturers give you enough bulkheads to affix the planks to. Most kits look like they have a very long reach between stations. Or would more bulkheads be an extra burden to have to set to the keel?

"Hunting the Essex: A Journal of the Voyage of HMS Phoebe, 1813-1814, By Midshipman Allen Gardiner", Edited by John S. Reiske and Andrew Lambert. OK, Frigate Essex fans, this was the one we were waiting for: a previously unpublished journal of a British Midshipman on board the Frigate Phoebe. I love contemporary journals. You can learn so much about life at sea. And this one was even advertised on the jacket, in capital letters no less, as: "THE EPIC CHASE THAT INSPIRED THE FILM MASTER AND COMMANDER"! Wow! Could it get any better? I placed my pre-order and patiently waited .... Then it arrived ... in my small mail box with room to spare. The letter carrier could have easily slipped it under the door, really. Four inches by six inches and 152 pages? The introduction takes up the first thirty pages, and the addendum and footnotes consumes the last thirty-three ... Not looking good. Still there could be gold one those 89 pages remaining ... Andrew Lambert writes on page 22: " ... Indeed, the text is dominated by events on land. Only rarely does he discuss the sea." But what about "THE EPIC CHASE THAT ..." Yep. What we have here is a travel-log of far away sea ports - nineteenth century style. Comments on native dwellings mostly, with unfavorable descriptions of the people, etc., interspersed with poetry and religious philosophy. Gardiner mostly confines his journal to such affairs as "A short sketch of Peruvian poverty". He notes on page 72: "Callao, the port city of Lima, is a small, miserable, ill built, town, little calculated to give the stranger any idea of the opulence and supposed grandeur of that city. The houses were low, few of them exceeding the ground floor, and are in general built of mud, which they use instead of plaister. The roofs are flat and covered with mats ..." on page 76: "The palace is a shabby building building without ornament and has more of the appearance of a warehouse than the residence of a Viceroy." OK. I get it, Gardiner. You don't like foreign architecture ... surely even you must admire the fair Spanish ladies! I went to Colombia and Peru two years ago, and the eyes nearly popped from my head . Nope. Page 83. "All the first families of Lima were here collected, and afforded a grand display of Spanish beauty, of which I am sad to say I was much disappointed, there were some pretty, but very few handsome women, and they wanted much of that easy air, and grace, which so characterizes our country women." Let's move on ... the Essex, remember? "THE EPIC CHASE ..." Professor Lambert promised us on page 28: "Allen Frances Gardiner's journal provides a useful British perspective on the Pacific campaign of 1813-1814 and the Battle of Valpariaso." Finally ,on page 105, Gardiner tells us about the battle: "We closed them about 20 minutes after 4, and after a severe action of about two hours, in which they certainly did honor to their flag, and fought till it would have been impossible to have retained their ship any longer, they gave up the contest and struck to HM Ship." Yep. That's it. That's all he writes about the fight. Elvis has left the building. Goodnight. "THE EPIC ..." ? To be fair, he does chat a bit about the aftermath. He confirms Porter's claims to have suffered very heavy losses. And he does make the rather startling and doubtful assertion that the Cherub fired only one broadside before retiring. But that's about it. The editors must have thought this would be a great disappointment to the reader, so, in order to spice it up, they included a letter in the addendum, written by another midshipman, one Mr. Samuel Thornton, Jr., also of the Phoebe. It describes at some length, the events of the battle. But Thornton says little that is new. Snippets of this letter were published previously in James Henderson's "The Frigates" as having been written by an "un-named midshipman". A second, shorter letter, describing the battle but written by one of Phoebe's marines, it is best ignored. All in all, it is a good historical book. But anyone looking for detailed descriptions of either ship, or of life at sea for the average tar, is advised to pass. I'm glad I bought it, but the claim that it " ... INSPIRED THE FILM MASTER AND COMMANDER" is a tad over the top.