uss frolick

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 OK, Frigate Essex fans, this was the one we were waiting for: a previously unpublished journal of a British Midshipman on board the Frigate Phoebe.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.

Edgar Stanton Maclay's book is very good, but hard to find, it being Victorian. Very readable.

Yes, the Constitution had stouter frames than La Forte did, but this came at a price. The Constitution was not very fast. The USS United States was nick-named "Old Wagon" because she just plodded along. The President's plan was sharpened slightly by Josiah Fox, and her frames, although strong, were lighter than "Old Ironsides" 's frames. The President was the best sailing ship of the three 44's. The USS Guerriere, launched in 1813, had even heavier timbers, and her nick-name was "Old Washtub". The French ships didn't need the riders because they were lighter, and their uniquely French deck clamp arrangement was more of a "uni-body" type, that was more efficient.

Great Yankee super-ships, to be sure, but they were not unique. Let's give credit where it is due ... The 24-pounder French Sister-frigates La Forte and L'Egyptienne predated Humphries frigates by about a half dozen years. They were of the same dimensions, force (thirty 24-pounders on the main deck) and design (flush decked, about 170 feet on the gundeck) and they were not only very successful, but Forte in particular, gained world fame for commerce raiding in the Indian Ocean, and for defeating a British 74. The Forte's successes and characteristics would have been known to H. when he was drawing up his own first draughts. NMM has L'Egyptienne's draughts, btw. Then there was the slightly smaller, but equally successful 24-pounder Frigates La Resistance and La Vengeance, built circa 1794, each also mounting thirty long 24-pounders ... Humphries was known to have been under a "French Influence" when he designed the big yankee 44's, but most writers have assumed that this was limited to the Continental Frigate South Caroline, ex L'Indienne (spelling?), seen by him in Philadelphia during the war, which was built to French designs in Holland. But Forte was much closer to Constitution, et al, in all respects than the South Carolina was.

A general difference is that the United States, at her founding, had an unlimited timber supply. As a result, we didn't have to scarf a whole bunch of little timbers together, like the British did, to make a larger piece. For example, we didn't have to make 'anchor-stock' type wales on our ships, like the British did. We just used long straight timbers. If the British had had a similarly nice piece of timber available to make their wales in the same easy way, they would have instead used it for something more important. The first Sloop of War Wasp, for example, built in the Washington Navy Yard in 1806, had a 100 foot keel. It was made of only two pieces scarfed together, one of which was an 84 foot long straight stick of hickory! She also had choice bits of walnut, locust and cedar in her upper frame.

Sounds like a great book! I'll definitely be picking one up ...

Glampleroricci: I just stumbled upon your build. Fantastic! I really like the look of your timber. What kind of wood are you using? Pear and ebony? Apple? Bravo!!!!!

The Guerriere had a pair of these structures fixed just forward of the number-one main deck gun. In order that they could use the bridle port as a chase port without having to tear the closet down every time they cleared for action, the dockyard fitted an extra pair of long French 18-pounders (21-pounders English) to be permanently fixed in the bridle ports. This is how the Guerriere mounted thirty long 18's on her main deck. But there must have been a lot of room between the two ports, since in most French or English frigates, there would not have been enough room to work the guns, without collisions, let alone room for the fixed closets between them. Oh, I wish someone would find the Guerriere draughts!!!

Also the following: "The Republics Private Navy: The American Privateering Business as Practiced by Baltimore during the War of 1812" by Jerome R. Garitee, Mystic Seaport, Wesleyan University Press, 1977. "Tidewater Triumph: The Development and Worldwide Success of the Chesapeake Bay Pilot Schooner." by Goeffrey M. Footner. Tidewater Press Centerville, MD, 1998. As far as plans are concerned, Chapelle's "The Search for Speed Under Sail" is the best.

Greetings! I too am a history buff, and my name is also Steve! The USF United States did have a formal roundhouse with doubled lights and galleries when launched in 1798, but lost all outboard traces of them after her pre-War-of-1812 rebuild, or possibly sooner. A have a set of deck plans circa 1820, drawn by Charles Ware, the Sail Maker of the Boston Navy Yard, which shows quarter-round closets on the open spar deck where the entrance to the upper privies would have been. But that was all that remained. I guess the officers of the watch refused to give up their traditional luxuries. But it must have been cramped. There is a contemporary woodcut, circa 1813, of the United States and her prize HMS Macedonian returning home, that shows her with seven real windows across her stern, with partial upper half windows in the back of her quarter galleries at the gun-deck level. Frigates normally did not have windows on the back of the quarter galleries, only fake ones. Those eighth and ninth partial windows may also be a remnant of the more complicated doubled gallery structure. (For reasons that I won't go into now, i have high confidence in the accuracy of that engraving.) The approaching USS Wasp (II) was identified by the British officers of HMS Reindeer in 1814 as an American by her white stripe, the "whiteness" of her sails", and her double dolphin striker, according to testimony at their court martial. Then Naval Constructor Josiah Fox drew a picture of the dolphin striker of his Wasp (I) in 1806, along with all her other spars, and I believe she was of the doubled variety. I'll have to check. The British officers of HM Frigate Macedonian testified that the reason that they stayed out of Carronade range of the USS United States during the initial stage of the battle was because Captain Cardin thought his foe was the almost entirely Carronade-armed USS Essex. So if the Essex had a characteristic set of doubles, then maybe the United States had them too.

I do have the NMM draughts of the lovely Hermes, 20 guns, built in 1810 from the draught of the ex-French Bonne Citoyenne (spelling). She is flush decked, but has Maturin's 'subsidiary, posterior platform', or poop. Her tiller is on the gun deck too, like the Cruisers. The numerous 20-gun Levant Class of 1812, which were fir built Hermes's, did not have them.

Reindeer and Frolic both had the fore platforms, as mention is specifically made of them having had their 12-pounder launch carronades mounted on them during their famous actions.

I would say that a battery of long guns on the above Cruiser model is just wrong. The model maker didn't have carronades. Quarter boats did not appear on ship-rigged sloops-of-war until the 1820s, let alone brigs, and I suspect the same applies to the aft platform. I read a letter dated October, 1812, written by Captain Jacob Jones, USN, commander of the first US Sloop-of-War Wasp, warning that only British Frigates and Ships of the Line carried quarter-boats, so if one sees quarter boats on an approaching foe, it's best to make a run for it. Dr. Maturin referred to an East Indiaman's poop deck in Patrick O'Brian's "The Mauritius Command" as a "subsidiary posterior deck, or platform "

It just occurred to me that maybe you were talking about the "top-gallant forecastle" deck above the forecastle, and the "poop deck" above the quarterdeck? The Cruisers Brigs had the former, but not the latter. Man of war brigs rarely, if ever, sported poop decks after the American Revolutionary period.

Hi Joe, I just looked at the inboard profile of the Snake, and I see a full berth deck, not fore and aft platforms. By definition, all brig-rigged sloops of war had a full deck below the gundeck. If a brig was equipped with only platforms, then she was termed a "gun brig". HMS Boxer, which fought the USS Enterprize in 1813, was a gun brig. The numerous Cruisers were very large for brigs, at nearly 400-tons, so there was room and displacement aplenty to allow a full berth deck as befitting a proper British Man of War. Perhaps you were looking at the smaller, 12-gun, 235-ton Cherokee/Cadmus/Rolla Class, of which Boxer was one of the hundred or so of the "Coffin Brigs" built. But even some of them were fitted with berth decks.

Mark, it looks like you got La Venus.

I have only the 1793-1817 volume, and while it's good, it's not great. Rif Winfield's drawings take the place of original draughts in most cases, and they are too small to be useful. David Lyon's 'The Sailing Navy List' is much better.

If you look at the Hackett draught, you will notice a second capstan, called a 'fore-jeer capstan" just aft the fore mast. I must admit that I'm not sure exactly why it was needed when there was a perfectly good double captan just a few steps aft. But it was always placed on an open deck on English ships, and I once read that it was used to haul heavy bits aloft. Its' presence is evidence that the Essex wore only a traditional, narrow removable gangways when launched, not the wide spar deck gang ways shown in the PDF above. We do know that she received a built-up modern gangways in 1809, i.e. a flush spar deck, when Josiah Fox relaunched her. And she did not have a spar deck as late as 1807 when measurements taken off that year referred to a separate forecastle and quarterdeck. When she finally did receive her wide gangways, they were flush with the quarterdeck and forecastle, not stepped down as Portia Takakjian drew them. In 1799, her narrow gangways were stepped down - just as the Frigate Hancock's or Raleigh's would have been. When she finally gained her flush modern spar deck, as Naval Architect William Baker noted to have been "some time after 1807", she also lost her sweet decorative scroll at the break of the quarterdeck. She would have lost her fore jeer capstan as well. Her top timbers amidships would have had to have been raised, in order to support a spar deck clamp. So that must rule out any modifications earlier than 1809. Common sense would dictate that a step down permanently-fixed wide gangways would serve no purpose, other than to inhibit rolling the chase guns fore and aft. The fore jeer capstan was a very old fashioned piece of equipment, like a lateen rigged mizen mast was, but the Essex was considered a old school ship belonging to a previous generation. And PCF Smith theorized in his TFEP that she had been built to the model of the old 1778 Continental Frigate Alliance of the Revolution, as William Hackett had built them both. We'll never know because no plans survive of the Alliance. But I digress ...

What a fun project! Off to Desolation Island we go in "The Horrible Old Leopard"! The main visual problem with Hahn's works was that he skimped on the timber frame thickness. I guess he wanted to make his Boxwood supply last.

I've never seen a kit so cleanly and precisely done. Fantastic job!

Let's not forget that Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin were aboard the Lively! ( ... At least in Patrick O'Brien's "Post Captain" they were.)

I have the NMM draughts of Medea, as fitted out as Cochrane's HMS Imperieuse. She is very beautiful. Her carvings (presumably her new British carvings) are drawn separately in half inch scale. They are IMHO too intricate, with all their fine, swirling 'vine-ery' and 'rope-ery', to have been drawn in 1/4 inch scale. I suspect this is why the carvings had vanished from the plans at around this time.

That stern is an exact copy of Howard Chapelle's reconstruction, right down to the wreath thingy.

Herman Melville's "White Jacket" is the same thing. Before he wrote his famous sea novels, Melville shipped before the mast (in peacetime) on board the US Frigate United States in the Pacific and wrote a detailed account of it.