uss frolick

There is an 1802 watercolour of the flush-decked Ship Jason of Boston by Antoine Roux showing her with her boarding nettings rigged. They appear to be secured somehow to the outer, lower level of the hammock cranes. They do not appear to extend down far enough to cover over the gun ports. Midshipman James Fenimore Cooper described the boarding nettings fitted to the Constellation in 1813: "The boarding nettings were made of twenty-one thread ratlin stuff, that had been boiled in half made pitch, which rendered it so hard as almost to defy the knife. To give greater security, nail rods and small chains were secured to the netting, in lines about three feet apart. Instead of tricing to the rigging, this netting was spread outboard, towards the yard arms, rising about twenty five feet above the deck. To the outer rope, or ridge line of the netting, were secured pieces of kentledge, with the idea that by cutting the tricing lines when the enemy should get along side, his boats and men might be caught beneath, by the fall of the weights." See, "Boarders Away with Steel, Volume 1, Edged Weapons and Pole Arms", by William Gilkerson, Andrew Mobray Publishing, page 53.

If you play the Movie 'Titanic' backwards, it's about a magic ship that saves people ...

Thanks for the book review, Joss. I will still pick one up, should I ever find one. I will definitely buy your Amphion book! (Hint, hint.)

Mr. Matrim, I wonder if you could briefly review the "The Frigate Amphion" book by Michael Feather, and please let me know where a hard copy may be found!

Let me first say that I love this frigate and I love your work! The inboard profile plan of Leander, 50, 1813, shows the spar deck ports mostly above the gun deck ports. Leander was a fir built ship. (Sadly the lines drawings have been lost, but the deck plans and frame plans survive.) The model of a fir-built (with a square tuck stern) 50-gun frigate, thought to be possibly Leander, but minus the gangway ports, in The Science Museum has the same set up. There is a detailed painting of the USS Constellation, circa 1830, by one of the better Italian marine artists of the day, showing all her spar-deck ports placed exactly above her gun deck ports. In my long suffering thread on the Essex's stern, (Page 1, Post # 8) I quote a 1807 letter written by American Naval Constructor Josiah Fox on the subject of upper deck port placement that may be of interest here. Also, I was wondering what you thought of the "Later Amphion" revised sheer draught, dated February 1, 1800, that shows a complete barricading over of the forecastle ports of her sister-ships Aeolus and Medusa. Would they have done the same with the Amphion? (See Robert Gardiner, The Heavy Frigate, Conway, page 48-9.)

In honor of the Siren's fateful final cruise, you could say that you "Met the Medway", or "Pulled a Parker", after the British 74 that captured her, or her late ailing captain who died at sea.

Anyone remember the scene in "The Far Side of the World" where JA and SM fall overboard through Surprise's cabin windows undetected one night, and just when they think that things could not get worse, they are rescued by militant, lesbian, native women escaping their home island, who decorated their raft with dried severed male members tacked to the sides? I don't think that happened to Lord Cochrane. Anyway, this is evidence that Mr. O'Brien occasionally smoked wacky-weed.

That is a great letter! I love these little snippets of every day life back in the Napoleonic days. Not many survive. I like how they flogged the perpetrator. The Lively had a great history, aside from PO'B's, and her plans are very well documented, including even her carvings. Is she a modeling project with you? She was a handsome ship and, of course, was a sister to the famed HMS/USS Macedonian. You should print the letter here in its entirety for all of us to savor!

Thanks!

David, Where did you find that lovely bit of early history of the Avon? When I was researching my Blakeley/Wasp book back in the pre-internet days, I came across several newspaper editors crowing loudly about the Avon's defeat. They kept harping back to an incident in or about 1807, when the Avon supposedly did something really obnoxious off the Chesapeake Bay. They had hoped that the Avon had the same captain on board her when she met the Wasp! But they never recapped Avon's misdeeds. I never learnt, until now, exactly what naughty thing she had done. Stealing the French Admiral's dispatches, forsooth. Bad Avon! Bad! Thanks!

You have chosen one of the most complex parts of a ship to build. The very first thing you must do, is research how the actual shipbuilders assembled Leopard's stern and quarter galleries, and then try to replicate their techniques in a smaller scale.

Note: The ward room chairs supplied to the Frigate Essex, fitted out in Salem, Mass, in 1799, were described as "Windsor-backed chairs". They were lightweight, but very strong. I suspect that this was a standard, so the Enterprise's six chairs listed above were certainly Windsors too.

In researching my biography of Captain Johnston Blakeley, USN, 1781-1814 - Shameless plug: "Blakeley and the Wasp: The Cruise of 1814", Stephen W. H. Duffy, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 2001, I came across this little gem. The following enclosure was in a letter dated March 27, 1811 from the Washington Yard Commander, Captain Thomas Tingey, to the Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton, Washington Navy Yard: "Sir, I have the honor to enclose a requisition, of Lieut. J. Blakeley [Commander] of Cabin Furniture of the [uSS] Enterprize. In submitting this indent for your consideration, I feel it is my duty to state that, when this vessel was fitted from the Yard in 1808, she was furnished with silver table spoons, tea spoons, and other usual plate, with chairs, table clothes, and all the customary articles for the cabin: Not one single material of which was returned with her." I consider it also incumbent to inform you, that all the vessels equipped from this yard have been furnished with bosun's calls, of silver, very few of which have ever been returned." [Note: Lieut. Johnston Blakeley, was just then assuming command of the newly repaired Enterprise. Blakeley would immediately set about re-rigging her as a brig.] "One dozen dishes Ditto Soup Plates Ditto shallow plates Ditto small plates Ditton tureens - one of tin 2 bowels 2 sugar dishes 1 dozen wine glasses 1 dozen tumblers 2 quart decanters 2 pint decanters 2 salt cellars 1 looking glass 2 tea kettles 2 sugar canisters 1 tea tray 2 waiters 12 table spoons 12 tea spoons 6 iron table spoons 1 set casters 1 soup ladle 1 dozen large knives 1 dozen large forks 1 dozen small knives 1 dozen small forks 12 table clothes 2 ditto covers 12 towels 2 brooms 2 candel sticks 2 pair steel snuffers 1 cork screw 6 chairs 1 coffee mill 1 pepper mill 2 brass cocks 2 brass canisters 1 mattress and [1]pillow. The above is a list of the furniture wanted for the use of the US schooner Enterprize, washington, 25th March, 1811, J. Blakeley approved and submitted." Blakeley was, or course, to go on to glory in the second corvette named the USS Wasp. But he found it very difficult to procure these items for his Wasp in 1813 using, as he stated, this very list, due to wartime shortages in Newburyport, Mass, and Portsmouth, NH. But by this time, the stressed Navy Department was not so picky. The official indent, dated Baltimore, 1813, for use in all the six new corvettes then building [Wasp, Frolick, Peacock, Erie, Ontario and Argus] contained but one word: "discretionary".

Many of us have been waiting for this new, detailed photo book about the Annapolis Collection of admiralty models for twenty years now. It was to be called "Colonel Rogers Fleet/Navy", or something similar, if I recall correctly . A post on the pre-crash board implied that it finally would see the light of day very soon. Is there any recent news?

If you're going to all the trouble of scratch building a model, then why not take the extra step of building a contemporary sloop of war other than the recently, much modeled Siren? You could use her same plans and the instructions as a guide toward building, say, the 18 gun brig USS Argus, a sloop with a tremendous history. Her plans, redrawn by Howard Chapelle for his 'History of the American sailing Navy' are available for little more than the cost of the copying. Argus would require no more material than the Siren. There are many flushed deck American ship and brig rigged sloops of war, built in 1813 of only slightly larger dimensions, that rarely ever see the modelers bench: Wasp I, Hornet, Wasp II, Peacock, Frolick, Erie, Ontario, and the Argus II. Their draughts are also available from the Smithsonian. Then there are the similarly sized British Cruiser Class sloops that they fought: HMS Frolick, HMS Peacock, HMS Pelican, HMS Reindeer, HMS Avon, HMS (later USS) Epervier and the HMS Pelican. How about the mighty little 450 ton 20-gun, flushed-decked ship sloop HMS Levant, that fought the USS Constitution? And there are so many more beautiful and larger American sloops build after the war ... All these sloops deserve to be built. Don't limit yourself. If you're going to spent many months, if not years, of your life scratch building a ship, why not make her unique and special?

A real problem in having a model kit in such an odd scale, 5/32", is that you will have a hard time finding replacement twelve and six-pounder cannon in 1:76 scale if the kit guns are done poorly, which apparently they are. Had MS designed the Essex kit in the more common 1:64 scale, the same scale as Portia Takakjian's classic Essex plans and booklet, then you could use a commercial set of 1:64 Essex cannon already available.

When the late great Portia Takajian built her 3/16th scale Essex in the 1980's, she used light colored maple frames. They looked great in her softcover Ships in Scale Monograph. If I remember correctly, she planked in apple and ebony.

Seagull Plans by William Crothers (author of "American Clipper-ships") makes a perfect (and I mean perfect) set of 1/8th inch scale plans for the 74 USS Columbus (1820) that includes a detailed rigging plan. It is THE must have plan for American ships of the line. If you can't find a copy, I may still have a set that you may borrow. He also made great plans for the 1840s corvette USS Germantown, and the sidewheeler steam frigate, USS Mississippi.

But Wait! Color and BW photos of the perfectly preserved wrecks of the Sloops USS Hamilton and the USS Scourge, sunk in 300 feet of water on Lake Ontario in a squall in 1813, show the channels left in natural wood. It is very hard to tell exactly because of the silt sitting on the tops of the channels, but the sides of the channels are natural oiled wood, like most of the hull. They would have had to blacken just the tops, but not the sides, to have been so colored on these two wrecks. Black and blue paint can still be seen on the hull, so there was no universal fading of color. One sloop was British, built before the war, the other American. Perhaps there was no need to blacken ... because of the lack of salt ... ? [Grasping at straws here?] See: "Ghost Ships: Hamilton and Scourge: Historical Treasures of from the War of 1812 " by Emily Cain, 1984, Fountain Press, pp. 93, 105.

Typo Correction! The Chesapeake's chase gun was called "United Tars" not "United Tarts"!

According to"Surgeon of the Seas" by Jonathan M. Foltz, published 1931, at the attack at Quallah Batoo: "Jan. 20th, [1832]. This afternoon the troops to land on Sumatra were exercised in order of the landing - the rear formed by the 'flying artillery', with 'Betsy Baker', the six pounder carronade. The twelve pounder in the launch, commanded by Mr. Gordon, is 'The Bonnets So Blue', and the six pounder in the cutter is 'Polly Hopkins'." William James's "Naval Occurrances Between Great Britain and America", 1816, names all of Chesapeake's guns, including her carronades: 'The Chesapeake's guns all had names, engraven on small squares of copper-plate. To give some idea of American tastes on these matters, here follows the names of her guns upon one broadside: - Main Deck: "Brother Jonathan, True Blue, Yankee Protection, Putnam, Raging Eagle, Viper, General Warren, Mad Anthony, America, Washington, Liberty Fore Ever, Dreadnaught, Defiance, Liberty or Death." Fore Castle: - "United Tarts" the shifting 18-pounder, "Jumping Billy, Rattler", carronades. Quarter Deck: "Bull-dog, Spitfire, Nancy Dawson, Revenge, Bunker's Hill, Pocohantas, Towser, Wilful Murder", carronades; Total 25.' The USS United States even had two all English gun crews, during her fight with HMS Macedonian, who actually named their yankee batteries "Nelson" and "HMS Victory"!

In addition, when the Frigate American Potomac attacked the Sumatran Pirate stronghold at Kuala Batoo in 1829, all three 12-pounder boat Carronades landed with the marines had names, according to her surgeon's memoirs. I remember one was called "Polly Hopkins". I'll check on that too.

It's true! In William James's 'Naval History of Great Briton' (or possibly his earlier work 'Naval Occurances ...') , the author lists all the names applied to the 28 main deck guns of the captured USS Chesapeake in 1813. Each gun and its opposite shared a name selected by its crew. One was "Willfull Murder" was one. "John Bull" was another. Her Carronade names were not recorded, although they surely had them. The Constitution's and United States's crews were known to have done the same, although only a couple names have survived. Chase guns in general were named "Long Tom". I'll look them up tonight and re-post. By the way, during the war of 1812, the American Frigate President flew a huge motto flag from her main truck every time she cleared for battle: "Here is the Haughty President! How do you like her?"

Capt. Audibly's and Dr. Natterling's adventures can be found on Amazon. The full title is "A Port Wine Sea, A Parody" by Susan Wenger.

Let's not forget the infamous PO'B parody, "The Port Wine Sea". In it, Jack and Stephen are cast ashore in the hostile wilderness of North America, after the doctor's pet colony of termites escapes and eats through the botton of their frigate, HMS Aghast ...