uss frolick

Great information! Thanks guys!

Great information! Thanks guys!

I found this:-
 
"Shipbuilding in Ireland in the Nineteenth Century" - Shipbuilding in the United Kingdom in the Nineteenth Century (cambridge.org)
 
Nothing specific on the RN. but the tonnages mentioned may have included Cutters/Brigs/Sloops at a push, maybe commercial vessels brought into the service as transports etc I could imagine, but don't know.  Hopefully some history buffs on here know more.
 
There obviously Harland & Wolff, but that is much later than the period you are interested in.

Kinsale played a big role in the 17th and 18th centuries and built at least one RN frigate, HMS Kinsale.
Kinsale Dockyard - Wikipedia
 
According to this page HMS Kinsale was the only ship built there for the RN:
List of frigate classes of the Royal Navy - Wikipedia
 
Nothing I have found in The National Archives catalogue contradicts this.  There was a lot of activity but it was almost exclusively maintenance and repairs.  Ireland produced a lot of shipwrights for HM shipyards but I speculate that this was due to a healthy trade in merchant craft.
 
HTH,
Bruce 

Good Afternoon Frolick;
 
Bruce is indeed correct; there were several attempts to set up a dockyard at Kinsale, but they always failed due to lack of support and funds, despite much pleading from various interested parties. It is also possible that English shipwrights worried about losing lucrative work to Irish yards, and used any influence they had to stop such developments.
 
In 1672 a contract was signed between Sir Nicholas Armorer and Sir Edward Spragge, and the Navy Board, to construct four 50 gun ships at Waterford in Ireland. However, the contract was cancelled and no work carried out, when Spragge was killed at the Battle of the Texel some months later. 
 
All the best,
 
Mark P

Or large wooden vessels of any kind, for the pre 1815 period, other than say small working or fishing craft? It just occurred to me that I never heard of one.

Or large wooden vessels of any kind, for the pre 1815 period, other than say small working or fishing craft? It just occurred to me that I never heard of one.

Winston, from Model Ship Builder finally got back to me. Stated that his computer had to go to the shop for a repair. All is good now! Plans will be on the way shortly...

Volume three, oh where art thee? 😢

During a dinner party discussion concerning Bentinck Shrouds, in the novel, "The Commodore", the podcasters graciously acknowledge MSW members, for their early support of its now three-year long weekly podcast. 
 
I listen to them on YouTube, although there are other platforms. This episode is five months old, so I'm not up to date. Skip to 10:38 to hear their acknowledgment:
 
 
 
 

Volume three, oh where art thee? 😢

Volume three, oh where art thee? 😢

During a dinner party discussion concerning Bentinck Shrouds, in the novel, "The Commodore", the podcasters graciously acknowledge MSW members, for their early support of its now three-year long weekly podcast. 
 
I listen to them on YouTube, although there are other platforms. This episode is five months old, so I'm not up to date. Skip to 10:38 to hear their acknowledgment:
 
 
 
 

During a dinner party discussion concerning Bentinck Shrouds, in the novel, "The Commodore", the podcasters graciously acknowledge MSW members, for their early support of its now three-year long weekly podcast. 
 
I listen to them on YouTube, although there are other platforms. This episode is five months old, so I'm not up to date. Skip to 10:38 to hear their acknowledgment:
 
 
 
 

This is my interpretation of the Trompe L’oeil amortisement:
 

During a dinner party discussion concerning Bentinck Shrouds, in the novel, "The Commodore", the podcasters graciously acknowledge MSW members, for their early support of its now three-year long weekly podcast. 
 
I listen to them on YouTube, although there are other platforms. This episode is five months old, so I'm not up to date. Skip to 10:38 to hear their acknowledgment:
 
 
 
 

During a dinner party discussion concerning Bentinck Shrouds, in the novel, "The Commodore", the podcasters graciously acknowledge MSW members, for their early support of its now three-year long weekly podcast. 
 
I listen to them on YouTube, although there are other platforms. This episode is five months old, so I'm not up to date. Skip to 10:38 to hear their acknowledgment:
 
 
 
 

During a dinner party discussion concerning Bentinck Shrouds, in the novel, "The Commodore", the podcasters graciously acknowledge MSW members, for their early support of its now three-year long weekly podcast. 
 
I listen to them on YouTube, although there are other platforms. This episode is five months old, so I'm not up to date. Skip to 10:38 to hear their acknowledgment:
 
 
 
 

SS Mayaguez (c. 1975), scale 1:192 by Dan Pariser
 
 
Hi to everyone who followed me from the build log of the restoration of the bone and ivory POW model to this one, and hello to any modeler who might be interested in a completely different subject using completely different materials.  I hope that I can make this build log as informative as the last one.
 
The subject here is the SS Mayaguez, an American container ship that was involved in a famous incident of piracy at sea.  On May 12, 1975, about a week after the fall of Saigon, and a month after the fall of Cambodia (renamed Kampuchea) to the communist Khmer Rouge, Mayaguez was en route from Hong Kong on what was to be a routine voyage.  Travelling through a disputed area, the ship was accosted by a gunboat flying a red flag which fired machine guns and a rocket over the bow.  The ship stopped and was taken over by Kampuchean sailors.  The crew were captured and removed from the ship.  Upon learning of this, American planes were scrambled from nearby bases and photographs of the ship and gunboats were taken as hurried plans were made to recapture the ship and free the crew.
 

 
SS Mayaguez was launched in April 1944 as SS White Falcon, a Maritime Commission C2-S-AJ1 freighter built in North Carolina.  Type C2 ships were all-purpose cargo ships with five holds, but were remarkable for their versatility, speed and fuel economy. U.S. shipyards built 328 of them from 1939 to 1945 similar to this one shown in wartime camouflage. 
 

 
After her service in World War II the ship was sold to Grace Line and carried coffee from South America.  In 1960 she was converted into one of the first all-container ships, with a capacity of 382 boxes below deck plus 96 on deck.
 

 
To do this she was lengthened from 459 feet to 504 by adding a midships section and widened from 63 feet to 74 by adding oddly shaped and angled sponsons on each side.
 

 
  
To support and level the containers on deck above the curved sheer of the hull, structures similar to railroad trestles were built.  Because few ports at the time had equipment built to handle containers the ship was also fitted with two rolling cranes, one forward of the superstructure and one aft, riding on rails mounted on those levelling trestles. 
 

 
The cranes had wings that could hinge up to shuttle the containers out and over the docks and onto or off of waiting trucks or trains.  In this photo the wings are up and extended, while they are down in the prior one.  Notice that these are extended even though they are over the water side.  I suppose that this was done to help balance the ship during loading operations.
 

 
In 1964 the ship was sold to the container line Sea-Land Service and renamed SS Mayaguez after the city in Puerto Rico.  In 1967 she began regular container service in support of US combat forces in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.  After the US withdrawal in 1973 the Mayaguez began sailing a commercial route between Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore.  It was on one of those runs that she was captured.
 
I was recently asked to build a waterline model on an ocean base commemorating the event for the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy museum in their preferred scale of 1/16” = 1’, or 1:192.  As usual, I scoured the internet for plans and images of the ship so my model could be as accurate as possible.  Unfortunately, I could not find any plans of the ship available from after its conversion to work from.  I even contacted Sea-Land, without success, so the project became mostly an exercise in photo interpretation.
 
I found many images, most of which were of only moderate resolution, but all of which gave me some information or viewpoint that let me develop the details.  I did locate a plan of a generic C2 cargo ship which gave me the general outline of the original ship.
 

 
I then located two photos taken by the US Air Force during and just after the incident that were of high resolution and taken from almost exactly overhead on the centerline.  These gave me the outline of the expanded deck which could be combined with the C2 plan and photos of the sponsons to give me a good idea of the final shape of the hull.
 

 
Armed with this information I could lay out the lifts that I would need to build the hull.  I first used Photoshop to resize both the C2 plans and the overhead photos to match the overall dimensions of the model (504 feet x 12 / 192 = 31.5 inches).  On the C2 plans I marked out ½” lifts from below the waterline to the beginning of the upward curve of the sheer of the ship.  A 5/8” tapered wedge at the bow and a similar 3/8” wedge at the stern gave me the basic curve of the deck.
 

 
½” basswood sheets were cut for the lower lifts according to the plans, then attached with wood glue colored black with acrylic paint.  This gave me indelible horizontal guides to guide the shaping process, especially the waterline.  Here the bow has been assembled and the 5/8” sheer wedge has been planed to shape and attached.  The wedge was sanded to a smooth shallow curve and the 1/8” deck piece was cut a bit oversize to allow for adjustment, then secured.
 

 
At the stern the same process was used, just with a flatter wedge.  The raised fore and stern castles were cut to shape from the photo and attached, fairing them to the lower hull.
 
The hardest part of the hull construction was to fashion the sponsons, which had to match the overhang of the deck piece, fit snugly against the curves of the original C2 hull, and match the shapes seen in the photos of the sides of the hull.  They were built up in several pieces, being pinned to the hull temporarily with wooden dowels during shaping.  Several attempts had to be made to get everything to fit, and even here in this photo of my third stern sponson there were problems (notice how the bottom edge of the aft piece is curved and not straight) and the piece was discarded.
 

 
Eventually I learned from my mistakes and the sponsons took on the shapes that I wanted.  Once that was done the entire hull got a thin coating of plaster of paris to seal the wood and fill the larger joints. 
 

 
This layer was mostly sanded off to give me a smooth surface for the first of half a dozen primer coats.  These were individually sanded as well until any small defects were filled and smooth.  The hull then got a color coat of rust resistant red paint below the waterline and a navy blue coat above, as seen in the few color photos.  The deck was also filled and sanded, but left with just the primer coat.
 

 
While this was going on I was also fiddling with the layout and construction of the superstructure.  That will be the subject of the next installment.
 
Until then, be well.
 
Dan

And the colors reminded the crew which deck they were on ...  🤪

And the colors reminded the crew which deck they were on ...  🤪

Wow ...
 
 

Wow ...
 
 

How about  "A Port Wine Sea", by Susan Wenger, a parody of the Patrick O'Brien novels. (Assuming that you read the latter.)
 
From Amazon:
 
"The Port-Wine Sea is a rousing parody of the best historical fiction ever written. It is a story about a British naval captain during the Napoleonic War, and his friend, a naval physician/espionage agent. They set sail once again aboard "H.M.S. Aghast" during the War of 1812 to demonstrate to the upstart Colonies the errors of their ways. The doctor/spy tries to establish liaison with the Creek Indians to create a diversion to the main British assault. Meanwhile the noble Captain is diverted by a teenaged Maryland vixen. Along the way, they encounter a skittish horse, a demure skunk, a whooping crane, and an escaped colony of termites aboard the ship."
 
https://www.amazon.com/Port-Wine-Sea-Parody-Susan-Wenger/dp/1893162001/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3I5WGC02MQKQS&keywords=a+port+wine+sea&qid=1692539646&sprefix=a+port+wine+sea%2Caps%2C123&sr=8-1
 
Only 1 left in stock - order soon!
 
 
 
 

Will this be in purchasable book form?