uss frolick

While one hesitates to say 'always', almost 'always' it is better to rely on contemporary, primary sources than on secondary or tertiary sources.  Baugean or Antoine Roux, also painting around 1800, are primary sources; Bevan, painting in the 20th century with no access to his subjects, is not.  Even Chapelle is not totally reliable as he 'reconstructed' his drawings and we do not know what he reconstructed nor what his justifications were for them.
Artists, however, have been known to use 'stock' images in their paintings, so, even though Baugean and Roux painted very believable ships, there may be inaccuracies which we will never be able to refute.  It's just one of those things we have to deal with when trying to research these vessels.

Fantasy Entry we would all like to see:
 
"No. of windows in the sterne of ye humble Friggate Constitution: Six. Any fewer would be vainglorious buffoonery - sheer madness. This is so patently obvious I shall not even bother to sketch them in any of the draughts."

The Chatham series is outstanding! So many paintings, portraits, sketches and NMM plans packed into six volumes. Very informative text too. They were also published through Naval Institute Press here in the US. Well worth the cost if you are a RN history buff.

Ok, stopped widdlin’ and got to fiddlin’. Appended is the bow section body plan with construction marks and diagonals. If these ain’t the official plans they, sure as shoot, oughta be.

Am in the midst of the stern sections and the paradigm is working perfectly. As a further check, I’m running a rolling half-breadth plan just to make sure that the body lines plot fair. I’m anticipating another day or two to complete the entire body plan. I should have a fair diagonal half-breadth plan when finished. Will post.
 
Given this, a waterline half-breadth is a no brainer. I’m plotting at 1:12 with 4 sig figs behind the decimal. Boy, oh boy, does this project have a ton of Excel files !!
 
Thank you Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau, Honoré-Sébastien Vial Du Clairbois, and Gérard Delacroix and Hervé Sasso who brought us all together and who provided exceptional assistance just when I needed it most.
 
John

I prefer the look too. A normal sized one is fine for the Enterprize's 1813 appearance, like the one on the Syren, or the later Grampus, but not one of those Confederacy-sized monsters on the Venice draught!

Probably. She was by then a "modern", nearly new vessel armed with carronades like the Syren.

Probably. She was by then a "modern", nearly new vessel armed with carronades like the Syren.

Probably. She was by then a "modern", nearly new vessel armed with carronades like the Syren.

What was the function of the beak head anyway, other than fashion? Is it just to have something really strong to gammon the bowsprit to? Do square rigged vessels have more stress on the bowsprit than fore and aft rigged vessels?

I received an email from Amazon saying the book http://www.amazon.com/dp/3782212053/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=15MDPTYF1B3A&coliid=I14FD0JY5L67BD  will be available soon and to pre-order it, but at 140 US.Dlls, I'm going to have to pass at least until Christmas. 

Fantastic subject and model!
 
In 1819, the Columbus carried 42-pounder carronades, and only 32-pounder long guns on her lower two decks. This should account for the additional height. In 1845, her second commission, she instead carried 32-pounder carronades on her spar deck. She didn't get any 8" shell guns until 1845 either. Are you working with William Crothers' "Seagull" plans? He reconstructs the stern carvings based on a letter written by ship-carver William Rush.

Fantastic subject and model!
 
In 1819, the Columbus carried 42-pounder carronades, and only 32-pounder long guns on her lower two decks. This should account for the additional height. In 1845, her second commission, she instead carried 32-pounder carronades on her spar deck. She didn't get any 8" shell guns until 1845 either. Are you working with William Crothers' "Seagull" plans? He reconstructs the stern carvings based on a letter written by ship-carver William Rush.

Shot was held securely in the racks by netting, otherwise even the slightest sea motion would send all the balls flying. The USS Wasp plans of 1806 has the carronade shot all stored around the hatchways, while the USS Scourge wreck of 1813 has them in troughs at the bulwarks.
 
The advantages seem to be with the Wasp's storage, as the balls are closer to the centerline of the hull and less likely to break loose by rolling motion of the ship. Shot that was stowed by the bulwarks was also prone to scattering amongst the friendly gun crews if was hit by an enemy's shot from the outside. If the enemy's shot struck a hatchways' shot rack, then the balls would be scattered to the unengaged side of the vessel where there are presumably fewer people to be hurt. The advantage of having the shot by the bulwarks is that it was closer to the muzzle, and thus quicker to reload.
 
The deck plan of the USS United States, drawn by Charles Ware of the Boston Navy Yard circa 1820, shows two types of shot storage. Shot was stored around most hatchways on the gun and spar decks of the frigate, and the upper deck chase guns and carronades were supplemented by portable shot boxes, each holding nine shot, (three rows of three in square),  placed just forward of each forecastle gun, and just aft of each quarterdeck gun. They were movable and were placed about two-thirds the way out from the bulwarks to the end of the gun carriages or carronade slides. No shot boxes are shown on her gun-deck.
 
The perfectly preserved 1813 wreck of the USS Hamilton, laying 300 feet from the USS Scourge in Lake Ontario, and capsized in the same squall, had no solid bulwarks, and no shot garlands at all for her carronades or her single pivot gun. So she must have used portable shot boxes exclusively. That two schooners of the same squadron would each have different methods of shot storage shows that there was no universal standard at that time. 

To Secretary of the Navy from Master Commandant Thomas Robinson, Jr., U. S. Navy
VENICE Jan 27, 1805 (EXCERPT)
 
Pages 309-310 in Knox, Dudley, (editor). 1944. Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers. Volume V Naval Operations Including Diplomatic Background from September 7, 1804 through April 1805. Vol. V. 6 vols. U.S. Government Printing Office.  http://www.ibiblio.org/anrs/barbary.html
 
When we came to rip the Schooner to pieces we found her in a most deplorable situation, it was the astonishment of every one, how she brot us here, Her Beams were all off at the ends, the floorings & futtocks perfect powder & in fact to sum up all its 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 in her. I have the pick from frames of Frigates that have been from twenty to five Years dress'd out numberd & piled away under cover for use, - There never was n pendant treated with more respect, or Officers with more attention than the Enterprizes has been both here and at Trieste, being the first of our Vessels of War in either of those Ports & her construction so different from any thing they had ever seen, she astonish'd & delighted, -
 
To Secretary of the Navy from Master Commandant Thomas Robinson, Jr., U. S. Navy
VENICE Feb. 18, 1805 (EXCERPT)
 
Pages 358-359 in Knox, Dudley, (editor). 1944. Naval Documents Related to the United States Wars with the Barbary Powers. Volume V Naval Operations Including Diplomatic Background from September 7, 1804 through April 1805. Vol. V. 6 vols. U.S. Government Printing Office.  http://www.ibiblio.org/anrs/barbary.html
 
SIR I had the pleasure of addressing you under date of 27th Jan to which I must refer you for particulars respecting the US Schooner Enterprize, but as we proceed in her repairs and you consequently must feel anxious to know our progress I feel a great pleasure in executing that part of my duty. -
 
I have this day got her Bends on and her ceiling compleated. - I was Obliged to put in a new Stem and Stern Post, in doing the latter I have taken out the Square tuck and have also altered in a small degree the fashion of her top sides, by not giving her so much tumble home aloft, which will afford a better Deck and more 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 sailer and good sea Boat -
 
It astonishes 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 feet more Keel and opened her a little what a sweet Brig I would have made her, and with no apparent expence, but Sir it is dangerous for Officers young in rank to take libertys. –

You 'splain things better.

Square rigged ships were reportedly less prone to roll with the wind abeam than for and aft vessels, which seems kind of counter-intuitive but it was so described in another officer's letter, and a brig was harder to dismantle in time of action than a schooner, primarily because there was so much more sail, spars and standing rigging aloft to begin with.

All Feldman's numbers are guesses, made either by him, or the curator at the time of the Naval Academy. If you don't know the scale of the original model, and you don't know a single dimension of the real brig, then all you have to play with, is proportions, and you have to guess.
 
The conversion specifically of the Enterprize, at least, from a schooner into a brig, is shown in the correspondence of the time to have been made by her 1811-13 commander, the soon-to-be-famous Lieutenant Johnston Blakeley, over the objections of Tingey and others. As Blakeley explained to the Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton, wanted a more stable gun platform.  In this, he was successful.
 
At this point, I must make a shameless plug for my book, "Blakeley and the Wasp", Naval Institute Press, 2001. I have two chapters on the Enterprize when JB had her.

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.

You 'splain things better.

You 'splain things better.

You 'splain things better.

Square rigged ships were reportedly less prone to roll with the wind abeam than for and aft vessels, which seems kind of counter-intuitive but it was so described in another officer's letter, and a brig was harder to dismantle in time of action than a schooner, primarily because there was so much more sail, spars and standing rigging aloft to begin with.