Gripen 1591 by NAZGÛL (Matti)

[NAZGÛL]

Hi everyone!

 

I have an interest in King Karl IX, Gustav II Adolfs father. Before reaching the crown he was a duke and was successful in developing his duches and he created his own fleet. And when he later went to war with Sigismund his fleet became an important part. When he later became king his fleet became part of the swedish fleet. As many men of power at that time in history, Karls seems to have been quite cruel but he did manage to reach remarkable goals in his life and laid the base of what Gustav II Adolf managed to achieve later on. For a while I'v been wanting to make a model of one of Karls ships. When going through the ship lists available I decided to go for the small ship called Gripen (griffin). Gripen was Karls symbol and is to be seen on Vasa stern as well when two griffins puts the crown on Gustav II Adolfs head. Making a model of Gripen will mean a lot of guesses on my behalf as very little is known. 

 

I like to build by eye and even if I made some basic plans and drawings, I will try to relax and do what feels right as I move the build along.

 

The design is inspired by the beautyful replica of Duyfken and by paintings by Vroom and other dutch artists. I would like to thank all who helped me with advices and opinions in this thread: 

 

http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/9996-ships-of-the-late-16th-century/

 

In that thread you can also follow the steps I did when designing the model.

 

When I finished the Vasa build I had a pile of spareparts left. When looking at the parts I felt I'd like to try and reshape them into something else. I feel this gives me lots of freedom when building it as I can do whatever I feel like and that helps creativity. Worst thing that can happen is that I mess upp and then I can just through it in the bin. 

 

Step 1 was to design the model. As said that step is covered in the thread mentioned above.

 

 

 

 

Step 2 was to decide what size it would be in. I printed the drawings in different sizes and then decided. The scale is close to 1:70.

 

Step 3 was to make a more detailed plan just to get the basic set up of the frames and how to reshape them to the lines of my drawings.

 

 

Step 4  Was to do the actual reshaping. First before assembly, then reshaping again. The supporting parts are ugly but I liked the idea to just use the left over parts after sawing the frames. Ugly but easy to do and they will be covered later on. I needed the supporting bits to be stronger compaired to say how BB designed theis Vasa kit, as I had to reshape them in place.

 

 

 

Next step will be to make the stern, bow and decks.

 

 

/Matti

[mtaylor]

This should be a fascinating build, Matti.  I'm pulling up a chair to watch.

[jbshan]

You've designed a pretty ship, Matti.  I'll be checking in from time to time to see how she develops.

[Nirvana]

Aah, another Swedish ship. I won't pull up a chair, but the couch and pop corn

[Tallshiptragic]

Brilliant matti, will definitely follow with keen interest.

[Salty Sea Dog]

Good luck Matti!

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks alot for the kind words everyone!

 

 

/Matti

[flying_dutchman2]

I like your choice of ship and your design of the ship itself. Were your fore-fathers shipwrights by any chance?

Will be following your built as it is part of my heritage, (Dutch).

Marc

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks Marc! No, but a couple of them where boatsmen. Dutch history is very interesting. 

 

 

/Matti

[riverboat]

HI Matti... Nice to see you building again..... will be following along on this interesting build.

 

Frank

[amateur]

That is a promising start!

 

Jan

[firdajan]

Hi Matti,

 

Good choice, nice design. As I can see, you used similar hull design as Vasa has.  I love galleons, I´m sure it will be the perfect build - I will watch it with great interest. BTW, what is the scale of this model? The frame looks quite big.

 

Jan

Edited April 14, 2015 by firdajan

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks for the kind comments guys, and thanks for the likes also!

 

Jan, the scale is very close to 1/70.

 

 

/Matti

[NAZGÛL]

Hey all! I've been trying to work out the lines. To be able to continue with the other decks, I needed to plank the first one. As I'm building it by eye, I need to see the other decks in place before preparing for a mast and gratings. A bit backward.

 

Also started on the stern shape. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

/Matti

Edited April 20, 2015 by NAZGÛL

[trippwj]

Looks good, Matti - I like the design you came up with.  Mind if I lurk in the back here and enjoy the build?

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks! I'm happy you want to follow along. Lots of new stuff for me, so I can't promise I'll succeed.

 

/Matti

[marktiedens]

Looks like a good start - you are braver than me to build this with no plans.

 

/Mark

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks Mark! That's one of my reasons for using the spare parts and leftovers from the last build as much as possible. The freedom to try anything and just have fun.

 

Getting the lines correct is my challenge right now.

 

/Matti

[Salty Sea Dog]

How are things shaping up? You had some tricky things to work out.

[NAZGÛL]

Hey mate, sorry for missing your reply! Have a lot to do atm so the model is sitting on my shelf waiting for the next step.

 

 

 

/Matti

[Salty Sea Dog]

I know what you mean. I'm in the same boat!

[flying_dutchman2]

Matti;

Looking very good. Especially because you do this from your own drawings.

Different question. Were the Duyfken and the Eendracht the same type of ship?

Thanks

Marc

[amateur]

Hi Marcus,

 

Problem is, the 'ship-types' weren't that closely defined.

Many of the "larger" ships of that period were classified as 'Jacht': the ships of Barentz were, as well as Duyfken.

These ships were  around 1600, a relatively small, presumably fast sailers.

Half Moon also classifies in this group. I checked, and Eendracht (1615) is also referred to as a Jacht.

Around 1610, also the name Pinas(se) was used for these ships. Thse PInas evolves into the larger 'spiegelretourschepen' of the VOC, as well as into the more purpose build Men of War of the Admiralities.

 

With respect ot size: these ships were measued and classifed based on 'lasts' (a measure referring to both space (i.e. cubic something) as well as weight). There seems to be no clear one-to-one relation from 'last' to 'length'. The ships of Barenz were around 30 last, and did presumably measure aroudn 70 ft. (according to Hoving). The Eendracht was reported as 250 last, but the measuring system for men of war did not follow the same rules as for general purpose ships: there is no way you can recompute the size of Duyfken to that of Eendracht, using the size of both ships as measured in lasts.According to Wiki (...) the ship measured 103 feet, and had 30 guns.

 

My amateurish guess would be that Eendracht would look far more like a ship like Batavia than Duyfken (no way you get 30 guns on a single-decked ship as Duyfken. (compare the pinas of Tasman as drawn by Hoving) 

 

Jan

Edited June 13, 2015 by amateur

[clipper]

Hi Matti, nice to see you back at the slipway mate, ship is looking good

Tony

[flying_dutchman2]

My amateurish guess would be that Eendracht would look far more like a ship like Batavia than Duyfken (no way you get 30 guns on a single-decked ship as Duyfken. (compare the pinas of Tasman as drawn by Hoving) 

 

Jan

Jan,

Thank you very much for this information. I am immersing myself with the ships from that era. (I Google'd it and couldn't find anything. MSW is better than Google when it comes to ships.

Marc

[amateur]

You know the site vocsite.nl?

It is onlu in dutch, but informative for those who are able to read Dutch.

 

Jan

[amateur]

And www.dewillembarentsz.nl (also dutch only....)

Edited June 15, 2015 by amateur

[mtaylor]

Google Translate seems to work fairly well on these two links also.

[NAZGÛL]

Hey Law, glad to see you visit! I don't have time for this build at the moment, so she is sitting on my shelf. Still have a decire to build her so I'm sur eI'll get back to her later on.

 

 

/Matti

[NAZGÛL]

Hi Law, and thanks!

 

We are working on our house, and have been all summer, so I had no time for modelbuilding. Hopefully I will get back on it later on.

 

 

Cheers

 

/Matti