American sailing warships with no plans or records

[jbshan]

Uh what did you get backwards exactly? lol

Most of it.  :-)

[CharlieZardoz]

Is anyone familiar with the works of John Fitzhugh Miller?  I've stumbled through 2 of his books" Early American Ships" and "American Ships of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods."  In these books are many conjectural images of American privateers which can be found on the www.awiatsea.com American War at Sea site.  Most of these images looks like stretched out and distorted Frankenstein versions of Fair American, Randolph or Rattlesnake to me however I am curious how much research he put into it and if there is any sort of credibility to these "drawings".  I will say though that within the list I came across the privateer Rhodes which does look like actual lines were taken off by the British after capture and also a nice looking model was made so definitely a pleasing find.

 

Below are the Amsterdam, General Washington, Saucy Jack, Rhodes

Edited September 21, 2015 by CharlieZardoz

[jbshan]

awasea link didn't work

They don't look obviously bad but as you suggest may be reworked or generic.  Without more information about the original it would be hard to make a judgement.

I await more information about the original ships or the author.  He seems to be more of a generalist than specifically a nautical historian.

[CharlieZardoz]

The Rhodes is legit, the admiralty plans are available on the uk website. I ordered the books used on Amazon so ill look into them and see what he's all about.  I also fixed the link thanks

Edited September 21, 2015 by CharlieZardoz

[uss frolick]

... Except the Rhodes is not the Rhodes! This according to author Miller in his 'Early American Ships' (1976), pp. 186-7. She was taken the same afternoon alongside another privateer called the Scourge by HMS Prothee. Both privateers were taken into the Royal Navy but only the slightly larger Scourge had her lines taken off. Chapelle mixed up the two ships in 'The Search For Speed Under Sail' (1967), since the Admiralty draught is of her after she was renamed, HMS Barbados. The surveys of both ships were printed in the letter-book of Lord Rodney, which allowed Miller to correct Chapelle. Makes little difference, however, except maybe for someone trying to reconstruct the figurehead.

[CharlieZardoz]

So the Barbados is the Scourge you are saying? Suits me fine the name sounds cooler, I am however curious if she was a sister ship to Rattlesnake as they do bear a similarity. Here's the model and admiralty plan.  How might one reconstruct the figurehead if the one Rhodes drew is wrong?

[uss frolick]

The Barbados was the Scourge. Just as well, since the term Scourge is often associated with marauding native americans, the figurehead might have been an Indian warrior like the Rattlesnake's, whereas Rhodes is associated with Greece (an island, I believe). An Indian figurehead trumps an allegorical Greek God in my book any day.

[CharlieZardoz]

Ok so I got "American ships of the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods" by John F Millar and have to say there are some very interesting conjectural draughts in this book.  I scanned a few based on the original list made in this post, the Warren, Trumbull and the Alliance.  While the first two are pretty much just slightly altered versions of the class ship they belong to (Trumbull a Virginia type and Warren a Randolph type), his Alliance is in my opinion sort of a stretched out Raleigh and takes a bit of creative license. His reasoning is that she was built in the same yard as Raleigh by the same builders only a year later but looks very little like the Confederacy (wouldn't they have used the same builders plans?).  For each conjecture he mentions the methodology he used and while it's all a stab in the dark with some educated guesses it's nice at least that someone took the time to put this resource together and I enjoyed looking through all the ships regardless. What do y'all think? 

[uss frolick]

I have the book too. It is fun to read! They are mostly reconstructions, but they are best guesses given what little information survives. Ex: The reconstruction of the Continental Frigates Providence and Warren based on the lines of the Privateer Oliver Cromwell, because the latter might have been built by the Brown Brothers of Rhode Island, who we know built the former two! Hey, why not? Could-da happened!  

[CharlieZardoz]

The figureheads are all very interesting and probably close to what they actually had at the very least it's nice to find out what theme they were based on Greek god, mermaid, etc. Yeah I like it and would like to find more books like this one.

[jbshan]

Sorry, I think those would be pretty much valueless to me.

[CharlieZardoz]

The conjectural stuff is interesting to me though I have to agree that Alliance is a bit of a stretch.

[trippwj]

Regrettably, American builders were not noted for using plans until late 18th/early 19th century, and even then most were disposed of after building. Millar did a great job taking anecdotal and sparse documentary information, applying logical analysis to develop possible drawings.

I like your conjectural process - similar that used by Chapelle and Millar but with easier access to a lot more information!

 

For those that would insist on 100% historical accuracy, good luck! Few plans at the NMM can claim 100% accuracy for as built, particularly as regards internal construction, deck arrangements, rigging and belaying plans (well, you get the picture).

 

Keep digging, Charlie! Time for that trip to the historical society in Philly (but wait until the Popeleaves) to check the sources Brewinton used.

[CharlieZardoz]

Haha im actually in Delaware today on my way to Sultana in Chesterfield for a cruise on the ship and to take some measurements. Thing is in my opinion alot of ship model building is conjecture. Even with Sultana there is no record of the figurehead just a description so studying the works of Millar helps me get an understanding of how others guestimate figureheads, deck details, stern carvings etc and will be useful to me down the line if I one day decide on other models like Vixen or Randolph.

[CharlieZardoz]

And yes the traffic getting down here was epic

[CaptArmstrong]

Nice conjectural draughts! I think it makes some sense that alliance differs from confederacy-the two were of similar size but by no means the same dimensions. It might've been deemed prudent to have a more conventional frigate design for alliance instead of taking the risk of having both large frigates be galley frigates. I'd like to see the stretching conducted with the Hancock rather than Raleigh-though I do admit the profile and transom of the Raleigh derived alliance look nice and balanced. I just think the Raleigh had lines a bit fuller than ideal for a frigate, though I see the historical lineage as why he chose it as the model as making perfect sense.

 

On the topic of the Hancock-upon close comparison, I wonder if it was actually a modified version of the Randolph design, with a more upright stem and corresponding hollow in the garboards. Though Hancock was 4 feet longer, 1 foot wider, and 6 inches deeper, it had the exact same length:breadth ratio as Randolph. Maybe some newer research has discussed that, but I'm fairly certain Chapelle considered them as separate designs in the same way that Randolph clearly differs from the Raleigh.

Edited September 27, 2015 by CaptArmstrong

[uss frolick]

One theory about the Alliance in "The Frigate Essex Papers"  is that, since she was built by the same Hackett family that would go on to make the Essex 20 years later, both frigates were built to the same general model, with slightly differing dimensions.

[CaptArmstrong]

I thought the Hackett family built the Hancock, Alliance, and Essex? not the Raleigh, Alliance, and Essex? i should certainly think there would be similarites between the Alliance and Essex, but it seems unlikely to me that they were as similar as say, Constitution and Constellation- there was 20 years of shipbuilding development between them and one would think the Hacketts kept up with that through the ships they built inbetween, incorporating the knowledge into the form of the Essex.

[uss frolick]

One unusual thing about the Alliance: Late in the war, she was able to replace her 12-pounders with the guns that had been ordered to be cast for the lower deck of the Bon Homme Richard, had the latter survived - twenty-eight long French 18-pounders. No other contemporary American frigate could carry that many guns on their main deck, except the Confederacy! So the Alliance had some special characteristics of many other ships. But from the few contemporary paintings that do survive of her, every one conveniently sketched in John Millar's book, and unlike the Confederacy, the Alliance appears to carry a round modern bow, not a beak-head bulkhead.

Edited September 28, 2015 by uss frolick

[CharlieZardoz]

Captain Armstrong: To my knowledge the Hancock was a member of the Randolph class which included Randolph, Raleigh, Hancock, Warren (the most powerful of the bunch) and the ill fated Washington. Calling it a class though might be a bit of a stretch more like they were al 32's built to a conceptual plan but each builder added variation based on their own design preferences. I dont think at this point a Federal commission to build a class of ship was really possible but I think the general concept was there.

 

Is there any record or Alliance's carving detailing? While I wouldnt say that Essex is in any way a direct descendent to the Alliance like Guerriere class was to Constitution, the builder surely worked off of what they had done in the past and in general the non Humphreys ship were more traditionally British in appearance. The subscription frigates werent trying to reinvent the wheel however I imagine they followed their own evolutionary path.

[jbshan]

... the Alliance appears to carry a round modern bow, not a beak-head bulkhead.

The round bow was actually used in the earlier part of the 1700s on frigates and other smaller ships.  It took much longer to appear in ships of the line which used the beakhead bulkhead until long after Victory built in 1765.

[Sam Ladley]

I'm an amateur here, but I'm hoping you folks can help. Im building a model of the Sabine as she appeared after her 1862 refit- with a center deckhouse, a fly bridge over the wheel, and fore and aft gun platforms for her 100 pounder Parrots. I also am keen on her doubled gunnels full of storage. But my sources are shaky. A few art sketches and photos. I'd like to find out if the stern gun platform had housing and whether the stern had double windows and a raised transom ( I don't think so). Also, she has white stripes early in the war, but I'm pretty sure those were removed when she put out to chase raiders with those parrots. Any sources other than web available photos would help.

[uss frolick]

The type of detailed information you seek, just no longer exists. Navy plans of the period just don't show the detail you need. Not unless you stumble onto something in the National Archives. All naval photos of the period are rare. But there was a book on the history of the US Naval Academy published a few years back that reprinted two photos of what they caption claimed was the spar deck and the gun deck of the training ship USS Constellation in the 1870s. But it was in fact either the Santee or the Sabine, since she had a full spar deck broadside battery (which the Constellation didn't then have) plus pivots, and it showed much of the detail you seek. I don't have the book. 

 

There is a large, undated photo of the USS Sabine in very-old oft-reprinted "The Photographic history of the Civil War", "The Navies" Volume, that shows her all black, with no raised quarterdeck and with guns on her gun-deck only, possibly wire rigging, with a thin white line painted above her copper and white painted fiddle-head and scroll work on her trail-boards. There is no fly-bridge or deck house. I would be surprised if there were. It looks to be late civil War or just afterwards

Edited March 14, 2016 by uss frolick

[Sam Ladley]

The photo you mention does show the deckhouse. It was 16x41 and used as a classroom. I now live in this deckhouse.

[CharlieZardoz]

This is the best pic of Sabine I have. There are more pics of Santee out there so you may want to use them as a reference since both were sister ships. Frolick is of course right the sort of detail you are looking for doesn't exist as the ship led an unspectacular career however if you research ships built during the 1850's-70's a lot of similar deck details exist and cross referencing that with what we know of Potomac class frigates you could produce a decent model with a bit of educated guesswork.

[uss frolick]

I stand corrected on the deck house, but I cant see it on the photo. What a cool place to live! Share pictures with us! How come you in possession of such a large artifact? Do tell ...

 

Note the quarter galleries as well, even though they were left off the plans.

[CharlieZardoz]

That was a joke right?

[Sam Ladley]

I live next to the Snow shipyard in Rockland,Maine. In 1883 the Sabine was towed here and scrapped for parts. Her deckhouses were lifted off the ship and used around town. I've been told our house is probably the only intact civil war navy deckhouse in existence. Original windows that slide into the walls, canvas barriers in wall spaces. Yes very cool. If you want exact demensions and wood I can provide it. It appears to me the Santee and the Sabine were both fitted with deckhouses,which later made them excellent blockade ships and later school ships. Our deckhouse had double door entry's with a black painted vestibule - I'm guessing for stealth at night.

[uss frolick]

Way too cool. A mislabeled picture, dated 1879, of possibly your very deck house, belonging to either the Santee or the Sabine, is reproduced in that above-mentioned illustrated history of the US Naval Academy, who name I sadly don't have. I had just photocopied the two pictures 20 years ago, because they looked interesting. The structure, of that size you described, sits just before the mainmast, apparently atop where one would find the gratings. She mounts 24 broadside guns, possibly light 32-pounders on skid carriages, starting from the wheel to the forecastle, with a barrel of a big pivot Dahlgren gun aft of the mizen mast. There are what looks like two sliding wooden doors in the center of the aft-facing deckhouse bulkhead. The photographer is standing to port of the pivot gun, looking forward. 

 

I don't have a functioning scanner at hand, but I can snail-mail them to you.

Edited March 14, 2016 by uss frolick

[CharlieZardoz]

That's absolutely fabulous! Yes please any dimensions or photo's would be most welcomed.