Looking for plans or possible models of Magellan's ships.

[Roger Pellett]

Although it would be nice to see a stern view, that looks more like what I think a carrack looked like; again there is a lot of speculation here.

 

A lower boat shaped hull with convex but not bulbous lines forward.  The forecastle and after castle are more like separate structures built atop the lower hull than integral parts defined by the lower hull’s framing.

 

Roger

[Peregrino]

Hello from Spain

Forgive me for my bad english.

That is a model built and exposed at the "Museo Naval" in Madrid, Spain. As far I know  the research for the model design was made in the museum by Professor Francisco Fernadez Gonzalez and the museum modellers team. Its supposed to be the most accurated  of El Cano´s Nao Victoria interpretation.

 

Here you can find some photos I took of that model: Alejandro Yañez | Flickr

Hope you like them.

 

Alejandro

[J11]

@Peregrino, many thanks for posting the flicker link. Fantastic you imaged so many pictures of her and help tremendously! Do you know of any plans there at the museum for Magellan's ship??

 

[Peregrino]

Hello again,

As far I know there are no plans of that model available for the public. There are some drawings and several pages explaining the design process of the model published in the catalog of the exposition “Fuimos los primeros” made in the Museo Naval past year. Unfortunately the book is currently out of print.

 

Of course you must consider that this model is an expeculative one, desgined taken in consideration known data given by Pigafetta, and Albo about the ship, data found in spanish archives from other ships of similar size and shipbuilding methods of the age.

 

Naval Museum have many acts scheduled from present days to 2022, maybe there is a posibility that they will publish a monograpy about Magallanes ships.

 

Here is a link of a video (in spanish) made by Luis Fariñas (one of the model buiders) who explain the ship hull design process. Second part will be available in december: La construcción de la réplica de la Nao Victoria para el Museo Naval de Madrid. 1ª parte - YouTube

 

Alejandro

[J11]

Alejandro, great post and very informative video. Again, thanks for posting this information which give's an excellent insight to the ship along with how they were able to surmise construction of the model. Can be easily converted to English subtitles for those interested and I highly recommend the part 1 video on Magellan's ship model.

 

[amateur]

Quite a lot of the nao-recontructions are influenced by models like this one, the Mataro-model (on display in the maritime museum in Rotterdam), supposed to represent a spanish nao of around 1450.

 

(Pic from the museum website)

(own pic)

 

Jan

Edited November 21, 2020 by amateur

[Louie da fly]

Jonathan, that Museo Naval model has a lot going for it, and a lot of things I like, such as the clinker planking at the sides of the aftercastle. However there are a few points I don't agree with - not major, but I think they ought to be noted. As in this Catalonian picture from 1468 the planking at the break of the forecastle should follow the curve of the forecastle rather than be a flat plane (No. 1) and the hull planking immediately below the forecastle should also be curved (No. 2). And it might just be me, but it seems to me that the model is rather too narrow.

 

 

Also most of the contemporary illustrations (where you can see it) show the forecastle coming to a sharp point rather than cut off as in the model. And this is the case with the Mataro ship model above, as well.

 

 

This is Catalan, from 1494. In my opinion this picture is probably about as close as you can get to what Victoria really looked like,

 

As I understand it you want plans already drawn rather than having to draft them for yourself (which is totally understandable - a whole extra level of difficulty there!) and they just don't exist to the level of accuracy you need if you want to do a nao as close to the historical Victoria as humanly possible.

 

You might still be best getting a round-sterned Santa Maria kit (the Dusek kit has a round stern but no forecastle, but the hull seems a little narrow) and bashing it to follow the pictorial evidence.

 

I hope this helps.

 

Steven

Edited November 24, 2020 by Louie da fly

[J11]

@Louie da fly, appreciate your input on the Museo Naval model. Here's a closeup of the rear of the model, and if I am following you right it would still need to be more rounded than what is shown?

 

 

Then here's the S.M. model:

 

 

Which has a small amount of difference. Using the two I still am leaning toward this model for a reference guide incorporating the Museo Naval model. Basically using the hull design as a template below.

 

 

Your two points as illustrated help in understanding the differences around the forecastle. I have contacted the Museum and have gotten back an application wanting some very personal information which I will not be sending them for security reasons. But thanks to @Peregrino and his flicker images of the model I feel I have enough data to start a preliminary set of plans in the future. Plus the video he posted also provided some excellent reference's on how they determined their model representation.

 

Plus @woodrat work from his blog (Thanks for posting) gives an excellent reference on how to tackle this new model representation and get it a little closer to historically accurate as possible from today's information. Those rounded hull's are very unique and beautiful in design during that time period; I can see how they would hold up to long ocean voyages for such a journey as Magellan had accomplished.

 

So in the future I'll start drafting out the hull plan a section at a time then post them when I have a fairly accurate workable plan. It will be awhile and in the meantime I'll continue to look for more references also. Many thanks to all whom have contributed to my request.

 

[Louie da fly]

5 hours ago, Jonathan11 said:

if I am following you right it would still need to be more rounded than what is shown?

 

If you compare it with the illustrations, it seems to me the ships in the pictures were beamier than the model. Granted that the transom on the model is taller than on the Catalan line drawing above, the picture still seems to have a wider stern than both the museum model and that of the Santa Maria, and I think this would follow right through for the full length of the hull.

 

Regarding the details, there are of course any number of individual variations between different carracks, and it's very much a judgment call as to which you follow. I'd be following Iberian ships as exemplars as much as possible. However, even Catalonia, despite now being part of Spain, was (a) a separate kingdom at the time and (b) is on the northern Mediterranean coast, not the southern and Atlantic coast. And the Zumaia pictures

 

 

though from the Atlantic side, are from the very north of Spain, almost into France, whereas the fleet left from Seville, in the far south..

 

 

 

I've just been re-looking at the contemporary pictorial record and a few things have occurred to me. First, though the Zumaia pictures celebrate a victory of 1475, that is not necessarily the date the picture was done - it might have been quite a bit later. Second, there is evidence that bigger ships than I'd been thinking of were in use earlier than I'd been aware of: 

 

 

This is from the view of Lisbon of 1500-1510 that @rybakov put up a link for on the previous page of this thread

 

 

And this is variously dated 1475 (unlikely), or more probably between 1510 and 1514. It is from the Portuguese painting "S. Joao em Patmos" (St John in Patmos) by the master of Lourinha. If these dates are correct, then some of my statements about the Victoria may be wrong and she may have been bigger and more advanced than I'd thought. Which means the reconstructed ship in Patagonia could be very close to how she actually was (except for the flat stern). Unfortunately, these realisations are probably making your job more difficult rather than less (sorry!) The more I learn the more I realise I don't know . . .

 

However, against this we need to set the fact that when they set out from Seville the Victoria's crew was numbered at 45 with a burthen of 85 tons and the flagship, the Trinidad, had a crew of 62 and a burthen of 110 tons (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellan's_circumnavigation ). This would give a fair idea of the size of the ship and indirectly of the complexity of its form.

 

In comparison, the figures for the Duyfken (which is tiny! So tiny they launched her by hoisting her into the water in a yacht cradle - see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIWE4ot672E - and check out the fishing boats nearby!) are:

 

 

 

So Victoria was by no means a big ship. If my maths is correct, the comparative figures would be for a ship of 85 tons - 

Length: 62 feet,

Beam: 18.66 feet

Draft: 7.6 feet

 

So probably not one of the "super-carracks" shown above. Back to the Catalan line drawing above after all, I think.

 

Edited November 25, 2020 by Louie da fly

[J11]

@Louie da fly, wow that's some hunting down information. I first thought along the same lines as the ship being much larger also. Then going over the video and it's information as how they used historical barrel measurements of the time to compute the basic dimensions of the ship I understood it was a smaller size ship.

 

But I would love to one day build a huge Super-Carrack style ship as some of the historical paintings and line drawings show. What a masterpiece that would be! Now to talk my sweetie into a thousand dollars worth of specific modeling wood. :-)

[Louie da fly]

1 hour ago, Jonathan11 said:

But I would love to one day build a huge Super-Carrack style ship as some of the historical paintings and line drawings show.

 

You and me both. Though I suppose the Great Harry is really one of those. But at 1:200 scale it's pretty small!

[Guest]

 

 

Edited December 29, 2020 by Guest

[Tony Hunt]

Only 32 Euro from the author' website - a bargain!

[Jaager]

7 hours ago, Tony Hunt said:

Only 32 Euro from the author' website - a bargain!

Would it be possible that the link be provided?

[Jaager]

I am always on the look out for books that are within my era of interest and focus on the ships - the humans, not so much.  In that light I have the following questions:

I found this on Amazon  is it the same book as above, but the original Italian edition?

Navi Veneziane: Catalogo Illustrato dei Piani di Costruzione = Venetian Ships: An Illustrated Catalogue of Draughts. (Italian) Hardcover – January 1, 2000

by Gilberto Penzo (Author)

 

 

And does this book offer any value from a naval architecture focus?

 

Venetian Ships and Shipbuilders of the Renaissance (Softshell Books) Paperback – Illustrated, September 1, 1992

by Frederic Lane (Author)

4.8 out of 5 stars 6 ratings

 

[Roger Pellett]

I bought a copy on Amazon yesterday and the illustration says “English Text.”  I’ll post a review when it arrives.

[Tony Hunt]

14 hours ago, Jaager said:

Would it be possible that the link be provided?

 

Apologies!

 

http://www.veniceboats.com/it-pubblicazioni-catalogo-libri.htm

 

[J11]

Hello everyone, during this season I didn't have any time to work on my ship build project, but was able to do more research on fifteenth and sixteenth century ships. I had come upon a wreck site info with detailed information, very interesting site found a few years ago.

 

Thanks for the book link and info also!

 

 Links:

 

http://patrimoniocultural.gov.pt/media/uploads/dans/TheOranjemundShipwreck.pdf

 

https://nadl.tamu.edu/index.php/shipwrecks/iberian-shipwrecks/portuguese-india-route/bom-jesus-1533/

 

https://namibian-studies.com/index.php/JNS/article/view/123

 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257154918_Loading_and_stability_of_a_late_16th_century_Portuguese_Indiaman

 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225112563_Maritime_Archaeology_and_Trans-Oceanic_Trade_A_Case_Study_of_the_Oranjemund_Shipwreck_Cargo_Namibia

[Louie da fly]

Jonathan, that's some nice stuff you've posted. I'd heard of this wreck before, but you've added to my fund of knowledge on it.

 

I was looking at the armament issue - Pigafetta mentions swivel guns and "bombards", which are probably guns like these from the Lomellina (Genoese) sunk in 1516 (probably built in 1503 because that's when her predecessor sank)

 

  

 

In each case the scale is in centimetres. In these the barrel is built up of iron staves like a barrel and held together with iron rings shrunk on.

 

The Lomellina was about twice the length of the Victoria, and is believed to have had between 10 and 15 guns of this type. So proportionately, the Victoria probably would have maybe 6 or 8 guns - I'd be going for the lower figure. The guns were found in line with the forecastle and aftercastle, not in the waist as I'd have expected. But note the location of the guns in our Catalan friend; however the Lomellina's gunports seem to have been lower down, and perhaps the ones in the Catalan ship weren't as heavy.

 

 

The Lomellina also had gunports and port lids:

 

  

 

 

 

  

 

                                                                                                                                                                  External view

 

 

                                    Internal view

 

Hope that helps.

 

Steven

 

[J11]

@Louie da fly, thanks. Nice info on the guns, thanks for posting that. I was very surprised to find as much as I did after really going after the information. Helped me in understanding more on the style of these ships and loved the pdf reports. Great stuff!!

[Louie da fly]

Happy to be of help.

 

Steven

[J11]

@shipphotographer.com, I have gotten my order for he VENETIAN SHIPS by Gilberto Penzo. I must say that the information presented in the book was well worth the money spent. I am wondering if I can post some of the images of plans from the book, but it seems the email address isn't working to ask for permission. Do you have a current email for him? If so please post.

 

He has 8 different plans for the 15th century carrack's, which actually have enough information on them to build scratch built models from. Not including all the other plans in the book. 

 

If you can afford to pick this book up, you won't be disappointed.

[Guest]

Yes, this is a really good book!
Unfortunately, I also can not publish drawings without copyright!

[J11]

@shipphotographer.com, yes I understand but was wondering if you have a working email for the author? The one in the book doesn't seem to work for contacting.

[Louie da fly]

J11, did you ever go any further with plans to build Magellan's ships?

 

I just revisited this thread and it's over three years since you posted. I hope you're still thinking about the project - I think it would be very worthwhile.

 

And I (rather late, I'm afraid) got google to translate your Spanish article above

 

It says "The term 'nao' is used for a ship, vessel or boat, although in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries in Spain it was also used to designate a certain type of ship dedicated to transporting passengers and merchandise, moved by sail, without oars, with high sides, a castle at the bow and poop at the stern, a round stern and axial or central rudder. At the end of the 15th century, it was standardized into a ship of a certain size, with a continuous deck, a covered castle at the bow, an awning cover at the stern and a tonnage or loading capacity of 100 to 600 toneladas (= tuns: barrels weighing a ton). It was equipped with a rig capable of withstanding strong winds consisting of a bowsprit or bowsprit at the bow with a feedsail(?) and three vertical masts, of which the foremast and main had a rectangular rig, and a triangular or lateen mizzen, with a crow's nest on the main. At first, it was the merchant ship par excellence, although in the 16th century it also began to be used as an armed or warship, to be used especially in voyages to the Indies."

 

Not really all that helpful, I'm afraid. I've seen somewhere on Facebook someone making a very nice model of a carrack from about the right period with some extremely good plans. I'll see if I can find it. Aha! You can find it at https://www.facebook.com/groups/2235633576538313/search/?q=carrack - look for Caracca Veneziana being made by Giuseppe Chiavazzo - if you contact him on Facebook he may be able to help you.

 

BTW, another point to keep in mind is that the ships wouldn't all have been the same size. If you look at the last photo in post #14 above, you can see carracks of different sizes in a single picture. Basically all very similar, but with differences of detail (apart from size, some have four masts, some have three). And here you have scope for variation - things like the awning at the stern can have the ridge beam running either fore and aft or side to side. If you check out various different pictures of carracksyou'll see other kinds of variation you could introduce to show a bit of variability in the different ships of the fleet. 

 

I hope you're still out there to read this 

 

Best wishes,

 

Steven

Edited December 2, 2023 by Louie da fly

[clarkt]

I built a model of Victoria, based largely on the plans for Santa Maria in Xavier Pastor's "Ships of Christopher Columbus" in the Anatomy of the Ship series, but with some significant alterations.  According to my research, the stern construction had changed from the "stern tuck" to a transom style.  There was a substantial main topsail and a fore topsail.  (Elcano's log records that the fore topsail was carried away off the coast of West Africa on the last leg of the circumnavigation.)  The ships had cressets, rather than lanterns on the stern.  A boat on the Victoria normally had a crew of twelve.  These are some of the best items I found while researching the ship, in S. E . Morison"s  "The Great Explorers,"  J. H. Parry's  "The Age of Reconnaissance"  (Parry has written several good books on the subject,)  Joseph Wheatley's "Historic Sail," and many others.  I also read the Pigafetta account but it has virtually no information about the ships.   Of course, there is a lot of conjecture but you can make a reasonable representation and learn a lot about the ships in the process.

[Bob Legge]

For Gilberto Penzo's book

 

Google Type gilberto penzo select gilberto penzo shop from list

SELECT

Gilberto Penzo - Venetian Boats and Ships

 

Select Go Online

 

The book is still available and the plans can be perused.

 

Bob.

[CharlieZardoz]

Hello and greetings! I always find the idea of trying to reconstruct ships with little to no historical references daunting but also challenging. With some awareness of the history involved one can make an "interpretation" of such vessels as Magellons. The main thing to be mindful of is to be very aware of the exact time the ship was in service as there are subtle differences in ship design even of that time that one can notice decade to decade and be aware of or stumble over if not researched properly (see above about that stern tuck for example). The other is taking into account tonnage as a method of determining size and function. 

 

The only ship which seems to have had a reasonable attempt at reconstruction is Victoria and you can see examples of the ship below.  85 tons about 65 feet +/_ She strikes me as being a bit longer and more slender than a carrack like Santa Maria if I were to attempt a model of her I'd likely use alot of this material for reference. As for the others... that's really a challenge. These weren't naval vessels so there was no commissioned design but of a type one could assume larger ships looked closer to galleons while smaller ones looked more like caravels such as Nina. Personally I feel the more drab and unspectacular and weathered they looked the more close to reality they probably were. Exterior was covered in pitch and a modeler might want to add some subtle paint and detailing to avoid boredom but also these embellishments were likely not the case and its doubtful each had very little to distinguish themselves from the other. At any rate an interesting topic I wish you luck on.

Edited January 13 by CharlieZardoz