gun carrige colour

[Ray]

Is there a correct colour for 1790ish British war ships like Pegaus ,Victory ,Diana's gun carriges the kits say red, I have photos taken on the Victory and they are ochre just about to start my Diana's guns and which is correct ???

[druxey]

I suspect this may be a 'captain's choice' decision. I'm not certain that there is a definitive answer to this question. Anyone else?

[dafi]

I think the older version was red. Somewhere about 1800+/- it was changes into yellow ochre.

 

Anybody more precise details?

 

XXXDAn

[mobbsie]

Hi Ray,

 

Victory I believe was the only ship of that period that had yellow ochre gun carriages, this was Nelsons ideosyncracy.  The other ships were usually painted with red ochre.

 

Hope that helps mate.

 

mobbsie

[Blue Ensign]

This question  pops up from time to time, I think I answered  a similar question not so long ago, but I can't recall where now, possibly lost in build log.

 

This is what LG Carr-Laughton has to say in his book Old Ships Figureheads and Sterns.

 

Red was from very early the regulation colour for inboard works, but during the French Revolutionary war it began to give way to yellow; and indeed other colours seemed to have been used ocasionally, for in the Thalia frigate in 1797 they painted the Quarterdeck and Foc'sle blue.

 

It appears that in 1801, red being still the regulation colour both for the sides inboard and for gun carriages, the crews of ships were in the habit of repainting the gun carriages yellow when they received them from the officers of the Ordnance; and this implies that the inboard works were also yellow, of which there is other evidence.

 

In August 1807, the Navy Board instructed the dockyard officers to paint the decks (by which it is meant the sides and the deck fittings, not the flat of the decks) yellow when requested to do so by Captains. Light yellow was usually chosen.

 

It is likely that both at the Nile and Trafalgar most ships were yellow inboard, tho' probably a steadily decreasing number still kept to the old red.

 

This looks like a case of Navy board Regulation catching up with accepted practice.

 

Diana had a fairly long career so probably had both red and yellow inboard works, tho' I hasten to add not at the same time, that would look appalling and not at all in keeping with Georgian aesthetics.

 

B.E.

 

 

 

[Ray]

Many thanks guys, I think as I am building Diana as built in 1794 red is going to be the correct colour.