Winchelsea Nef 1274 A.D. by Louie da fly - FINISHED - 1:75

[mtaylor]

Wonderful work, Steven and as always, you give good lessons on the history of the ships you build.

[Louie da fly]

3 hours ago, Keith Black said:

Steven, that crewman working the windless needs to get a grip.

 

Well, he's not really anything to do with the windlass - I've still got to carve the two guys who'll be working it.

 

He's actually a buisinier (trumpeter), but I don't think he'll be playing it like this (genuine mediaeval drawing from a manuscript - they were a rather earthy crowd.)

 

 

Steven

Edited October 18, 2021 by Louie da fly

[Keith Black]

36 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

Well, he's not really anything to do with the windlass - I've still got to carve the two guys who'll be working it.

 

He's actually a buisinier (trumpeter)

 

I know, I saw him coming to life on page 3.👍

[Louie da fly]

And now to work on the castles. This took a lot of trial and error - the foredeck and after deck are considerably angled to the horizontal, so the uprights supporting the castles are shorter at the outer end than the inner. I had to guess the difference and found I'd got it wrong - after I'd carved nice supporting columns into the inner uprights.  The photo below shows the original uprights on the right and two of the new ones on the left.

 

 

I had to do a lot of figuring how to build these things so they would work. The floor plan is a truncated triangle, and they had to be without a top crossbeam at the rear because most castles in contemporary pictures don't have a back wall.  I think I ended up with something worthwhile, and better (and tidier) than the castles on my previous build, the dromon. The pictures below are of the original version, with the longer columns.

 

 

And here is the original castle structure part assembled.

 

 

And roughly in place to get an idea of what it would look like.

 

 

And the new version, showing the old upright next to it. I also discovered I'd made the castles too long fore and aft, so I had to change that too. A lot of pulling apart and rebuilding, but mostly I just needed to cut various existing pieces shorter - it was only the uprights with the long columns that had to be re-made.

 

 

Here's a column being carved into shape.

 

 

More progress:

 

          

 

 

 

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Deck beams in place:

 

 

 

 

And the walls under construction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glued to the frame and again roughly positioned: the end wall is not yet made.

 

 

 

 

 

I've started bending wood to make the decorative arches and other features.

 

       

 

Oh, and here's the side rudder, ready to be put in position.

 

 

Coming along . . .

 

Steven



 

 

 

 

 

[druxey]

Coming along? It certainly is! Your castle structures are a triumph of patience over adversity.

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everybody, and thanks Druxey, though I sort of feel they're more a triumph of patience over lack of planning . . .

 

But I think the structure is much closer to what would have been done back in the day than the ones I did on the dromon, which were very heavily influenced by my experience as a building designer in modern light timber (stud) framing.

 

Once the castles themselves are clad, I'll have to work out a means of doing the decorative woodwork, as seen in the second-last pic of my previous post. I've had a few ideas and I'll just have to see how well they work - or if they work at all.

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

Well, fun and games.

 

I've added the decoration to the aftercastle. Took a long time and some patience, but I think it was worth it. There are three quatrefoils (four-petalled flowers) along each side plus a rather complex pointed arch beneath. So I had to figure out how to make them. These decorations were usually inset rather than standing proud of the background, so after a bit of thought a series of cusped triangles in the "negative space" seemed to be the best way to go.

 

 

 

So we go from this

 

 

to this

 

 

The decoration would probably extend around the front, so I extrapolated the pattern to take this into account.

 

 

 

 

And then onto the arch. Using my trusty soldering iron as a heat source, I bent strips of wood in a circle to make the arcs for the main body of the arch.

 

 

That's a 32mm (1.25 inch) diameter circle. That soldering iron is amazing. Here's the beginning of the arch.

 

 

And in place:

 

 

I had to do a little adjusting where the arch met the uprights to get it to sit more smoothly (not photographed).

 

And then the really fiddly bit. There is a complex secondary arch shown on the Winchelsea town seal:

 

 

So I had to get thinner strips of wood and curve and cut them to shape. Quite a lot of trial and error involved to get it all to fit and look right.

 

 

 

 

 

And le voila! The castle dry fitted in place.

 

 

I have yet to choose a colour scheme. The only coloured pictures from the time show these castles as often being brightly coloured, but with a base of white.

 

        

 

 

Next we get onto the forecastle. I had been merrily just making a duplicate of the aftercastle till I took a good look at the Winchelsea seal again. It appears that though they both come up to the same height, the fore "castle" is deeper than the aftercastle.

 

 

Landström obviously noticed this discrepancy and thought about it. His solution was to make the fore "castle" the same depth as the after "castle", but to keep the proportions right, he increased the number of decorative arches on the "walls" from three to four.

 

 

That's certainly a possible solution and I did consider it, but though most ships with two castles depicted on seals have them the same depth, the ship on the far left of the three coloured pictures above has castles of uneven heights.

 

The height under the aftercastle is "fixed" by having to allow headroom for the helmsman, but this isn't the case with the forecastle. And I checked the height of the castle "walls" if its floor was lower. Allowing for a 1.65 metre (5'6") crewman, the top of the merlons ("battlements") was high enough to hide behind, while the embrasures (openings) were deep enough for someone to look out and shoot a weapon. Which is the whole point of battlements, isn't it?

 

So with tears in my eyes (to misquote Arlo Guthrie) I took out the deck substructure I'd put in with such care and attention and moved it downward. And I discarded the walls I'd made for the forecastle and made new ones. Here's a sample just starting out.

 

 

Will the walls work out? Can Steven make beautiful decorations for the forecastle to match the ones aft? Will tall thin Jones be able to rescue Sweet Sue from Salty Sam? Tune in for our next exciting instalment.

 

Steven

 

 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2021 by Louie da fly

[Keith Black]

 I was torn between a thumbs up and a laughing emoji. Steven, beautiful work on the stern castle. I think Sweet Sue is safe from the evil doings of Salty Sam, I see rescue in the not too distant future. 

[BANYAN]

Better to catch and fix it now mate; looking really good!  Some excellent relief decoration on the after castle.

 

cheers

 

Pat

[mtaylor]

Looking great.  Time go see Alice and her coffee.  

[Louie da fly]

1 hour ago, mtaylor said:

Time go see Alice and her coffee.  

 

You can get anything you want . . . 'ceptin' Alice . . .

 

Steven

[Thukydides]

Fantastic work, I am consistently amazed by your work. I have really enjoyed following along with this log.

[GrandpaPhil]

Amazing work!

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everybody for the likes and comments. I must say I'm pretty pleased with what I've done with the aftercastle. I think it's the best marquetry I've ever done, and I've found myself becoming more careful and painstaking in this build than in previous ones - while, strangely, getting more progress in a shorter time than before.

 

While researching what flags I should be putting on the model (as on the town seal shows them blank), I just came across a fascinating document on the Net relating to the port of Winchelsea itself - https://www.winchelsea.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/WinchelseaTown.pdf

 

Among other things it indicates that the original port of Winchelsea had risen to prosperity in about 1200 with extensive fisheries, shipbuilding, royal dockyards, extensive salt pans and overseas trade, and was regarded as in the second rank of ports, behind only London and Southampton. But by the time this seal was made in 1274 the old town was in its last days.

 

A series of violent storms occurred throughout the 13th century and the sea encroached further and further, eroding the harbour defences. By 1280 the town was described as "for the most part submerged by the sea". And then in 1287-88 three great storms occurred within the space of 14 months, effectively completing the work of destruction. But by that time the old town had been abandoned in favour of a new one on the high ground overlooking the old port, under the auspices of King Edward I who provided land and finance to build the new town.

 

I also discovered that though the town had been granted by Canute in 1017 to the abbey of Fécamp in France, it was taken back by Henry II in 1247, along with the nearby port of Rye, as "it was undesirable at that time to allow the French to have the command of two English ports."

 

So in 1274 it was a royal possession, which is probably why on the town seal bears a shield with the three royal "lions passant gardant".

 

 

Further, "by 1190 [Winchelsea and Rye] had joined the association of Cinque Ports" (a group of ports on the South cast of England charged with coastal defence), so the ship would be entitled to fly the Cinque Ports banner.

 

 

So, that pretty much covers my question regarding the flags to be flown. The seal shows one at the forecastle and one at the masthead. I'm still figuring whether to put the banner at the forecastle in the very centre of the forecastle as shown on the seal. Doesn't seem to make a lot of sense - wouldn't it get in everyone's way?  Checking other town seals I find that though some have their banner at the edge of the castle,

 

                

 

                                        Haverford West town seal                                                                   Sandwich town seal

 

quite a few others have them in the centre,

 

          

                       

                 Dover town seal                                                                                                           Dunwich town seal

 

so it looks like that's the way I'll have to go, even though it seems a bit dumb.

 

I also have some thinking to do - was a ship entitled to fly the royal flag if the sovereign was not on board? I dunno, but probably not.

 

 

Steven

 

Edited October 22, 2021 by Louie da fly

[Roger Pellett]

Steven, very nice work!

 

150 or so years earlier than your model but I just read a review of a book about the sinking of the “White Ship,” a disaster that killed the heir to the English throne and over 300 of his courtiers.  This resulted in a Civil was between two half siblings, Stephen and Miltilda that lasted until the reign of Henry II.  It looks interesting.

 

Roger

[Louie da fly]

Yes, apparently they were all drunk and the ship hit a rock leaving the harbour in France. Matilda (or Maud - see 1066 and All That) was King Henry's daughter, the sister of the drowned heir, but unfortunately she was a woman, and though the feudal lords swore allegiance to her, when her cousin Stephen decided he should be king, a lot of them changed sides. Unfortunately he was a very lackadaisical war leader, and so the civil war dragged out for a very long time, with terrible results for England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Matilda

 

The Cadfael books are set during this period, if you're interested in that kind of thing.

 

Steven

Edited October 23, 2021 by Louie da fly

[Chuck Seiler]

My research indicates the flag you have is the correct one.

 

Here is somebody's depiction.

 

[Tony Hunt]

The castle looks fantastic, lovely work. The marquetry to make the bas-relief pattern is really effective.

[Cathead]

If you like historical fiction, Ken Follett's cathedral-building epic The Pillars of the Earth is subtly built around the sinking of the White Ship, in a way that pays off very satisfyingly at the end but I can't say more without providing a spoiler. The actual writing can be a bit purple at times but it's a satisfying read for its breadth of character and historical context. Personally I think his later writing went off the rails a bit but this early book is quite good.

 

I love how well the castles match the seals, it truly brings the images to life. There's something very satisfying about turning 2D art into 3D art in this way.

[Roger Pellett]

Our men’s book club read Pillars of the Earth several years ago and we all enjoyed it.  I remarked that the author cleverly bookended two major events in English history.  Our resident English history expert, a retired English teacher, disputed my analysis, saying that the ending had nothing to do with historical fact.  As the debate raged on, he finally said, “Oh, I watched the movie!”

 

Roger

[Louie da fly]

Thanks for the likes and comments.

 

I've been working on the new forecastle - Here you can see the height difference between it and the earlier iteration.

 

 

Apart from that, the technique was the same as on the aftercastle, so I haven't included photos. However, the decoration is different -  pointed arches instead of quatrefoils.

 

 

I used the same technique I'd used to make the earlier arches, but as the arches were smaller I had to bend the wood in an even tighter curve. I made each arch a bit too long so I could trim it to fit exactly in situ before I glued it down.

 

 

Here are the uprights:

 

 

 

And the first and second  arches

 

 

 

The bottom of the right hand arc of the second arch is a little out of place in the photo, but I was able to gently push it into place at the top of the upright.

 

Third arch complete

 

 

 

I'd been thinking about access to the castles. Sure, use a ladder, but if the top of the ladder is at the edge of the castle, the base is right at the edge of the raised deck and would make access a little difficult. Landström has the ladder coming up right in the middle of the castle, but that seems a bit wrong to me - you'd always be worried about falling through the hole. So I did what I thought solved both problems - put the hole right at the inboard edge. This is the aftercastle - the forecastle isn't decked yet.

 

 

I worked out that a 600 mm (2 feet) gap would be wide enough - it's the size of a small doorway, at least here in Oz. At 1:75 scale, that's 8 mm. You can see there's a deckbeam supporting the inner edge of the decking, and the distance between it and the next deckbeam is enough for someone to get through without too much difficulty.

 

 

So here she is with both castles dry fitted.

 

 

 

I still have to add the deck of the forecastle and also the arch between the legs on each side (though they're simpler than on the aftercastle).

 

Note the rope around the windlass. I'm just checking it out against how they did it on the Harald Fairhair replica ( see 0:32 at

 

 

And I discovered the drum of my windlass was too close to the deck so the rope got stuck underneath  . I've had to take the whole assembly off and glue a spacer under each of the side brackets to raise the drum. Just waiting for the glue to dry then I'll trim it all to shape and glue the windlass back in place.

 

Steven

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2021 by Louie da fly

[Johnny.D]

I've come here new and have looked over the log so far. I am truly inspired at the detail and construction process put into the internal frames of the hull and the planking process.

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, mate. Much appreciated.

 

And thanks everybody for the likes.

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

Here's some idea of what she's going to look like with mast and castles in place.

 

 

The forecastle was complete except for the arches below the platform, so here they are. I curved wooden strip with the soldering iron, as before, but the curve is quite mild.

 

 

And here is the forecastle with the arches in place.

 

 

Next - the ladders for access to the castles. First I tried them with square section strips of wood for both side-beams and rungs:

 

 

 

But I discovered that not only were the ladders too narrow, but the rungs were too heavy and too close together. I went out the back of the house and measured all the ladders. Distance between rungs seems always to be approximately a foot (300 mm), and the ladders themselves wider than I'd made them.

 

So then I thought of making them as though they were from rough branches. Here are birch twigs from the back garden.

 

 

Still too thick and I couldn't strip off the bark without cutting into the wood. So back across the road to get some more weeds.

 

   

 

Trimmed down: 

 

 

The original idea, since the stems of these weeds taper quite a bit, was to use the thicker ends for the side-beams and the thinner bits for rungs. But I decided I didn't like the "rough" motif as well as I originally had, so I kept the side-beams I already had. However the thin bits made excellent rungs

 

 

 

and now with both the side beams and the rungs further apart it all looks to scale.

 

 

Next, experimenting with the location of the side-rudder.

 

I discovered I'd made the helmsman's arms wrong - his left arm was held too high up. So I cut it off and glued it another piece of wood in its place. And the skirt of his tunic was too short, so I extended it with some "plastic wood" using PVA glue and sawdust.

 

            

 

 

 

 

 

New arm and tunic extension carved to shape and the whole thing painted.

 

      

 

 

Here he is with the other crew members I've done so far ;

 

 

Castle, helmsman and rudder dry fitted, using a pin to temporarily locate the rudder.

 

 

There's still a horizontal beam that has to be attached to the hull as the rudder support, and I have to figure out its shape exactly where and how to attach it..

 

 

 

Then I started painting the castles. As the main colour in contemporary pictures seems to be white, I started out with that, using watered down acrylic.

 

 

And then some red for the decorative bits.

 

 

Unfortunately, no matter how many layers I added, it still looked washed-out, and the red was too bright for the pigments available at the time. So I'm moving over to the old standby - Humbrol enamel. 

 

And I changed the colour layout. I'd always intended to add green around the quatrefoils, but I found that with a white substructure (legs) it all looked too pale. So I changed it to red below the castles themselves. Looks a lot better. 

 

 

And now I'm starting to think about carving the rest of the crew. I took photocopies of the Winchelsea town seal, scaled down so the people on board were at approximately 1:75, and cut and pasted onto a couple of pieces of pear wood. I had to draw in where the picture didn't show them. Got my work cut out for me (sorry!)

 

 

 

 

Steven

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Louie da fly]

Aligning the side-rudder. I had to get the locations of the horizontal rudder support, the pivot, the tiller, the aftercastle and the steersman (and his hands) all to line up with each other. Took quite a bit of experimentation.

 

 

 

 

 

All temporarily fitted. I used a couple of spots of glue to keep the castle and the steersman in place while I worked everything out, and later used isopropanol to free them. For the final set-up I'll have to move the steersman over a bit toward the side of the ship so his hands line up with the tiller exactly right.

 

Here are the pumps. I'll probably put them between the windlass and the aftercastle.

 

 

 

 

Starting on the sail. I've made it shorter than the real thing, as it'll be furled and I don't want it too bulky. I may yet need to cut more off it to get the bulk right - we'll see.

 

Adding the boltropes (I glued them on rather than sewing, which would be too large to get to look right at 1:75 scale).

 

 

Beginning on the robands.

 

 

 

 

Two more figures under way. One replacing the removeable planks over the hold as the ship gets under way,

 

 

the other working the windlass to raise the sail. (The guy below will be climbing a halyard to unfurl the sail, but I'll get onto him later)

 

 

More on the guy replacing the planks:

 

 

At which point I asked my beloved wife to take some photos of me doing it so I could get the positions and angles right.

 

     

 

 

 

       

 

As it turned out, most of it was pretty close to right. But I wanted to get such things as the angles and positions of the knees and feet correct.

 

 

The only thing is that he's not really leaning over far enough to be sliding a plank across the deck. I'll have to have him holding one end of it up in the air a bit.

 

      

 

And the guy on the windlass.

 

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately, this figure is also not leaning over far enough. You can see he won't be able to reach the windlass bar. I thought of cutting him across the middle and changing the angle of his torso so he could reach the bar, but I think instead I'll re-do his arms so he's reaching out further.

 

More to come in a while.

 

Steven

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 11, 2021 by Louie da fly

[mtaylor]

I love the attention to the details on your ships.  And then to see the photos of you posing says much about your dedication to accuracy.

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, Mark. Perhaps more about my pickiness. Maybe I should have been wearing mediaeval clothes (I do have them, you know!)

 

 

Steven

[Seahawk1313]

Steven, Your ship is wonderful and interesting , and your crew great fun.  I'm very happy that I looked in on that you were doing. -Hal

[Louie da fly]

Thanks, Hal. 

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everybody for the likes and comments.

 

Here's the guy on the windlass - I mentioned his arms were wrong, so I've changed them. In the photos one arm's already done, and you can see how I made and inserted new arms.

 

     

 

 

 

     

 

And here he is complete, pained and dry fitted in place.

 

 

 

And also the guy who's replacing the removable deck planks. Note - the funny hats are called coifs and were the height of fashion at the time.

 

 

 

As a side note, contrary to what s shown in the movies (and beautifully sent up in Monty Python and the Holy Grail), people in the Middle Ages didn't all wear mud-coloured clothing - or black. Natural dyes - madder (red), woad (blue) and about half the plants you come across every day (yellow) produce some absolutely beautiful colours, which can then be combined to produce greens, oranges, pinks and a whole range of variations on the basic colours.

 

To fix the lower ends of the shrouds, the earliest deadeyes I've been able to find are from the Bremen cog of 1380, over 100 years later than this nef. But the Gokstad ship's rigging pieces are from the 10th century, even further away in the other direction. As a compromise I decided to do hearts for the shrouds, as a step in the evolution toward deadeyes.

 

 

 

 

 

And I'm very fortunate in that henrythestaffy 3d printed and sent me some anchors taken from a Viking find. The stock is made from wood, based on another Viking find, as shown. Note the interesting way of attaching the stock to the shank. Looks to me as though that would be a source of weakness, but it seems to have been used, so I'm going ahead with it.

 

 

  

 

 

 

More to come . . .

 

Steven

 

 

Edited November 15, 2021 by Louie da fly