The San Marco mosaic ship c. 1150 by Louie da fly - 1:75

[BANYAN]

Looking great Steven, that stand really suits.

 

Happy Christmas 

 

Pat

 

[Boccherini]

Steven,

just finished browsing through the build log, an interesting project well executed.

 

Regards,

Grant.

[Ferrus Manus]

Merry Christmas, Steven! This ship is really coming along, and i like the paint job. 

[Roger Pellett]

Steven,

 

Great job!  1100’s to 1400’s is a long time by modern standards but perhaps not so long for the ancients; particularly conservative mariners.  Anyhow, you can really see how this vessel from the 1100’s could have evolved into the Carrack of the 1400’s.  Every time that I look at your model with the braces to the stem the characteristic diagonal planking of the bows of the Carricks makes sense.

 

Roger

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everybody for the likes and comments.

 

I'm afraid I'm not very systematic in building. I often make things as the mood takes me rather than follow a logical sequence. Sometimes I end up painting myself into a corner, but so far I've mostly managed to avoid that on this build (touch wood).

 

I've puzzled for some time over how to support the spears and other pole-arms sticking out at the stern shown in several of the mosaics.

I came up with several ideas but none really seemed likely or workable, until I thought of two metal hooky things, (made of bent wire) attached to the uprights of the side railings, to support each shaft.

 

First I tried adding them to the existing uprights. But there was too little space to make the holes to take the hooks and the uprights were too narrow - the holes were almost the width of the uprights.

So I removed the existing uprights and made new ones rather wider but still looking like they belonged, made the holes and inserted the hooks before putting the new uprights in place.

Here are the pole-arms. Mostly simple spears but one was more like a harpoon and another had a head in the shape of a shepherd's crook - which I believe was intended to cut the rigging of an enemy ship.

Took a fair bit of work - they're pretty small - but finally got them done. Painted the heads silver, and the hooks on the railings black to resemble forged iron.

 

And here they are dry fitted in place. You can see the pole-arms sticking out the back railing.

I've also been working on the lateen yards, for the fore, "middle" and mizzen masts. Each yard is made of two spars lashed together; the upper one longer and with a "hollow" cut into it to take the lower one. (Thanks to Woodrat for the information on how these were configured).

Here they are glued together:

And with the lashings in place.

 

 

Steven

Edited December 28, 2023 by Louie da fly

[Glen McGuire]

Clever solution for the spears and polearms.  Well done!

[Mark Pearse]

Hi Steven, I enjoy the way your models come together. It might seem haphazard to you, but it seems thoughtful to us. And the mosaic in your last post is a very fine work of art, did the mosaics as art works inspire the interest in these boats?

[Louie da fly]

Hi Mark, I'm glad you think so. I do love the mosaics. Whether they inspired the interest in the boats - well, long story. Before I got back into ship modelling, I'd been into mediaeval re-enactment for many years, particularly concentrating on Anglo-Saxon and Byzantine, where they came together in the Varangian Guard.

 

The mosaics in San Marco are mostly Byzantine-inspired, as Venice was in Byzantium's cultural orbit for centuries (until they bit the hand that fed them in 1204!), so I naturally gravitated toward them. Once I got into ship modelling again, they stayed at the back of my mind but I'd never really been able to figure out how they would have been in real life until I saw some modern sketches that inspired me (I think the story of all this is on the first page of this build log). That got me going, and it all proceeded from there. But a lot of research was needed, and I also got a lot of help from Woodrat who'd made a model of the 14th century Contarina ship. I hope that answers your question.

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

I've been experimenting with weathering, and I'd like the team's opinion. I don't really want the ship to look completely neglected, but I'd like to show that she's been in use for a good while. Here are two tests I made to weather the decks - the first was using a thin (water-base) wash of acrylic - not too good because the water made the fibres of the wood rise up. The second I used (black) enamel thinned out with mineral turpentine. What I'd like to ask the team is - is this too much? Does she look like a tramp, rather than a normal ship that's been reasonably kept up, but has been exposed to the weather over a good period of time?

The other problem, by the way, is that there are bald spots where the paint has been over the top of white glue. I'm hoping I don't encounter this when it comes to the real thing.

 

On to the rest of my recent progress. Making and installing the pumps:

     

I thought long and hard about how to fix the lower ends of the shrouds. I decided (as this is the Mediterranean) to use pairs of blocks, not hearts or deadeyes. But there's simply no evidence at all of how they were fixed to the hull in 1150. Nix, nada, nuthin'.

 

I've made a series of beams attached to, and joining, the fronts of pairs of frames. In each one is an eyebolt to hold the lower end of the strop around the lower block, plus a vertical peg to tie off the downhaul. This is a possible configuration, but is almost certainly not what was actually used. But in the absence of available evidence, hey, what can you do? Certainly, I don't think anybody can prove I'm wrong.

 

Eyebolts from garden tie-wire:

This had a high failure rate - I used a pair of fine long-nosed pliers to do the bending, and quite often the shape just turned out wrong. I've kept the failures in case I can use them for something where the wonky shape doesn't matter.

 

Beams with eyebolts:

      

Pegs under way:

Checking diameter:

Cut to length

And dry fitted

 

 

Steven

[Glen McGuire]

31 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

I've been experimenting with weathering, and I'd like the team's opinion.

I like the way the middle 2 boards on the left look if you can replicate that on all of them - it's not too much and not too little weathering.  I think the black on the far right board is too much.  The board on the left is not bad, just maybe a little too dark.  I like the way the railings look on that same pic.  My 2 cents.

[GrandpaPhil]

I agree with Glen

[Ferrus Manus]

Same, but i would also add that you should not weather as much in high-traffic areas on the deck, as filth would not have as much of an opportunity to build up there. 

[BANYAN]

Ditto Ferrus Manus

 

cheers

 

Pat

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everybody. I'm of the same opinion, but wanted to see what others thought. Further comments and suggestions welcome.

 

Steven

[Javelin]

I'd go for the lightest of the planks Glen highlighted, the third one from the left. 

The darkest is indeed too dark, almost like burn marks. I figure there wouldn't be too much dirt building up. Either the crew or the sea would wash that deck regularly and at some point, all dirt from ones' shoes (which they probably didn't wear onboard) has fallen off, without much shore leave, there wouldn't be too much extra dirt coming in. 

Use of grease and oil was probably quite limited too. 

Edited January 5 by Javelin

[Louie da fly]

Thanks everybody for the helpful comments.

 

But now onto other things. To be honest, I feel like a bit of a twit. For some years among my store of TAMU Masters' theses (copied before they stopped making them unavailable on-line) I've had one by Lilian Ray (now Lilian Ray Martin) called Venetian Ships and Seafaring up to the Nautical Revolution: A Study Based On Artistic Representations of Ships and Boats Before c. 1450. This was later released as a full-length book entitled The Art and Archaeology of Venetian Ships and Boats. Among the pictures she deals with are the mosaics in San Marco upon which I've based this model. Today while chasing up something else, I looked at this thesis properly for the first time. 

 

And I've learnt a few things. First, that the mosaic I've mostly used was extensively restored during the Renaissance, so that many of the details I've been relying on may be - well, unreliable. In particular, to me it casts suspicion on the curved 'brace' at the bow, which appears only in this one mosaic. Was it added later, and if so should I remove it?

And those strange extensions below the aftercastle - are they also later additions? As I had no idea what they could be I omitted them, and now I'm rather glad I did.

 

And two of the other mosaics were extensively - and badly - restored in the 1880s.

 

Another thing - one of the mosaics I included in my references

turns out to be part of a completely different series.  Still about the same date and still in San Marco, and the ships are so similar in many ways that I think I'm still right in using it as a reference. But the author proposes that the strange "battlements" on this ship show spaces where part of the upper works have been removed to facilitate loading cargo, as in Woodrat's Venetian Round Ship. Not only that, she references another example of this in a 14th century fresco by Andrea di Bonauito de Firenze - The Conversion of St Ranieri in the Camposanto of Pisa (modelled after a 13th century original by Giotto).

Woodrat take note.

 

So I'm left with a bit of a quandary. Do I remove that bow-brace? I'm very tempted to do so, despite all the work I put into it.

 

By the way, I have to say though much of the thesis is very illuminating, I don't agree with everything she says. Particularly she mistakes what is very obviously the outline of a sword hanging from a character's waist, for ropes controlling the rudder. But generally a very interesting read and certainly got me thinking.

 

Steven

[Cathead]

I'd agree with the chorus that, for the most part, both examples of weathering are too dark. More like rural barn wood. As for the rest, out of my league, but always fascinating to follow you down the various rabbit warrens of research!

[Roger Pellett]

Unfortunately Naval Architects and Nautical Archeologists seem to be two different breeds “and never the twain shall meet.”  All floating objects regardless of when built most obey the same laws of Newtonian Physics.  In the end even these ancient vessels can be evaluated using basic Naval Architectural concepts.  There is seemingly no reason why ancient seafarers would sacrifice freeboard by intentionally building a vessel with a crenelated hull.

 

Roger

Edited January 6 by Roger Pellett

[druxey]

Curse those ignorant and over-imaginative 'restorers'! It's things like that that really muddy the waters. I feel your frustration in discovering that your 'primary' source is really a secondary and unreliable one. My sympathy, Steven.

[woodrat]

There is no doubt that loading ports on at least one side were used and are seen in a number of illustrations for example St Marks coffin being loaded through such a port. As Roger states,  it would be ridiculous to set sail with a crenellated hull. I believe the artists sketched thes e ships in port so while loading. At sea the port would be covered to restore freeboard.

I took this into account on my round ship reconstruction by building in removable panels which could be rapidly removed and replaced.

I used Lillian Ray Martins book extensively as an excellent albeit fallible resource.

Dick

Edited January 8 by woodrat

[Louie da fly]

In fact the 'crenellations" turn out to be only two gaps. The rest are only an optical delusion (yes, I know that's wrong, but I think it sounds better) caused by rope coils hanging over the side making it look like there are more gaps.

 

Yes, upsetting to discover that my mosaics have been tampered with, but in truth, I think the only thing I'm likely to change is that bow-brace. It doesn't appear on any other ship of the period I've been able to find, (or any other for that matter, until you get to maybe the 18th century, and that's something completely different) so I think I'm going to get rid of it (even though my stepdaughter thinks it looks nice - she just doesn't understand . . .)

 

Regarding colour, I'm still not happy. I really want the wood to look silver-grey, like normal weathered timber, not dirty timber. Time to try again - I think I'll introduce some white into the mix and see what happens.

 

Steven

 

[Ferrus Manus]

Are your sails supposed to tack around the front of the mast? If so, i think there's an issue with your eyebolts. You see, both the standing end and running end of every line would have to be physically moved in order to tack the sail should it be tacking in front of the mast. The eyebolts would be unworkable assuming you were going for a more "modern" approach to attaching the standing end of a line to an eyebolt by seizing it. It would probably be better to just treat both ends of any given line as "running", i.e. tied to a rail. That is what i plan to do on my caravel. 

Let me know if i'm an idiot. 

[Louie da fly]

The eyebolts are for the standing end of the tackle. The pegs are for the running end, so the shrouds can be loosened when tacking.

 

Steven

[Glen McGuire]

1 hour ago, Louie da fly said:

even though my stepdaughter thinks it looks nice - she just doesn't understand

I agree with your stepdaughter, it does look very nice.  And, you did such a marvelous job making the brace and making it fit.  But at the end of the day, it's your decision and either way I don't think you can go wrong since you do have a mosaic prominently showing the brace. 

[Ferrus Manus]

22 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

standing end of the tackle

So those are for the shrouds? Got it. On my caravel, i will simply have the lanyard originate from the upper block. The kit gives me bulkhead rails to tie stuff to (you can't prove me wrong 😜), so the issue of finding a place to mount the lower blocks and tie stuff off is no big deal. 

Edited January 6 by Ferrus Manus

[Louie da fly]

Yes, and that's (sort of) what I did on my nef, though because it didn't have a rail above the gunwale I put an inner 'rail' that ran along the inside of the frames a little below gunwale level and tied everything off to that.

I considered dong the same on this build, which also doesn't have rails, but decided to try something new. There is absolutely nothing on the mosaics to show how the shrouds were fixed, so at least this would be something that works.

 

Steven

 

 

[Ferrus Manus]

Upon seeing what they gave me in the instructions, i'm probably ditching their parts and doing what you did on the nef.

[Louie da fly]

Up to you, mate. It's one way of doing it. Checking back to your build log it appears your caravel doesn't have rails above the bulwark?

 

Steven

[Ferrus Manus]

It does at the aft above the quarterdeck. I was talking about using stringer-like rails mounted to the bulwark stanchions just like you have on your nef. 

[Ferrus Manus]

12 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

because it didn't have a rail above the gunwale I put an inner 'rail' that ran along the inside of the frames

Exactly what i am saying.