Was Howard I. Chapelle Controversial

[SaltyNinja]

If so, what was the controversy?

 

I don't remember where, but someplace in my recent reading and musings I read that he was considered controversial to some, and I'm wondering why?

 

I just finished reading "The History of American Sailing Ships" and  in the book there were times when he made what seemed to be harsh judgements upon a design. While reading, this struck me as certain confidence, or even some bit of arrogance. For example, he made comments on selected period designers as "not being educated" a couple of times, while praising another as "being a well educated man". Is this what made him "controversial"? I understand that Chapelle himself was not an "educated" man, so this line of thought on a "controversial" part of him is probably attributed to my ignorance.

 

Were these just the facts stated plainly, or was this part of the "controversy"?

 

He is an authority of nautical history, so I posted the question in this forum.

 

 

Edited January 25, 2022 by SaltyNinja
clarity of question

[grsjax]

The only thing I ever read about him that might be controversial is that some of his reconstructions of design details were considered very speculative.

[Bob Cleek]

While Howard I. Chapelle wrote in an era when his position as an academic author and employee of the Smithsonian was accorded the respect it deserved, he was nonetheless quite controversial in some matters. 

 

The controversy for which he is most famous had to do with his correct assessment that the USS Constellation of 1797 and the USS Constellation of 1854 were entirely distinct ships, a dispute which festered for some time between Boston, with USS Constitution and Baltimore with USS Constellation, which promoters argued was one and the same with the 1797 frigate which had actually been broken up in 1853, the USS Constellation of 1854, built a year later, being the original Constellation's replacement.

 

Chapelle's drawings have been criticized for inaccuracies and a penchant for his substituting information when such was lacking. Given the nature of the work he was doing, and particularly the work of others he was directing during the WPA Historic American Merchant Marine Survey, these being out of work architects, engineers, and draftsmen who were not always conversant with naval architecture and marine engineering, those inaccuracies are understandable and not "controversial." Nobody disputes them.

 

Chapelle's writing style may seem pedantic, "harshly judgmental, and/or "arrogant," to today's reader, but at the risk of being accused of the same (as has happened before ) Chapelle's prose style was entirely appropriate in its time. It is only fairly recently that an ethic of "political correctness" has our diluted our academic literary style, resulting in what one might call the "Little League Syndrome" where "everybody wins a prize," and God help anybody who's heard to say that the losing team lost because they played poorly! What today's readers would consider arrogance in dismissing the work of a predecessor with the comment that they "were not educated" was taken as an authoritative assessment by Chapelle at the time of its writing. Chapelle wasn't alone in his forthrightness and candor. Most commentators of the time were similarly unrestrained in their criticism when they found cause to express it. L.F. Herreshoff was famous for his curmudgeonly, and often quire humorous, prose on the subject of yachts and yachting. In Chapelle's day, the uneducated would never have disputed the pronouncements of the educated, affording them the respect due their degrees, but not so today when "everybody has a right to their own opinion" and the internet provides a platform for hucksters and snake oil salesmen to peddle their wares to the gullible and most feel socially constrained to stand mute when confronted with stupidity.

 

You can get a good sense of Chapelle's "straight from the shoulder" style from his articles Ship Models That Should be Built (Nautical Research Guild - Article - Ship Models that Ought to be Built (thenrg.org) and Ship Models That Should Not be Built, (Nautical Research Guild - Article - Ship Models that Should Not be Built (thenrg.org) which are available in the forum's "Articles Database" (under "More" in the top of the page menu.) Just imagine what sort of reception you'd get in this forum if you expressed Chapelle's opinion that:

 

"There are enough Flying Clouds, Constitutions, racing fishermen, and imaginary galleons God knows, and there is surely some type of boat or vessel that will interest a modeler that has not yet been modeled. But, if you are not interested in accurate models and desire to build stuff of a level of truthfulness of a Hollywood movie "Pirate Ship" or "Spanish Galleon" forget I brought the matter up."

 

 They'd scratch your eyes out for sure. 

Edited January 25, 2022 by Bob Cleek

[SaltyNinja]

"Chapelle's writing style may seem pedantic, "harshly judgmental, and/or "arrogant," to today's reader, but at the risk of being accused of the same (as has happened before  ) Chapelle's prose style was entirely appropriate in its time. It is only fairly recently that an ethic of "political correctness" has our academic literary style, what one might call the "Little League Syndrome" where "everybody wins a prize," and God forbid anybody would be heard to say that the losing team lost because they played poorly! "

 

Thanks for the thoughtful, if not thorough, reply Bob. I am not sure if you read my post before I edited it, but I had a sentence addressing my PC sensibilities that I deleted for the sake of clarity in my question(s)!

 

Further, that's one of the thoughts I was unsure of, e.g., style of writing/directness vs. arrogance. 😆

 

"Chapelle's opinion that there were more than enough Constitution and Victory models around already and it was a waste of energy for a modeler to bother building another one, or that plans (and kits) for vessels that are pure conjecture, the Mayflowers, Golden Hinds, Bonhomme Richards, Half Moons and so on, serve only to pollute the historical record!" 

 

I've got to learn how to scratch build, because I want to model West Coast fishing boats and not do a Victory parade. Jk!  I'm going to start my career over here with the planking project, however. Then maybe a dory level 1 kit, then...well we'll see if I make it that far.

 

Thanks again 👍

 

 

Edited January 26, 2022 by SaltyNinja
clarity

[SaltyNinja]

2 hours ago, grsjax said:

The only thing I ever read about him that might be controversial is that some of his reconstructions of design details were considered very speculative.

Bob reiterated this same thought in his post. That's probably what was being referred to. 

 

Thank you for your reply to my question.

[Roger Pellett]

Several somewhat unconnected thoughts:

 

There is no American maritime history researcher that even comes close to Chapelle.  He spearheaded the documentation of local American Sailing craft large and small.  He realized and followed up on the fact that the Royal Navy had in its archives dozens of drawings for captured American sailing ships.  He was an excellent draftsman and produced hundreds of drawings.  Even with his interpretations and reconstructions models built from these drawings are more accurate than 90% of those built from mass market European POB kits. And, regarding USF Constellation he was 100% right!

 

I would not consider him to have been uneducated.  While he was not a graduate of one of the “Big Three” Naval Architecture Programs (MIT, University of Michigan or Webb Institute) and might not have been qualified to design the SS United States, I believe that he had completed the Westlawn Correspondence Naval Architecture Course.  His writings indicate clearly that he understood sailing vessel design; a subject not taught at the University of Michigan when I was a student there in the1960’s.  Sailing yacht design was considered to be an art, not a science.

 

Any Naval Architect will tell you that the basis for any ship design, full size or model is an accurate set of hull lines.  Chapelle’s drawings were based on old drawings or half models, so he often had to correct for distortion in his source materials.  Furthermore, no two Naval Architects will produce exactly the same lines drawing from the same input data. This happens because of “fairing.”  In plotting curves, there will always be points that don’t line up or don’t match in all three dimensions.  The drafter must, therefore, adjust his drawing to produce a fair surface and no two drafters will do this the same way 100% of the time.  How many different “original” lines drawings exist for the Yacht America and which on reflects the actual vessel.

 

L. Francis Herreshoff was not particularly well educated in the traditional sense.  He was Dyslexic and his father, MIT educated Nathaniel Herreshoff, sent him to a local Agricultural School with the idea that he would manage a farm that the family owned.  Instead of completing the program he effectively ran away from home and got a job as a draftsman with W. Starling Burgess. He learned yacht design on the job.  In fact Nathaniel Herreshoff was not a Naval Architect.  His degree from MIT was in mechanical engineering. Olin Stevens also was not a University educated Naval Architect and has written that late in his career had trouble understanding the new CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics ).  

 

Roger

 

 

Edited January 26, 2022 by Roger Pellett

[Bob Cleek]

SaltyNinja, considering your interest in West Coast fishing boats, you may want to contact someone at the San Francisco Model Yacht Club .(https://sfmyc.org/) There are a number of radio-control modelers there who have built a miniature fleet of Monterey fishing boats:

 

 

Edited January 26, 2022 by Bob Cleek

[Roger Pellett]

Chapelle also documented and drew plans for the lateen rigged fishing boats built by Italian immigrants.  These used to used to sail from San Francisco.

[michaelpsutton2]

As a painter who attempts,rather crudely, to reconstruct the appearance of old ships from fairly inadequate sources, I understand that there are two paths for the maritime historian. The first is just reproduce the original data and let your readers work it out for themselves. The 2nd, which is in all fairness what I do in the end, is to present a more complete picture, albeit hypothetical, that is informed by merging other lines of research. H I Chapelle noted the reconstructions on his plans and told where he found his info. It is only recently with the rise of CAD do I see many plans being reconstructed to equal or exceed his work. Of the thousands who have red his books what percentage have taken that next obvious step and sought the archival documents he worked with to evaluate for themselves. It does have to be admitted that there were varied and strongly held opinions on that Constellation mess. I think most of those involved at the time have either been broken up or rebuilt by now.

 

Edited January 26, 2022 by michaelpsutton2

[mtaylor]

7 hours ago, Bob Cleek said:

The controversy for which he is most famous had to do with his correct assessment that the USS Constellation of 1797 and the USS Constellation of 1854 were entirely distinct ships, a dispute which festered for some time between Boston, with USS Constitution and Baltimore with USS Constellation, which promoters argued was one and the same with the 1797 frigate which had actually been broken up in 1853, the USS Constellation of 1854, built a year later, being the original Constellation's replacement.

 

This segues into the model world a lot.  Too many manufactures of kits grab a concept (no matter how wrong it is) and make a product.   That product then becomes what many buyers will believe was the real thing.   The Constellation is just one of many... such as the kits that have been around for decades of the Vasa and never updated nor barely resemble the ship.  There's plenty more but the list would be very long.

[Bob Cleek]

2 hours ago, mtaylor said:

This segues into the model world a lot.  Too many manufactures of kits grab a concept (no matter how wrong it is) and make a product.   That product then becomes what many buyers will believe was the real thing.   The Constellation is just one of many... such as the kits that have been around for decades of the Vasa and never updated nor barely resemble the ship.  There's plenty more but the list would be very long.

Would it be a valuable service to create, post, and maintain such a list so that modelers could be encouraged to avoid purchasing such kits?  Perhaps add "lack of accuracy" warnings to the forum kit database if it comes to pass.  It certainly makes sense to ostracize counterfeit ship kits. Are kits of "counterfeit" ships all that much different? 

Edited January 26, 2022 by Bob Cleek

[allanyed]

2 hours ago, Bob Cleek said:

Would it be a valuable service to create, post, and maintain such a list so that modelers could be encouraged to avoid purchasing such kits?  Perhaps add "lack of accuracy" warnings to the forum kit database if it comes to pass. 

While I am in agreement  with the sentiment, what does this have to do with Howard Chappelle?    

 

[dcicero]

It would be hard to find another writer who contributed more to our understanding of naval architecture than Chappelle, particularly with regard to small, regional sailing craft, but I've read his books.  "Dry" doesn't begin to describe them.  I can't imagine reading them for pleasure.  I've referenced them many, many times and used the drawings in them as references.  There's a ton of information there, certainly, but I wouldn't even call his writing style academic.  There are plenty of serious academics who write in an engaging style.  Chappelle isn't one of them, even when compared to other writers of his time.

 

I don't think -- to get back on topic -- he's particularly controversial.  I think his essay on "models that should not be built" just puts forth an argument, well supported.  I don't necessarily agree with it -- if you want a model of USS Constitution, knock yourself out -- but he wrote it from a position of great knowledge, skill and experience.  Got to admire that.  He's worth reading.

[Roger Pellett]

I have all of his books and have read them- cover to cover.  While his writing style is not intentionally entertaining, it is clear, easily understood, and direct. It is in my opinion, good technical writing.  This is not “popular history,” he wrote for readers familiar with ships and maritime terminology. For example, his American Sailing Craft is a series of articles adapted from Yachting Magazine.  When dealing with subjects bordering on social issues such as the slave trade he sticks to his subject, the design of the ship’s.  Remember his books were written between the 1930’s and early 1960’s.

 

A major criticism of his work IS a lack of attribution regarding his sources.  In one case, this affected me.  I was thinking about building a model of the George Steers New York Pilot Boat, Moses Grinnell, and had bought drawings from the Smithsonian.  I had questions about the stem decorations.  While on a trip to Washington, DC I visited the museum and talked to the curator (Chapelle was no loner living).  He looked at the drawing, shook his head, and said “Chapelle’s drawings include massive reconstruction!”  I decided not to build the model.  Many years later, I found two contemporary paintings of the Grinnell showing the details in question.  Chapelle had accurately incorporated them into his drawing.

 

Roger

 

 

[allanyed]

I only have Chapelle's American Schooners book. have used it extensively and will continue to use it,  but it takes forever to find anything once getting to the Notebook of Details half of the book.  I realize it is a thrown together compilation of papers/drawings that he and others prepared, so is organized in something of alphabetical order rather than subject.  If you want information on rigging for instance you need to look for one chapter on blocks, another page on "main boom iron work", another paragraph on gaff downhauls and the list goes on..... and on.   I have a sincere love/hate relationship with this book and would quickly drop the hate part if there was a detailed index for the Notebook section of the book and the segments were organized in a manner in which things can more easily be found.  The index that does exist only covers up to page 311 and the Notebook section goes from pages 312 to 683 with no index.

Allan

Edited January 26, 2022 by allanyed

[Bob Cleek]

10 hours ago, allanyed said:

While I am in agreement  with the sentiment, what does this have to do with Howard Chappelle?    

 

It has nothing at all to do with Howard Chapelle. It was just a follow-up to your insightful "segue" comment that " Too many manufactures of kits grab a concept (no matter how wrong it is) and make a product.   That product then becomes what many buyers will believe was the real thing." Sometimes thread-drift leads to unexpected flashes of brilliance. And sometimes not. In this instance, I thought your observation was spot on.  

Edited January 26, 2022 by Bob Cleek

[mtaylor]

We do tend to wander a bit in discussions.  My apologies for continuing the "off topic" part but it seemed to fit the topic.  Chapelle was right on many things. I have his books that have been well thumbed.   His not following conventional wisdom has been a blessing. 

[Harvey Golden]

Controversies are good to explore, but we might also ask what the historic record would look like without his contributions.  I certainly have issues with some of his work, yet am glad he did the work.

Harvey