Mary Rose by Baker - scale 1/50 - "Your Noblest Shippe"

[Waldemar]

 

The fact that the joinery is anything but sloppy (or perhaps better: irregular) does not mean that the design itself was also careless. Let's take, for example, the buildings of the Incas, the pyramids of the Egyptians or Neolithic Stonehenge. Despite the considerable irregularity of the stone components used, astronomers still find remarkable precision in the assembly of these structures. The same is also perfectly true today — aesthetic aspects aside, it actually does not matter whether the floor in flats and offices is made of boards or tiles of varying dimensions, as long as it is level and sufficiently even. So why waste a good material?

The oldest shipbuilding manuals very rarely mention the width of the planks, if at all, as opposed to their thickness and sometimes the minimum length required for more "strategic" components of the structure.