Sao Paulo 1441 by Ferrus Manus - FINISHED - Heller - 1/75 - Theoretical Reconstruction

[Ferrus Manus]

Hello fellow shipwrights, i have, since i built my San Gabriel, wanted to build a Portuguese caravel. The kit should be here by Monday, so this is, for now, just a research log. 

My goal is to impress Woodrat and Steven (and myself) by only using firsthand, contemporary (or near-contemporary) sources for this theoretical reconstruction of a Portuguese caravel. This ship is based on the Heller Nina kit, which leaves a lot to be desired OOB, and this gives me a huge canvas for introducing historically accurate features into the build. My first order of business is to obtain a reliable feed of information. Or, i could just wait until Steven is done with his San Marco ship, and steal whatever rig he decides to use. 

 

This is what the ship should look like when it's finished:

Edited January 21 by Ferrus Manus

[Ferrus Manus]

As always, @Louie da fly saves the day! I now have the source material i need to review before the kit shows up. 

https://www.pinterest.com.au/lowe1847/caravels/

[Louie da fly]

(Blush)

[Ferrus Manus]

This is Bjorn Landstrom's theoretical reconstruction of a Portuguese caravel. 

This is likely the best reconstruction we can use as a base for our research. 

There are two different kinds of caravels: the caravela latina and the caravela rotunda. We will be building a caravela latina, with lateen sails. Caravela latinas used lateen sails on two or three masts: a main, and one or two mizzens. A caravela rotunda had a foremast and a bowsprit, and was square-rigged on the first two masts, as per the top illustration. 

My goal for the next couple days will be to prove or disprove the use of several rigging elements seen in the picture. This will require me to gather evidence from period paintings. 

 

Because no Lisbon model has ever been found, and likely would have been destroyed in 1755 had it existed in the first place, all i will have to work with is thin painted lines on over 500-year-old vellum. 

Wish me luck! 

[Louie da fly]

I'd agree that this reconstruction drawing very accurately reflects what little evidence we have on the shape of caravels - and it's a beautiful shape (cara bella! one of the possible derivations of the name). I have great respect for Landström's work. He really had a good understanding of what was likely in a vessel if it was to be seaworthy.

 

Weirdly, caravels were quite tiny for something that traversed the world - about the size of a fishing boat.

 

The rigging in this pic would be the standard rigging for a lateener, but I agree you're best checking out the contemporary imagery for yourself to confirm or discard what is shown here.

 

Watching with interest.

 

Steven

[Knocklouder]

Good luck on your journey  with this build.  

The picture sure looks like Columbus' ship, LA Nina  but I guess they all looked similar.  Tagging along with interest  😀 

Edited January 4 by Knocklouder

[Ferrus Manus]

34 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

The rigging in this pic would be the standard rigging for a lateener, but I agree you're best checking out the contemporary imagery for yourself to confirm or discard what is shown here.

I have learned from you that a theoretical reconstruction, as accurate as it may be, is just a theory and not necessarily indicative of reality. I believe i also found evidence of a line he excluded in his drawing. 

Edited January 4 by Ferrus Manus

[Louie da fly]

Very true, and if you can come up with something that you believe fits the evidence better, go for it!

 

Steven

[Ferrus Manus]

I already have. Look at this picture:

this image seems to show a caravel with a peak halyard emanating from about a third of the way up the yard from the mast, and running through a block or thimble and belaying somewhere at the sterncastle. Do you see it? 

[Ferrus Manus]

Now, we should get started in defining the lines that would and would not have existed on a caravel. Let's start with the obvious. 

#1. Brails and clew lines. 

Not a single one of the caravel paintings i have seen include either brails or clew lines on any of the sails. This is even when they are depicted as existing on other ships in the same painting (i.e. the Santa Catarina image, which includes an obvious clew block, the artist forgot to draw the actual line). More than even that, we know how impractical it would be to have clews and brails owing to how the sails tacked. Every image of a caravel shows the sail and yard as being outside the shrouds. The way you tack a lateen sail that's outside the shrouds is by allowing the sail to blow in front of the mast, then pivoting the sail and yard around the front of the mast. For that reason, every single line attached to the sail or yard must be pivoted with the yard, or taken around both the shrouds and mast to the other side. 

Furthermore, we have proof that they got by just fine without brails or clew lines: 

This painting from 1546 (over a hundred years later, but still legitimate) shows the taking in of sail on the deck:

And this image shows the setting of sails aloft. The way the sails are behaving proves that neither clew lines nor brails were present on these sails. This is a painting from 1565 showing the Portuguese caravels and carracks doing battle. 

Look at how the men are climbing the yard in order to release the furling ropes that bind the sail to the mast. This painting also proves the use of peak halyards on at least some caravels. 

 

P.S. notice how both paintings include peak halyards, but the diagram doesn't. The reason why modern caravel replicas include brails and clew lines is likely for safety purposes (not having men go aloft), and models (even museum models!!) are based on these modernized replicas. 

 

Edited January 5 by Ferrus Manus

[GrandpaPhil]

This is going to be a neat build!

 

Looking forward to it!

[Louie da fly]

Good observation. Very interesting. And yes, climbing along the yard seems to have been how sails were set and furled. Still happening in the 20th century.

 

Steven

[Ferrus Manus]

#2. The shrouds. 

This should come as a surprise to no one, but in 1441, a caravel would not have carried any kind of ratlines. Let's take a look at some more caravels (from Steven's collection obviously) and pay special regard to the shroud arrangements. 

Three pairs on the main, two on the mizzen:

Two pairs on the mizzen and bonaventure, three(?) on the main

Likely three on the main and two on the mizzen (bottom left)

 

For the purposes of this model, i have chosen to use three pairs of shrouds on the main, and two on the mizzen. These shrouds are inboard the bulwarks, and will use two single blocks per shroud, with the origin of the lanyard being the upper block and the fall being the strop for the lower block. I will elect as well to use toggles on at least the main, probably also the mizzen shrouds (easier shroud removal/dismasting)

For a better picture of exactly how the shrouds were set up, let's look at some carracks (bigger ships=more central in paintings=more detail). 

All of these show the same arrangement of shrouds. The only difference being on carracks, they were sometimes outboard the bulwarks, a position that would have been unmanageable on a caravel. For more information, look at @woodrat's carrack. 

 

Edited January 5 by Ferrus Manus

[Ferrus Manus]

#3. Wooldings. 

There is not a single image i've seen depicting a caravel with wooldings. My theory regarding this is that because of the relatively small size of the ships and thus their masts, wooldings (and possibly wedges) were not necessary as they did not need "built" masts. 

Once again, for more information on built masts, Woodrat's carrack. 

[Ferrus Manus]

I plan also on making simple pumps and a windlass for the anchors. Would a second windlass be necessary to hoist the mainyard? If so, it is possible that that windlass would be sufficient to haul the anchors as well. Thing is, the decks of these ships are pretty much entirely a crapshoot. 

Edited January 6 by Ferrus Manus

[Louie da fly]

The answer is as much of a mystery as many other things relating to these ships. There are very few pictures of any type of ship from this time from an angle that would answer your question. One of the few is this one, of a carrack (from Botticelli's 'Judgment of Paris')

which doesn't show anything at all. Presumably any winding gear is below decks, unless that's a capstan aft of the mainmast. I'm having the same problem with my San Marco ship, and I haven't fully decided what to do about it.

 

Your guess is as good as anybody else's, but I'd think there'd only be a single windlass in a ship that small. And perhaps it would be aft, as the force needed to raise the yard would probably be more than that needed to raise the anchor (or would it? Pulling the anchor out of the ooze might well need quite a bit of effort, but even if so, an aft-mounted windlass would be able to do both jobs.) 

So, do what you think is best.

 

Steven

Edited January 6 by Louie da fly

[Ferrus Manus]

I see the capstan, and good luck fitting one on a caravel. I am gravitating toward putting the windlass behind the mast and figuring out what to do with the anchor gear later. I might put a cross beam athwartship at the fore and wind it around that. More than that, i'll need heavy bitts at the fore to make up for the lack of catheads. The other thing is where to put the anchor cables. Would they have used nippers and a messenger cable, or do you think they would have wrapped the anchor cable around the windlass? I'm going with the former as this windlass is multipurpose. 

Edited January 6 by Ferrus Manus

[Louie da fly]

 The only archaeological info I can quote is from the Bremen cog of c. 1380 in Germany, which is not terribly apposite to your model. However, this vessel (which was 23 metres (75 feet) long had both a windlass (mounted in the stern) and a capstan (on the poop). See 

 which shows both the original ship and a replica with everything in the same places. So, an aft-mounted windlass would make sense. 

 

Steven

Edited January 6 by Louie da fly

[Ferrus Manus]

Granted, cogs were much wider and heavier in terms of displacement than caravels. I would think that a single windlass would be fine. Plus, i only ended up using one windlass on my Nef, and the crew would weigh anchor by hand. This would be much harder to do on a caravel, though. I know woodrat put a windlass and capstan on his carrack, but that's easy as his ship would have been almost 4 times as large as mine. 

Edited January 6 by Ferrus Manus

[Ferrus Manus]

31 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

and a capstan

I'm pretty sure nautical archaeologists are also quoted as saying they have no clue what that capstan was actually used for. 

[Louie da fly]

Yep. They have theories, but they can't be sure they're right. I've seen one reconstruction drawing of it being used to haul up the yard, but as with so much in archaeology it's impossible to really know.

 

Steven

Edited January 6 by Louie da fly

[Ferrus Manus]

Steven, i (as a severe type A hemophiliac) find your new signature quote very fitting. It really isn't a ship model until you've bled on it, and it really isn't a ship modeling tool until it's caused you to bleed. 

The worst offenders are my xacto knife (obviously) and, get this, my pin vise. 

[Louie da fly]

By the way, another argument in favour of having the windlass aft, particularly in a lateener, is that the halyard usually runs back diagonally (via a multi-sheaved block) to an angled block fixed to the deck (known in French as a sep de drise, and  as a knight in English) , as in this picture.

As you can see, there's a capstan tensioning the whole affair aft of the fixed block. It may also be used to tension the halyard of the mizzen by pulling forward, but this photo doesn't show that.

 

We're used to the windlass being forrard because modern windlasses are used to raise the anchors but in this context it would seem to make sense to have it aft.

 

BTW, I remembered that the town seal of Winchelsea (1274) also shows a windlass in use aft,

but that's for a square rig - I think it would be even more convenient and practical to have an aft-mounted one in a lateener.

 

Steven

Edited January 6 by Louie da fly

[Ferrus Manus]

The model arrived yesterday. Let's begin! 

[Louie da fly]

This ought to be interesting. . .

 

Steven

[Ferrus Manus]

7 hours ago, Louie da fly said:

This ought to be interesting. . .

Can't tell if this is good or bad. Anyway...

 

Fun fact: This model has a grand total of six (6) locator pins. By far the most common complaint i read about this kit was in regard to part misalignment. That being said, the alignment of parts was not worse than most of the ships i've built, and significantly better than some. Even the upper works, which were to be aligned entirely by eye, fit together well. The transom, which is the most ridiculously challenging part to fit on any plastic model ship, went on without a major issue. 

With that exception out of the way, the other two most common complaints i read were that the model had almost no detail, and looked more like a toy than a model when completed. Both of these issues could be resolved with any amount of effort put into the paintwork:

[Ferrus Manus]

My decision to paint the upper works a blue-green color comes from the other plastic models i have seen constructed of 15th-century Iberian vessels. There is likely no evidence for or against the use of this practice on the real ships, but this is kind of a little homage. The paint i applied to the model was more blue than the examples i have seen. 

This is probably the only thing on this model that doesn't have a clear origin in the Middle Ages. However, there are remnants of paint on the Mataro Carrack. Granted, that paint was red and in a different place. 

 

[Ferrus Manus]

The more i think about it, Heller is probably the reason we can't have good, historically accurate plastic models of 15th century carracks. They ruined that with their ridiculous hull-reuse stunts and horrendously inaccurate reconstructions. 

[Ferrus Manus]

The tiller on this model is very long. So long, in fact, that on the real ship, it would be no more than six inches away from fouling on the mizzen mast and being rendered entirely nonfunctional. 

At 1/1 scale, the tiller would also be about 6 inches square at the tip. This begs the question: Is there any evidence for the use of tiller gear on caravels in the 15th century? I am tending toward adding it on this build, owing to the impracticality of not having it. We also know it was used on carracks, which adds credence to the "yes" route. 

[Louie da fly]

Good to hear there were no major problems fitting the model together. It's a very elegant shape.

 

When you ask about tiller gear, are you talking about some kind of tackle (i.e. ropes and blocks etc) to make the tiller easier to use? I wasn't aware of any information on its use in carracks. Can you give a reference? 6 inches square at the tip seems a little extreme - how do you get your hand around that?

 

Regarding the paint colour - again, as far as I know there's no evidence for paint on caravels - certainly contemporary pictures show simple wood colour. But if you're doing it as a sort of tribute that's another thing entirely - it's your model and you can do what you like with it.

 

Steven