La Lomellina by Louie da fly - scale 1:100 - Theoretical Reconstruction of a Genoese carrack sunk in 1516

[Louie da fly]

13 hours ago, Alvb said:

It all remains speculative.

All true. We can argue the pros and cons and possibilities of what the drawing "really" shows forever, but that way lies madness. I'm not trying to prove a point, just to get an idea of how high to make the gunwale.

 

Steven

[Ferrus Manus]

I think the gunwale should be made as if it was actually of intended use, as the Lomellina was discovered with guns. I am not aware as to the details of where those guns would have been situated, or if swivel guns were found. I based the Elisabetta's two guns on those found with the Lomellina wreck. That would mean a gunwale (with no clinker planking extending inwards, as is seen on some other carracks) that reaches about upper chest height, assuming the swivel pieces are positioned directly on the gunwale. The Beat to Quarters Tumblr article mentions 15 wrought iron composite guns found on board the ship as cargo. The article does not mention Lomellina being armed herself, but she had gunports. 

 

I don't know if you should trust this article though, because it mentions the Lomellina being a cross between a galley and a carrack. 

https://ltwilliammowett.tumblr.com/post/665321756962308096/the-lomellina-wreck

 

This article, which is more reputable, mentions ten iron guns and two bronze, but no swivel pieces. 

https://shiplib.org/index.php/shipwrecks/mediterranean-shipwrecks-2/western-mediterranean/lomelina-1615/

Edited October 17 by Ferrus Manus

[Ferrus Manus]

On 10/14/2024 at 3:05 PM, Louie da fly said:

Is the Lomellina big enough to warrant two?

I say she needs a bonaventure. 

This article mentions a total length of 46.12 meters, or 151.31 feet. 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10572414.2023.2186748#d1e587

 

The Santa Catarina do Monte Sinai was 38 meters, or 124.67 feet. 

The Mary Rose (or what we know of her length) as per World History Encyclopedia, was 38 meters or 105 feet. 

These are two vessels smaller than Lomellina, both with bonaventures. 

[GrandpaPhil]

Lomellina was slightly larger than the Revenge (granted built later, but similar time period), and the Revenge has a bonaventure mast.

[Louie da fly]

Ferrus, no swivel guns were found. The Beat to Quarters Tumblr article gets several things wrong - the guns were never mentioned in the archaeological report as being cargo; in fact they were distributed through the wreck in positions that suggest they were for the ship itself. On the other hand, big cannon wheels were found in the wreck, more appropriate to land-based cannons, and as the ship was under hire to the King of France who was having himself a war in Italy, it's likely these were cargo - and perhaps that the barrels were recovered by a salvage team that tried to recover what was most valuable from the wreck soon after she went down.

 

Regarding the matter of bonaventures, I'm still thinking about it. That a ship could have them because of her size is no guarantee that she did. The great majority of representations show a single mizzen.

 

Steven

[Ferrus Manus]

14 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

The great majority of representations show a single mizzen.

 

Representations are just that- representations. The representations of the Lomellina ship I have seen have all been wildly inaccurate. 

14 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

Ferrus, no swivel guns were found.

I was not claiming swivel guns were found. Neither article I read mentioned swivel guns. I was coming at it from a perspective of assuming the carrack was used as a warship (see the gunports) and might have had the gunwale built to accommodate anti-personnel pieces. 

14 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

The Beat to Quarters Tumblr article gets several things wrong

I am aware that a Tumblr post (as well as any news report) is likely to be wrong in many significant ways. 

 

14 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

big cannon wheels were found in the wreck, more appropriate to land-based cannons, and as the ship was under hire to the King of France who was having himself a war in Italy, it's likely these were cargo - and perhaps that the barrels were recovered by a salvage team that tried to recover what was most valuable from the wreck soon after she went down.

 

It is likely that both are true- the ship likely had her own armament, and was carrying large-wheeled land guns for use in the latter stages of the Italian Wars. 

Edited October 18 by Ferrus Manus

[Baker]

A bonaventura mast, yes or no.
Your ship seems to be about the same length as Mary Rose. So it is possible.

 

Maybe it is best to decide when the hull building is in an advanced stage.
Then it will be much clearer whether the bonaventura  belongs on the model or not.

[woodrat]

As you are intending to use Carpaccio as a guide, I wonder if you intend to include a transversal through bitt and a great arch in your reconstruction ?

Dick

[Louie da fly]

Dick, yes indeed. It seems to be very common in contemporary representations. I see it not only in Carpaccio but quite a few other renditions. Around the turn of the 16th century one starts to see a double arch instead of the single one (e.g. Battle of Zonchio), but I don't like that as much.

 

I've been doing some more 'pictorial research' for the height of the mainmast (which was not found in the wreck). Taking into account 15 contemporary images, allowing for variations between individual ships, and even more for artistic license, and discarding figures too far outside the average, the ratio of the height if the mast above the gunwale and the overall length (forward end of stempost to after end of aftercastle) seems to be at about 0.85.

 

With an overall length on this model of about 430mm, that works out to about 390 mm. Then if I add the distance between the gunwale and the upper surface of the keel, we get another 80mm, so mast height up to the top of the crosstrees would be about 470mm.

 

I'm having to do some work in working out frame positions. The archaeological reports use at least 4 systems of location - first there was a grid with 1 metre squares running over the whole site. Then they numbered all the frames that had survived. Plus they had a 'zero' point on one of the planks near the aft end of the wreck that distances were measured from. And the original investigation took cross-sections at various points along the keel.

 

As none of these seem to be referenced very well to each other, I'm busily trying to reconcile them all to a common system. The numbered frames are about 500mm apart (i.e. between the centre of one and the centre of the next adjacent), so I've got a fair idea of where each is in relation to the rest. Then the latest report has given a diagram (with a key showing how big a metre is) showing the locations along the keel of the cross-sections and of the Master Frame, which is frame No. 59 (see diagrams in post #26).

 

So taking Frame 59 as my starting point, and the locations along the keel of the cross-sections, I can (I hope) work out which frames each of the cross-sections is closest to. And then try to work out the lines and fill in the gaps. Unfortunately, the bow and stern have not survived (see picture in my original post), so their shapes are largely a matter of educated guesswork. And the same applies to the upper works.

 

I'm thinking very seriously about taking a page out of Woodrat's book and making a solid half-hull, and basing my frame shapes on that. I have a cunning plan to make this - we'll see how it works out.

 

Note to admin - can I get this log moved from "Up to 1500 AD" to "1501-1750" please? If, as I believe, she was built in 1503, I've put it on the wrong section.

 

Thanks.

 

Steven 

Edited October 21 by Louie da fly

[Ferrus Manus]

Good research, Steven! If I may ask, can I see your sources? I assume all of them are meditterranean carracks.

Edited October 21 by Ferrus Manus

[Louie da fly]

Ferrus, if you mean sources for mast heights, the ones I ended up using (leaving out the ones that were too far outside the average) were as follows:

 

 

from Barbari's panorama of Venice c. 1500

 

From a Munich guide to navigation (I think) 1509

1530-1534 Carrack from Leaves from the Genealogy of the Royal Houses of Spain and Portugal - the Portuguese Genealogy

 

From an illustration for which I only have the notation "Dubrovnki 1513"

 

Detail from one of Carpaccio's St Ursula Legend paintings c. 1490.

From an early 16th century map of Hispaniola.

The "Ship of the Church, Polish 15th century.

 

There were, as I mentioned, others which were either too much bigger or smaller than the average (from 0.67 up to 1.07) and though they may well be valid, I decided to stay within the mid-range - about 0.80 to 0.87 - as being more reliable. 

 

Steven

Edited October 21 by Louie da fly

[Louie da fly]

More research - this time for the width of the forecastle in relation to the rest of the hull. It narrows quite dramatically between the gunwale and the lower surface of the forecastle.

 

   

 

Using 11 examples, I come up with an average narrowing down from full size to about 2/3 (0.667), with a maximum of 0.8 and a lower limit of 0.625.

 

Transferring this to the drawings, I've done more on the lines and the cross-sections.

 

Oh, there were about 12 cannons found on the Lomellina - of two sizes. Some time ago HenrytheStaffy of MSW very kindly 3D printed some for me to go on the model.

He might have overdone it a bit with the numbers.

But I'm not complaining 

 

Steven

Edited October 24 by Louie da fly

[Baker]

1 hour ago, Louie da fly said:

But I'm not complaining 

Me neither, he made cannons for me too 👍

the fore and rear castle of a carrack do indeed get narrow at the top.
also check in advance if you have enough space for your standing rigging

[Louie da fly]

2 hours ago, Baker said:

also check in advance if you have enough space for your standing rigging

Thanks for the suggestion. By the way, regarding the sub-structure for your Mary Rose forecastle, have a look at the second picture in my post above.

 

Steven

[Baker]

48 minutes ago, Louie da fly said:

Thanks for the suggestion. By the way, regarding the sub-structure for your Mary Rose forecastle, have a look at the second picture in my post above.

 

Steven

 

Work in progress 😉

[Louie da fly]

Three steps forward, two steps back. I'd seen a mention in the report linked in post #17 above, that the forward end of the keel curved upwards in the last 2.3 metres of its length, but that seemed to contradict another computation in the same paper relating to the rake of the stempost, so I ignored it. Now I discover there's an actual photo of this curved end

 

 

which means I've had to redraw the front of the keel, start the curve of the stem 2.3 metres aft of where it had been, move the forecastle back by 2.3 metres, you name it. I still can't reconcile the computation of 10.25 metres for the rake of the stem - it makes it look ridiculously sharp. I'm prepared to have the stempost leaning forward somewhat - that's shown in contemporary pictures

  

but not to this extent - though I'm prepared to acknowledge that I may have simply not understood what the author was trying to get at - here's the relevant pic from his own reconstruction (the bow is on the right)

and perhaps this isn't meant to be the whole run of the curve - maybe it's meant to get more vertical as it gets higher? Those vertical lines in this pic indicate the surviving frames that they measured, but if you look at this sectional view, you can see that they don't really go very high in relation to what must have been the full height of the hull.

Anyhow, I've shifted the stempost back and fiddled with the radius so as to have a stempost leaning forward to somewhere near what I think it should be, but the centre of the arc is much higher than where the author puts it.

And then there's the frames. I still haven't been able to reconcile frame numbers with positions on the hull. I think their numbering system starts with floor timbers (# 1 at the forward end and and simply increasing the number value as you proceed aft?) and then keeping those numbers for the corresponding knees and futtocks they connect to - except that they started their excavation at the stern, and didn't get to the bow for several years, so how could that work? Plus they weren't always able to reconcile a particular knee or futtock to the corresponding timbers. It's all a little confusing. At least I have been able to work out where the (assumed) master frame is along the length of the keel, and also I'm pretty sure I have the position of the mainmast tied down.

 

I think I'm going to ignore the frame numbers and just put frames in at regular intervals, making up my own  numbers. On the real thing they're about 500mm (a bit over 18 inches) between centres. Which means something like 80 frames. But the frame profiles change in width really gradually. And if I follow the real vessel each frame has to be made from a floor timber, two knees, two first futtocks and two second futtocks.  Part of me wants to put in all the frames, each one made from 7 pieces, another part says "nobody will ever see them - why bother?" Retro me Satanas?

 

Oh, and they obviously didn't use the mezza luna technique of framing which I used on the San Marco ship - in which all futtocks have the same radius, they're just further away from the keel as the hull gets wider - these frames all seem to have have different futtock radii. Fun and games, kiddies.

 

I'll think about it some more and see how I feel about it all (sigh).

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

More research and fiddle; trying to work out what the French text really means, cross-checking things against each other to get everything sorted before I start cutting wood so I don't paint myself into a corner as I've done too many times in the past. I'm sure I won't be completely successful in that, but even that is part of the learning process.

 

So I've now worked up a set of lines that I'm reasonably happy with. Subject to practical application in the real world. Still a bit uncertain about the configuration of the aftercastle and the frame shapes for the bow directly under the forecastle. But whatever, here it is.

 

 

It doesn't fully agree with the lines shown in the latest academic paper, but that doesn't worry me all that much. I didn't like them. I still haven't worked up the buttock lines, and I suppose I really ought to, to check that the others all work.  For me this is a real slog. I have to take frequent breaks and do something else, or my brain melts.

 

But I've just sorted out the thickness of the keel and 4 cross sections of its after part, as well as (I hope) all the lengths of the 4 pieces of timber that make it up - plus I'm pretty happy with the configurations of both stempost and sternpost (neither of which were recovered).

 

Which means I can - if I want - start making sawdust. I suppose I now have to screw up my courage and make a start. I'm using oak for as much of the structure - keel, frames etc - as possible, but I might run out before I'm finished. If so, I'll just have to proceed with another type of timber. Not to worry - it won't be visible anyway.

 

Watch this space.

 

Steven

 

 

[Mark Pearse]

Interesting lines: the boats look fat but the underwater lines look as fair as any 20C cruising yacht. The garboard looks to have a lot of twisting to do...

 

Nice drawings too.

[Louie da fly]

Yes, carracks were nowhere near as tubby as people seem to believe. This one appears to be more than usually slender.

 

And the garboard was made out of half a tree trunk carved to shape. Near the stern, its quite thin (see the four cross-sections of the keel above the side view), 

But as it goes forward it changes shape dramatically, to follow the widening of the hull while keeping enough thickness for structural strength. The titles translated:

Varangue = floor timber, Quille = keel, Ribord = bottom plank

Fascinating stuff. It's like figuring out a jigsaw puzzle. What the French call a Roman policier - a detective story.

 

Steven

 

[Baker]

Some Mary Rose info.

Drawings are 1/50 scale.

The position of frame 1 in the hull and drawing 

Frame 3

 

And indeed, a shape you would expect from a carrack

[druxey]

I feel your pain with just fragments of information and then having to plunge into a deep pool of speculation. I imagine your best guess will be pretty good, though!

[Louie da fly]

Thanks Patrick and Druxey.

 

Patrick, I'd seen the Mary Rose lines before, and in fact they'd been my main influence in drawing the frames near the bow that strange inward curving shape. It still will depend on how that converts into a real-world 3D shape, but I do believe I'm on the right track with it.

 

Druxey, it's still in flux, but I think I've got most of the thing worked out. For example, I just changed the shape of the sweep of the hull at the break of the forecastle - it was too sudden, and looking at my pictures of carracks (particularly the Carpaccio ones, of course) I realised it needed changing. And I'm still thinking about the shape of the aftercastle - there's a certain amount of taper toward the stern, but how much?

 

But I'm pretty happy with it all in general, and I'm just tying down the positions of frames with respect to the grid that was used in measuring the wreck. Basically, the frames seem to be about 500mm apart centre to centre, and using that, plus the known position of the master frame in relation to the grid, I can get a pretty good idea of where all the rest of them are, and relate that to the keel. And I also have a pretty good idea of the location of the mainmast, as the archaeological report notes the location of the fore end of the mast-step assembly. So from that I can locate the main knight and then the capstan.

 

I've figured out where the surviving gunport is (what a joy, finding a gunport!) and its dimensions. She seems to have had 12 guns - welded rods with reinforcing rings. So that's six each side. And I have the locations of the guns in the wreck, so I can at least to a certain degree, get an idea of where they would have fallen from when the wreck disintegrated, and thus where the rest of the gunports might have been. 

 

I do enjoy the research, but this is the most mind-melting job I've ever had to do in ship-modelling. It's just a matter of sticking with it until I'm happy that I can't improve on it any further.

 

Steven

[Louie da fly]

Still working on the buttock lines. Never done it before and I find myself getting confused as to how to do it. I have two in place now, several more to go - then I have to refer to them to adjust the shapes of the missing frames. A fair bit of adjusting from one thing to another to get everything to work together.

 

And I've now drawn the (single known) gunport on the side view, having tied down its dimensions and location, bot vertically and horizontally. And the same for the pump dales.

There were 12 guns found scattered around the ocean floor near the wreck, so presumably she had at least that many, six each side. I now have to work out if it's possible and practical to fit six gunports in the length of the ship. And check against the known planking to see if that contradicts what was found - in other words, are there uninterrupted runs of planking where I want to put gunports?

 

I'm coming to realise that they must not have excavated the whole hull, but dug lateral trenches at intervals to get a variety of cross-sections and leave the rest covered up. So it's quite possible there's no record of uninterrupted runs of planking where I want to check - and even that there may well still be undiscovered gunports in the length of the hull. I suppose I need to check again at the source and see if that's correct. Sigh.

 

Ça marche - pas vite, mais ça marche. (It moves - not fast, but it moves.)

 

Steven 

Edited 9 hours ago by Louie da fly

[druxey]

Buttock lines are simply vertical waterlines. (Not a situation one would desire in practice!) Also, incomplete data is so frustrating....