Date for rectangular notch-style oarlocks

[Dan DSilva]

I recently got an Airfix HMS Prince (1670) for my War of the Spanish Succession fleet.  It has three boats, whose gunwales have rectangular notches for oarlocks, and I'm wondering whether this is accurate for the late 17th to early 18th century, or I should try to modify them by filling in the notches and adding thole pins.  If I'm reading The Boats of Men-at-War (page 65) correctly, it seems to say that this style of lock was introduced with cutters, and other types of boats were modified in the late 18th century to eventually have the same style.  Can anyone corroborate or disprove these claims?

[Billpitts]

I have been looking at a lot of boat plans to do a model and found the following.  In the book by Richard Endsor, The Master Shipwright's Secrets, there is a picture of the pinnace for Tyger 1681 that has pins with supports against the pins on top of the gunnel,  no notches in the gunnel.  The model of the Medway boat from 1742 in the Royal Museum in Greenwich England shows plain pins sticking up from the gunnel, no notches.   I have no idea if either of these methods are how it was done on your boat, but neither shows notches.

 

Bill

[Dan DSilva]

Thank you.  Sorry, I should've included a photo.

 

 

By the way, the boats seem undersized to me, even at the official 1:180 scale (and I think the ship itself is closer to 1:150, which would make the larger boats at 37.5mm less than 20 feet long).  But the capstan is also amidships on this model and a boat of more than 50mm or so would interfere with it being turned.

Edited 12 hours ago by Dan DSilva

[Kenchington]

21 hours ago, Billpitts said:

a picture of the pinnace for Tyger 1681

That is Ensor's reconstruction, rather than contemporary evidence. For the latter, you could look at the many drawings by one or other of the van de Veldes, many of which are now available on-line. One example:

 

No notches in gunwales that I can see -- not even on the elite barge (towards the right foreground, with its awning over the passengers). Many of the tholes are, however, of the ornate type that Endsor chose for this reconstruction, rather than simple pins.

 

Maybe that's enough to settle the question for the era of the 1670 Prince but Dan's stated interest is in the War of the Spanish Succession, near half a century later. Whether the notched-gunwale version was in use by then is a whole other question.

 

 

While I'm writing:

1 hour ago, Dan DSilva said:

the capstan is also amidships on this model and a boat of more than 50mm or so would interfere with it being turned.

Is there evidence that English warships carried their boats on board in the later 17th Century? Earlier on, the boats had often been towed, leaving much more space on deck. Later, boats were certainly carried aboard but on skids or beams above head-height for men working on deck. I haven't gone looking for the practices followed in the 1670s.

 

 

Trevor

 

 

Edited 11 hours ago by Kenchington