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 yesterday at 12:45 PM by Dan DSilva

[Kenchington]

On 4/24/2025 at 1:34 PM, 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 his 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:

21 hours 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 13 hours ago by Kenchington

[Dr PR]

May's Boats of Men-of-War (page 33) does say the rectangular "oar locks" cut into the top plank on the boat hull were introduced with the cutter type boat. He says an extra plank was added above that other boats had to increase the freeboard. But thole pins on this plank (or cap rail) would have placed the oars too high. Therefore the rectangular notches were cut into the top plank to serve as rowlocks, with the oars at a convenient height above the thwarts.

 

Mays says the cutter was introduced in the first quarter of the 18th century, and the rowlocks cut into the top strake were different from every other boat type at that time. The other boats had thole pins.

 

So it seems that in the Royal Navy these rowlocks cut into the top strake were not used before 1700. I don't know about other navies or commercial vessels.

Edited 17 hours ago by Dr PR

[Dan DSilva]

Thanks.  I've been using May as my main source too; that's what led me to raise the question.

 

May provides some evidence (page 17) that longboats were hoisted in at least some of the time from the days of Nathaniel Butler (he uses the spelling "Boteler") onward.  I can't answer whether the Prince in real life was designed from the start to have room on deck to do this, but if Airfix based their version on an admiralty plan, I would guess it was designed to carry much smaller boats if any and tow its longboat.

Edited 10 hours ago by Dan DSilva