HMS De Braak copper plates on salvaged wreck

[georgeband]

HMS De Braak (or just HMS Braak) was originally built as a cutter in 1781 for the Dutch navy. She was captured in 1795, modified into a brig and taken into the Royal Navy. Her career was short and in 1798 she capsized and sank in Delaware Bay. 

 

Recent salvage work has raised a large part of the hull which is now the subject of preservation work. Much of the coppering is intact and is a true contemporary record, not a recent replating such as on USS Constitution or HMS Victory. In my opinion it is most likely to have been applied during her refit in 1795-1797 though there is a possibility that it was applied by the Dutch. Can anyone shed light on this?

 

Pete Stark in the 1805 Club sent me a collection of his photos of De Braak and I have attached some below. Thank you Pete for letting me share them. I recommend that you take a look at the club https://www.1805club.org/ which will be sponsoring the restoration of the ship's bell. 

 

1. A wide view of the raised hull. It looks to me like the keel is near the bottom and the curved planking for the hull is above it. The vertical joins between the plates show that the plate to the left overlaps the plate to the right which indicates that the fore end is to the left and we can see the port side of the hull. 

 

2. The plate at the centre of the next photo reveals the nail pattern. The top edge of this plate has closely spaced nails and it overlaps the plate in the next, higher row. The nail holes in the copper show a trumpet shape, probably formed by the profile of the nail heads. 

3. The next photo provides a detail that I did not expect at the join between the hull and the keel: the plates on the hull and the plates on the keel both have a tight row of nails at the edge that is at the join. This suggests that the plates butt against each other and there is no overlap. However, the photo above shows an edge above the tight row of nails at the lower end of the hull plate. Perhaps a narrow copper plate was placed over the join, overlapping the hull plate and possibly underlapping (if that is a word) the plate on the keel. (See also the fourth photo.) 

4. The fourth photo shows more of the join between hull and keel but does not answer the question about what plating was placed there, if any. It does look as if the copper went over the main keel but not the false keel - it appears to run into the gap between them. I might be completely wrong about this. 

I do like the bright, shiny copper with a touch of green verdigris in places. This came from a hull that has been stuck in a sandbank for over 200 years. 

 

George

Remember to look up the 1805 club https://www.1805club.org/ 

 

[Kenchington]

Thank you for those images! I think they will help lot of us.

 

Back in the day, I and many others picked over the wreck of the frigate Tribune -- ex-French but captured, refitted and in RN service when lost while entering Halifax in 1797. I think (though I'm not certain) that I have some bits of her copper kicking around, if anyone wants measurements of distances between nail holes or the like.

 

Interesting that Braak had the nails in the midst of each plate set at the corners of squares, rather than diamond fashion. It's been a long time since I paid much attention to the detail but I remember a diamond arrangement as normal. Maybe I'm wrong on that or perhaps there was a change over the decades.

 

5 hours ago, georgeband said:

Perhaps a narrow copper plate was placed over the join, overlapping the hull plate and possibly underlapping (if that is a word) the plate on the keel.

That's how it looks to me. Yet the narrow strip is gone, presumably from being more vulnerable to long-term corrosion. I wonder whether bending it to fit the angle between keel and garboard introduced micro fractures, which then promoted corrosion. Or perhaps the narrow strip came from a different batch of copper and electrolysis across the dissimilar metals attacked it.

 

6 hours ago, georgeband said:

It does look as if the copper went over the main keel but not the false keel

Yes, it looks that way. And the copper on the keel seems to cover the (bronze?) staple that held the false keel, where that lay across the keel but not where it lay on the false keel, so the copper plate was presumably trimmed around the staple. Yet that would mean that the false keel was in place when the coppering was done, so the edge of the lowest plate would have been pushed in, between keel and false keel, then nailed.

 

A detail I would never have guessed! Always good to learn something new every day 🙂

 

 

Trevor

[druxey]

I believe that the diagonal nailing pattern Trevor refers to was British practice. Perhaps what we are seeing here is Dutch. If the copper was in good shape when the ship was captured, it would not have been replaced, as this was a major expense. The copper still looks in pretty good shape!

[Dr PR]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the copper plating fit between the keel and the wormshoe (false keel). The wormshoe was a sacrificial piece to protect the keel and was replaced when necessary.

 

It looks like the bottom of the keel was coppered first, then the wormshoe was stapled to the keel. Then the copper plating was placed on the keel.

 

I can't tell from the photos, but perhaps the angled strip along the joint between the keel and garboard strake is there, but under the plates on the keel and those on the garboard strake?

[Kenchington]

7 hours ago, Dr PR said:

perhaps the angled strip along the joint between the keel and garboard strake is there, but under the plates on the keel and those on the garboard strake?

I don't think so. What looks to have been the upper edge of the angled strip is still p[resent and outside the lower edge of the plates on the garboard.

 

7 hours ago, Dr PR said:

looks like the bottom of the keel was coppered first, then the wormshoe was stapled to the keel. Then the copper plating was placed on the keel.

Could be. I was looking at:

I think that's one of the staples (is that the right term?) holding the false keel. The copper plate on the side of the keel looks to be overlying the staple, while there seems to be a break in the nailed strip along the lowest edge of the keel, where the staple passes. But, even if I am interpreting the image correctly, the bottom of the keel could have been coppered, then a rabbet cut (so that the staple would lie flush) into keel and false keel, cutting through the copper in the process, with the coppering of the side of the keel following.

 

There's probably multiple other examples along the surviving keel remains, so whoever is working on the material may be able to figure out the sequence.

 

 

Trevor

 

 

[georgeband]

I have had a look through Petrejus Irene to see what he says about Dutch build practices. Petrejus quotes several references but they are from around 1820 to 1840 so might not be correct for earlier practice. 

• JC Rijk, Sheepsbouw, 1822. pp 132-134
• HA van der Speck Obreen, 1843 
• JC Pilaar, Handleiding tot de kennis van het schip en deszelfs tuig, Delft, 1826
• W van Houten, De Scheepvaart, Breda, 1833

I have had a quick look on Google but my knowledge of Dutch is minimal and I did not find any nice pictures... Perhaps someone else will fall down this rabbit hole of research. 

 

The information and its interpretation by Petrejus is centred on its relevance to Irene which was captured in 1811 and refitted. It might be relevant for De Braak. 

 

Overlap of plates on hull

There is general agreement that the Dutch overlapped the plates on the hull in a conventional way. The trailing edge of one plate went over the leading edges of the plate astern. The upper edge of a plate overlaps the lower edge of the plates above it. Plates were fitted from the stern forwards and from the keel upwards. 

 

Overlap of plates on keel

Petrejus has nothing specific about the order of plating the keel but he does write '32 ounce sheathing was used for the bows and for the parts between wind and water, 28 ounce sheathing for the rest of the bottom and 18 ounce for the lower side of the main keel, between it and the false keel'.

 

Nail pattern on plates

Petrejus shows a picture of a plate with nails in a square pattern (from van der Speck, 1843) but there are 5 rows and

14 columns for these nails. The square pattern could have been in use for a long time or it might be a more recent development. The proportions of the plate in Petrejus' picture are quite different from the standard RN plates. 

Could a copper smith simply use the pattern that someone else had shown him and there was no regulation about how to space the nails? 

 

How was the keel plated?

My guess about this is that plates were laid lengthwise on the bottom of the keel, a single plate wide with the edges folded up over the sides by an inch or two unless the keel was wider in which case two plates would run in parallel. The photos placed above show copper coming from the keel-false keel join and extending enough up the side of the keel to give a tight row of nails. This row could be hammered in place after cut-down plates had been fitted to the sides of the keel. The plates on the side would have their top edge trimmed and bent to go over the lowest hull plates and were hammered down after the first hull plates were fitted. This sequence ties in with the bottom-to-top rule and the rule about lower plates overlapping upper plates. I have not tried to fit in the staples to this sequence and might return to it later if I feel brave. 

 

George