Sizes and shapes of casks and barrels of the Royal Navy

[dafi]

For a long time I have been looking for exact information on the sizes and shapes of Royal Navy barrels from around 1800.

 

For the first time, I was able to roughly extract the dimensions of the big water casks directly from a contemporary source:
a Leaguer for approx. 150 gallons of water, 4.5 feet long and 3 feet in diameter, easily measured by the scale underneath the keel.

 

To what extent were these barrel sizes standardized, what sizes were exactely used for what purpose and what were the special shapes? Are there any contemporary sources?

 

As my 34 ft launch is about the same size, I could not resist a test.

And it really fits surprisingly well 🙂

 

 

But as always: questions upon questions ...

 

XXXDAn

 

Edited July 3 by dafi

[Keith Black]

 

[druxey]

Everything was standardised!  The Fully Framed Model lists and shows these (page 211): Leaguer 4' 6" x 2' 9", puncheon 3' 6" x 2' 8" and hogshead 3' 1" x 2' 4". Construction was also standard. Powder barrels had withy rather than iron hoops, for obvious reasons!

[dafi]

Thank you Keith, I always thought I remember all discussiond here, this one slipped my mind. Thank you for redirecting me there.

 

And druxey as always extra thanks, as this is the exact answer I was looking for. And as always the answer is offen nearer than one thinks, in this case exactely 153 cm to the right, seen from the from the center of my working focus up to its place in the book shelf (I measured). Should have grabbed TFFM earlier 🙂

 

Funny enough, if one resaerches for the leaguer, there are popping up so many measures and not one is equal to the other, most of them much more giving spans of mesures or volume than an exacte size. Anyway the standardization was an important factor, otherwise there would have been chaos in the hold ...

 

XXXDAn

Edited July 3 by dafi

[dafi]

As a wrap-up here 2 casks from St. George wrecked 1812 nearby Thorsminde.

Edited July 4 by dafi