Carvings

[grsjax]

While looking at a model of the Nonsuch I got to wondering about all the carving and gold leaf.  When a ship like this was used for exploration or other hard use were the carvings removed and stored away?

If so this would reduce weight up top and the easily damaged bits would be out of harms way.  

[Kenchington]

2 hours ago, grsjax said:

were the carvings removed and stored away?

I would say, in general, no.

 

They were usually permanently fastened in place and anyway were thought to be essential to the function of the vessel. That seems odd to a modern mind but our notions of cause-and-effect date from the Enlightenment. It took a long while for practical seamen, shipwrights and so forth to see that light, so well into the 18th Century men supposed that the carvings were as vital to the power of a warship as her guns were. (Considering that scaring the other guy into submission was half the point, the idea wasn't entirely wrong anyway.)

 

For Nonsuch, fighting wasn't the objective but the grandeur of the Company was. The carvings were a projection of that.

 

Trevor