Wildmanden 1754 by Arthur Goulart

[Arthur Goulart]

This week I went through a few of Waldemar's topics, and got inspired to show my progress on "reverse engeneering" the lines of Wildmanden, and to eventually get to a full 3D model of her. While I'm far from being as knowledgeable as he is in all matters ship drafting, I believe I can go a long way with good sources, the input from the great people on MSW, and a fair amount of trail and error. In that sense,  I insist that you guys point out where I've got something wrong, even if you're not sure of it yourself, we might learn something by looking into it.

 

My limitted experience trying to redraw plans was with an english 23ft launch. I've gone further along with it than what I have posted, but my law school's final paper got in the way of the project, and the drafting attempt got me to realise that I wouldn't be able to reach my end goal to a standart that would satisfy me. You see, the main reason I actually picked that specific launch to reconstruct was because that's the size of launch Inconstant (1783) would've carried. At the time, I meant to eventually reconstruct the frigate, but through my trials with the 23ft boat I learned that redrawing her plans would require more guesstimates about various dimensions and designing techniques than I'd be happy with. That got me back to the ship choosing board, until I eventually landed on Wildmanden, and other A. Turesen (her designer) boats.

 

Why Wildmanden? To begin with, I find her lines very pretty: she's got a good amount of sternpost rake, unlike most of the french earlier "true frigate" designs; it isn't too long relative to its breadth nor does it have extreme tumblehome, which, again, are recurring themes with french designs; unlike it's english counterparts, it's body looks much sleeker, the swan sloops, for instance, feel top heavy to me; the distance between the main rail of the beakhead and the upper cheek rail on english sloops and frigates is often too narrow, and the main rail leaves the ship's hull too low. Most importantly though, the many Wildmanden plans present an abundance of dimensions and illustrate and explain many drafting techniques that are paramount to an accurate reconstruction. Not only Wildmanden, Turesen has left plentiful drawings, equally detailed, and as the Danish Archives make those available in high resolution, they make for excellent comparative material. Specially relevant for this reconstruction are those for the Hvide Ørne (1753), another really beautiful frigate in her own right; A1246c, a brig design that was never built; and, surprisingly, the plans for Fredericus Quintus (1753), a full on first rate ship of the line, that, in spite of being of a different league of ship, was drawn by many of the same rules observed on the aforementioned designs.

Above, the plans for Wildmanden. Although a fregatten by Danish denomination, her dimensions are more akeen to a british sloop of war, or a french corvette.

 

The Krigsmuseet holds a contemporary model of Wildmanden, unfortunetely, I could only find two photos of it. If somebody happens to have some more angles of the model or otherwise happens to visit the museum and would be willing to snap me a couple more images, it'd be much appreciated!

(credit: modellmarine.de)

The goal here, at first, is to showcase and discuss the methods for forming the different lines of the ship, together with findings in proportions. I hope to have you along. The next post, we'll begin by adressing wales, gundeck, and sheer line.

 

-Arthur

Edited 10 hours ago by Arthur Goulart

[Y.T.]

These old model hulls in museums look like they were tainted to look as dark wood and lacquered.  Is this correct observation? I am interested how these models were finished. May be they were not finished at all and collected and old look with time?

[Arthur Goulart]

@Y.T., sort of. I don't really know of any examples where the wood was tinted per se, but shellac or plant oils were commonly used to finish these old models, and those have some color to them. The old look comes from oxidation, grime, etc., of the wood and finish.

Edited 13 hours ago by Arthur Goulart

[Y.T.]

I also enjoy how the planking was done at the bow. Looks like planks were cut out curved off the sheets of wood rather than force bending the straight ones. The planks lay out so naturally and almost perfectly parallel to waterline even at the bow. 

[druxey]

I always enjoy a more unusual subject! Wildmanden certainly shows nice lines. One curious point: the line of the wale looks to be conventional on the draught, but the last photo of the model appears to show this rising aft in a very odd fashion.

[Arthur Goulart]

5 hours ago, Y.T. said:

I also enjoy how the planking was done at the bow. Looks like planks were cut out curved off the sheets of wood rather than force bending the straight ones. The planks lay out so naturally and almost perfectly parallel to waterline even at the bow. 

There are some outstanding contemporary models for sure, not surprisingly, when you consider some of them were made for the royal, some were made on comission by important people, some were prized gifts. @Beckmann a couple days ago linked me to an article of his that showcase some of the finest Danish models:  https://www.arbeitskreis-historischer-schiffbau.de/mitglieder/ontour/schiffsmodelle-in-daenischen-museen/ .I take it you're probably already familiar with the models on RMG's website, besides that, I'd suggest you check out the Roger's Collection, the collection of the Musée National de la Marine, the Museo Naval de Madrid has a lot of their models on their instagram page, be aware though, that is one rabbit hole that you can't get out of 🤣.

 

4 hours ago, druxey said:

I always enjoy a more unusual subject! Wildmanden certainly shows nice lines. One curious point: the line of the wale looks to be conventional on the draught, but the last photo of the model appears to show this rising aft in a very odd fashion.

Happy to have you here @druxey! You touched on a good point there, the sheer plan is deceiving with regards to the wales. The 'midship section plan' (or however I should call it lol) suggests the ship wasn't built with two standing out wale strakes, rather, a more french approach was taken. The space between the lower and uper wale strakes is filled, and the planking gradually diminishes from the lower strake towards the rabbet:

So, what I'm making of the model is that the wale line is actually here:

But then again, very hard to tell. Hopefully some better photos can clarify it in the future.

Edited 8 hours ago by Arthur Goulart

[TJM]

Very interesting Arthur! I look forward to following you progress here!

 

I also really like Turesens designs. He was not acting as 'fabriksmester' as Benstrup or later Krabbe, but he built many of the Ships in that interim period in the 1740's and 1750's, and they seem to have been well liked and generally lasted a long time. 

 

If you are looking for information on him, I can paraphrase what 'Danske Orlogsskibe 1690-1860' has to say?

 

Do you have all the drawings of Wildmanden from the archive? Here is the catalog entry for it:

 

It has a very nice set of decorations:

 

Regarding the wales, I think you have it right. The drawing clearly shows the upper edge, just below the gun-ports. The middle frames for (almost?) all Danish ships after around 1730 does not show the thin double wales of the previous century, but rather these thicker ones, or even as this one just thicker planks that get progressively smaller further towards the keel. 

 

However it is puzzling, as the contemporary paintings often still show two thin lines for wales all the way up to Gerner's time in the 1770's! Perhaps they were just painted this way at this point in time?

 

I will look for the model of Wilmanden next time I visit Krigsmuseet, though I am not sure exactly when that will be. 

 

Also, are you 3D modelling the ship, or are you preparing to make a wooden model as well?

 

BR

TJM

 

 

Edited 5 hours ago by TJM

[Waldemar]

 

Hi Arthur,

I wholeheartedly wish you success with this project, but I must honestly warn you that it is a design based on the (double) parabolic variant of the Northern design method (incidentally, the same method was employed by Joshua Humphreys to design the famous American frigates). This, at the time, was a very popular, widely used design method all over the Northern Europe, dating back at least to the last decades of the 17th century, for example for the design of Dutch warships and merchant vessels. The French transport ship La Belle 1684, which sailed to what is today USA territories, and recently excavated by archaeologists in the Gulf of Mexico, was also designed using this method, although the archaeologists failed to recognise this feature and, as a result, wrote nonsense about this particular aspect in their monograph on the ship . And the same can be said about the French monograph by Ancre on this ship. I specifically mention this to make you aware that you will not be able to rely on modern historical, archaeological or other works in this field, and you will have to refer directly to sources from that era in case of need, especially works by Swedish naval constructor Fredrik Henrik af Chapman may be helpful here.

 

Anyway, the design method employed by Turesen means that not a single pixel of the frame contours in this particular design is a straight line or even a regular arc of a circle, whether for the underwater part of the hull or for the upperworks. Well, maybe except for a very short section at the widest point of the hull.

 

To put it bluntly, these circumstances may kill your attempt at reverse engineering of this particular project, especially without your extensive experience to date. But perhaps even more importantly, this plan, which at first glance looks indeed very good and seemingly complete, in reality lacks the most important elements that form the actual basis of the design, namely the line of the floor, the hollowing line and the line of maximum breadth, and you will have a very hard time to recreate them, which is a must. Admittedly, it is possible to find these fundamental design lines, especially on such a precisely drawn plan, but it is a real challenge for me as well.

 

Not to mention such ‘trifles’ as the hull being aligned to the horizontal waterline rather than the horizontal keel. This detail is obviously not already an insurmountable obstacle, but it slows down the work considerably and can easily cause various annoying inaccuracies.

 

And I won't even ask if you already have working CAD software (and which one specifically), which is absolutely essential for such projects, because I'm afraid of the answer . A regular vector graphics software for creating usual illustrations is not suitable. It's not that CAD software replaces knowledge of geometry, because it doesn't, but it offers tools that allow you to use those skills efficiently.

 

If I haven't managed to discourage you with the above , then below, to make your start easier, some absolutely basic and essential data that are so desperately lacking in the dimensional specifications of the ship and on the original plan itself. But this is only the very beginning of a very arduous journey, because these are only the dimensions relating to the master frame...

 

And, by the way, may I ask about your native language?

 

 

 

[Beckmann]

Hi Arthur,

I looked up my photo archive, here are some more photos of the fregat Wildmanden.

Matthias

[Kenchington]

A question for those with a facility for languages:

 

Google translates Wildmanden as "The Wild Man", which seems a curious name for a representative of established, centralized Royal power.

 

Does Wildmanden carry some particular meaning in a Danish naval context?

 

Or is this something like English "Savage", derived from French Sauvage (meaning "wild" and used of the native peoples encountered by expanding European empires) but having a range of meanings including ones akin to "violent" or "fierce" -- which would be good names for a warship?

 

Trevor