Venetian Carrack or Cocha by woodrat - FINISHED - 1/64

[woodrat]

Thanks, Steven for the pics which will be of interest to many MSW readers. The Reixach carracks seem to be closest to the carrack I am reconstructing. It also shows a sailor ascending ratlines but they are not drawn in.

 

 

The most realistic depictions  of carracks by far are by Carpaccio.

 

I am presently drawing up lines to build a 1:64 POB full hull model.

 

Dick

Edited December 26, 2017 by woodrat

[Senior ole salt]

Excellent!!  Would you consider mounting it on a mirror ?

 

S.os

[woodrat]

Excellent!!  Would you consider mounting it on a mirror ?

 

S.os

Yep, I did consider it but decided against it. Please see previous posts for the reasons.

 

Yes, Crackers, there is guesswork but it is also detective work with many clues and many suspects

 

here are some preliminary lines, which will be cleaned up.

 

Dick

 

Edited January 13, 2014 by woodrat

[Moonbug]

Loving the information on the early explorer vessels.  Looking forward to watching this build.

 

- Bug

[Louie da fly]

 

Thanks, Steven for the pics which will be of interest to many MSW readers. The Reixach carracks seem to be closest to the carrack I am reconstructing. It also shows a sailor ascending ratlines but they are not drawn in 

reixach carracks.jpg

You're right! I hadn't noticed that. Interesting.

The most realistic depictions  of carracks by far are by Carpaccio.

yes, though the Reixach is also very good.

I am presently drawing up lines to build a 1:48 POB full hull model.

Sounds very good. I await developments with interest.

 

Steven

Edited January 15, 2014 by Louie da fly

[woodrat]

Thanks to Mooonbug and well done on your reworking of the AL Santa Maria. Good choice to have a round tuck stern. The rigging of my carrack fills me with trepidation, however.

Dick

[Louie da fly]

I don't know if this is any help, but there's a paper here by Texas A&M University, reconstructing the sail plan of a Portuguese nau. Though the ship in question sank in 1606 their supportive documentation goes back to 1500 and may be useful. It's sails only, however, not rigging as such.

 

There's an accompanying paper reconstructing the hull here

[woodrat]

I don't know if this is any help, but there's a paper here by Texas A&M University

the TAMU files are a wonderful resource and we must be grateful to them for making them available to lubbers like us

 

Here are the lines of the carrack to date

 

[][][]

Edited December 29, 2014 by woodrat

[Louie da fly]

That ship is a thing of beauty.

 

Yes, TAMU's site is a wonderful resource. Unfortunately, they don't seem to have looked at standing and running rigging.

 

There may be better books out there, but Wolfram zu Mondfeld's Historic Ship Models contains the best outline I've yet seen of the evolution and development of ships' rigging in the period we're interested in. He gives rough dates for when certain features appeared (such as deadeyes for the topmast shrouds, backstays for upper masts etc). However, even the information he provides is a bit thin, probably because there's so little of it around. And as his source is probably the same we're working off - contemporary pictures - he should be used as a guide only, and only as a general picture. If you have information more specifically appropriate to your own model, it should probably take precedence. You can get the book from abebooks second hand for not too much (it's quicker from the UK than from the US). If you like I can PM you photocopies of a few relevant pages.

 

Steven

[druxey]

'Hard fact' evidence for rigging is pretty well non-existent before about 1650. That's about as early as I've come across. "The Complete Modeler" ('modeller' meaning designer back then), of about 1655 has tables for rigging sizes. Before that, it's pictures, other than fragmentary evidence for blocks, etc, from Mary Rose. We need a Time Machine….

[woodrat]

Before I get too involved with rigging, I have to build the full hull . This is new to me as I have never done a POB model before. Nor have I designed one. I am making this up as I go along. I hope you guys will forgive any egregious errors and make suggestions as I go.

 

Here goes, this is the central bulkhead support with the backbone of the ship

Edited September 5, 2016 by woodrat

[Louie da fly]

Yes. Though rigging for this period is a fascinating (and largely unknown) subject, it doesn't come till quite a way down the track - the first thing is to get the hull made.

 

Just a point with the hull shape - I was wondering if the stempost mightn't have a bit too much rake? The original picture you're taking your model from is seen from slightly sternwards and that always exaggerates the rake of the stem, just as a bow-on view makes it look less. Just a suggestion, and feel free to ignore it if you disagree.

[woodrat]

  Thanks, Steven, the sternpost rake was calculated by contemporary geometric techniques as used by the shipwrights in the Arsenale. Incidentally it happens to tally with the Mataro model closely.  Dick

Edited September 5, 2016 by woodrat

[Louie da fly]

Very happy with the sternpost; it was the stempost I was wondering about. But if (as I suppose)you worked that out the same way I blushingly withdraw the question. You've obviously done your homework very well indeed.

 

Steven

Edited January 26, 2014 by Louie da fly

[woodrat]

this is the present stempost and the modified version according to Oliveira , a Portuguese. Is this more like the original?

 

Dick

Edited December 29, 2014 by woodrat

[woodrat]

 The modification of the stempost is relatively minor and would make it resemble both Oliveira's plan and the Trombetta manuscript more closely.

[Louie da fly]

Yes, that looks really good - and I believe the extra hull volume at the bow would give extra buoyancy there, and make the ship perform better in a sea (though I'm no expert on these matters). Looks very much like the shape on the Mataro ship as well.

 

I'm fascinated by the documentation you cite - I hadn't heard of it before. I'm still very much a beginner in research on this subject (but very keen!)

 

Though the pictorial record is useful as a back-up, it's of course not as reliable due to artistic licence, and it doesn't contain all that many actual side elevations of carracks - very often they're viewed from slightly sternward, which distorts the proportions.

 

However, the Beauchamp Pageant and the Spanish(?) carracks on the previous page of this thread have very good side elevations, and they show a stempost very much of the shape of your latest version, (though of course they have to be taken with a pinch of salt when thinking about Venetian carracks).

 

Looking good.

 

Steven

[woodrat]

An excellent starting point is Roger Smith: "Vanguard of Empire" Oxford Press.

 

Other reference for iconography is: Lillian Ray Martin : "The Art and Archeology of Venetian Ships and Boats"  Texas A&M Books

 

Articles by Mauro Bondioli in : "The Book of Michael of Rhodes vol 3" Long, McGee and Stahl eds.  MIT Press

 

Of Course The volume in Conways History of the Ship  " Cogs Caravels and Galleons" is a very useful starting point as well.

 

Dick

[Louie da fly]

Thanks. That's very useful. I'll have to add them to my "must buy" list.

 

Steven

[woodrat]

Thanks. That's very useful. I'll have to add them to my "must buy" list.

 

Steven

At least get "Vanguard of Empire". Are you thinking of building a carrack or other style of mediaeval ship?

[mtaylor]

Or, in addition to what Crackers suggested, check out the Theses and Dissertations database (http://nautarch.tamu.edu/academic/alum.htm).  There's a lot of useful information as well as some that are just plain good reading.

[woodrat]

Woodrat-  Perhaps, it might be worthwhile, but Texas A&M University, has one of the few programs on Research and Archaeology on marine subjects.

. They can be reached at:

 

 

Montani semper liberi  Happy modeling

  Crackers   

Thanks, Crackers, I have done just that and await a reply.

Dick

 

Or, in addition to what Crackers suggested, check out the Theses and Dissertations database (http://nautarch.tamu.edu/academic/alum.htm).  There's a lot of useful information as well as some that are just plain good reading.

I agree, I have delved into a few of these dissertations and they are a goldmine. Courageous decision, by the way, about your Licorne. Sometimes it is better to "screw your courage to the sticking place" and get on with things.

Dick

[Louie da fly]

 

Are you thinking of building a carrack or other style of mediaeval ship?

Lots of things. I'm just getting bck into ship modelling after several decades. I have a POB model of Henry VIII's Henry Grace a Dieu which I made in the 1960's when I was in my teens, based on the reconstruction in Bjorn Landstrom's book The Ship. I pulled the stern off when I realised it was wrong, and never got back to it. So fixing it up will be my first project, and then I have quite a number of possibles lined up - perhaps a carrack or a cog or a Byzantine dromon, I'm just not sure.

 

But first the admiral and I have to finish renovating the house - so everything's on hold till then (sigh).

 

Steven

[woodrat]

. I have a POB model of Henry VIII's Henry Grace a Dieu which I made in the 1960's when I was in my teens, based on the reconstruction in Bjorn Landstrom's book The Ship. I pulled the stern off when I realised it was wrong, and never got back to it. So fixing it up will be my first project, and then I have quite a number of possibles lined up - perhaps a carrack or a cog or a Byzantine dromon, I'm just not sure.

The dromon, now THERE'S a challenge ! I had a similar experience with a Billings POB "golden HInd" I had finished the hull but made the basic mistake of doing some research and realising that, above the main deck it was just plain wrong so I cast it into the outer darkness and swore never to do another kit. But later I cut it down to the main deck level and have kept the hull and have plans to resurrect it as the Elizabethan Ark Royal.

 

The carrack bulkheads are nearly complete and I am tweaking the lines as I go.

Dick

[Louie da fly]

 

Oh, and of course the Henry Grace a Dieu itself was really just a carrack with delusions of grandeur.

 

The dromon, now THERE'S a challenge !

Yes, considering nobody really knows exactly what they looked like, contemporary pictures are sketchy and stylised, and the author of the best surviving contemporary description was no seaman, and was more concerned with showing off his classical Greek scholarship than in describing the ships in use at the time. Much of his description relates to ancient Greek galleys from 1200 years earlier!

 

Fortunately in 2004 during railway excavations in the suburb of Yenikapi in Istanbul, where Constantinople's Harbour of Theodosius had once been, the remains of 37 shipwrecks from the 5th to 11th centuries AD were discovered. A few of these were military galleys - the largest being a galea, the next step down from a dromon. Unfortunately, only the hull below the waterline was preserved. So how a dromon actually looked and worked is still largely a mystery.(sigh) I've been collecting information for some time, as many contemporary pictures as I can, papers on modern theoretical reconstructions etc so I can work up my own reconstruction when the time comes. It's all part of the fun.

 

I had a similar experience with a Billings POB "golden HInd" I had finished the hull but made the basic mistake of doing some research and realising that, above the main deck it was just plain wrong so I cast it into the outer darkness and swore never to do another kit. But later I cut it down to the main deck level and have kept the hull and have plans to resurrect it as the Elizabethan Ark Royal.

I'm sure you'll get around to finishing it off eventually. One for the back burner. And I only just realised Le Gros Ventre is one of yours, too. I've been following that one with great interest.

 

The carrack bulkheads are nearly complete and I am tweaking the lines as I go.

Dick

Great stuff. Look forward to seeing your progress.

[woodrat]

If you can locate plans by Ulrich Alertz, they may include his idea of a dromon. Certainly John H Pryor has written extensively and I note this publication which is way too expensive for me but a library might get a copy. 

http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/the-age-of-the-dromon.html

 

Crackers' second illustration appears to be the same illustration of a dromon as is in the Conway' "Age of the Galley" p103 by John H Pryor but without the  "double horned "stern. It is from John H Pryor's et al. The Age of the Dromon.

Dick

Edited February 5, 2014 by woodrat

[Doreltomin]

http://www.archaeology.org/exclusives/articles/648-yenikap-byzantine-serci-limani-turkey

 

@Louie, didn't know of this extraordinary find in Yenikapi...  Thank you, very interesting informations!  Together with the venetian ship and the roman wrecks in Pisa, this may be one of the most significant finds in the last years to shed light onto early ships from late roman, early byzantine era!

[woodrat]

A bespoke manufacturer of ship models seems to have produced an excellent dromon reproduction following John H Pryor 's reconstruction. It is most impressive.

I have found a paperback version of his book which is affordable

 

http://www.brill.com/age-dromon-0

 

Dick

Edited December 26, 2017 by woodrat

[Louie da fly]

Thanks for all the info on dromons. And Dick, sorry for derailing this thread - getting back to the subject, I just remembered a link I have to a site on the early 15th century ship designer Michael of Rhodes, containing a facsimile of his manuscript, complete with theoretical diagrams and a number of pics, including one of a carrack. You can find it here.

Steven

Edited April 20, 2015 by Louie da fly

[Senior ole salt]

I continue to be astounded by the quality of the works displayed here on this forum. it's a shame it's not recognized by the public and the "art " world. Auction housed continuously pedal art that don't come near what's shown here and for huge sums of money.

 

S.os