Ships of the late 16th century?

[jbshan]

What I'm thinking of as scale to determine heights of deck etc. would be merely a human figure you could put in different positions to compare to your design.  I find it a very useful tool.

You note Cathead's photo from NC has only one wale.  Most we have been looking at have two rails in the lower wale.  I read, about two days apart, that 'no English ship at this time (happened to be 1650) had more than two rails in the lower rails, and a sketch from the time that had three.  It seems that things aren't actually carved in stone, that there are always exceptions to any rule.

 

Just to show what I mean by scale, I took your latest drawing and added some figures.  If it is 32 meters between my two red uprights, then the men are about 2 meters tall.

[amateur]

But 32 meters is too large.

One of the ships markus showed is a pinace of 159something, and that is 85 foot over the sterns. I don't know the size of duyfken, but that is more what a small ship looked like. Duyfken was 25 last, and had an estimated lenght of about 20 meters. What was the size of Gripen?

Two or three wales. There are no fixed rules for that. Quite a lot of pics however showing both, even for relatively small ships.

Jan

Edited March 31, 2015 by amateur

[jbshan]

32 meters is what Matti mentioned.  I applied that dimension to about the perpendiculars (rabbet of the gundeck) just to get a rough approximation.  Putting the men in now gives a sense perhaps if it is too long or not.

[Cristiano]

below there are the informations about the size of the Venetian ship that I show previously.

Are French written, but can be understood, I think.

Well, is nearly 30 metres of lenght.

 

[NAZGÛL]

Cheers guys! Very nice of you to make the effort and help me with inserting the sailors jbshan!

 

Jan I'm not sure I understand how you mean, could you elaborate? I don't have any more numbers than I replied to you earlier, and as I said the lenght is my guess. Much will end up as guesses with this subject.

 

Thanks Christiano, yeah that is a really interesting ship to look at for this project. Do you have any picture of the stern? I'm trying to design the setup of door etc now.

 

 

/Matti

[Cristiano]

Hello Nazgul,

you are lucky, since I sold the plans some years ago, but I still have some shot used for the ebay auction.

in the photo can be seen the part of the plans related to the stern.

There are no surprises, since more or less all the galleons of this period were similar.

 

[jbshan]

I've been doing some more looking.  You probably have guns in the small range of size.  Ports get smaller with smaller guns, but there is a limit.  Your ports probably want to be in the range of 71 to 76 cm on each side, or 2ft. 3 inches to 2 ft. 6 inches square.  This is from Susan Constant, Brian Lavery, from the AOS series by Conway.  This ship dates from 1603-05 and the book is a reconstruction based on best evidence to assist the Jamestown VA folks to replace their replica ship.

[NAZGÛL]

Thank you so much Cristiano, that´s very helpful! And yeah I was lucky you had these pictures.

 

jbshan, thanks for once again taking the time to help, good info! What is the evidence they used?  

 

 

/Matti

[jbshan]

There isn't one complete source from that time, of course.  Lavery says he started with 'the Admiralty Library Manuscript' which he describes as 'an anonymous treatise on shipbuilding, believed to have been written around 1625'.  That document gives a port size of 2 1/2 feet square, which he then adjusts to fit the frame spacing he has previously worked out.

Everything is interrelated; change one thing and you have to adjust something else.  Fun, isn't it?

[trippwj]

While it is a British treatise, this may be of some use to you. 

 

A Manuscript on Shipbuilding, Circa 1600, Copied by Newton

Transcribed by Richard Barker in The Mariner’s Mirror, 80, 16–29, doi:10.1080/00253359.1994.10656481. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00253359.1994.10656481(Accessed February 16, 2015).

 

The document presented here came to light as a result of an item in M.M., 40 (1954), 73, one of an occasional series of lists of Records. Thanks are due to the Librarian of the Cambridge University Library for permission to publish the text. It is catalogued as MSS Add. 4005 Part 12, presented by the Fifth Earl of Portsmouth, described as being in Sir Isaac Newton's autograph c.1700.

 

The description masks what this writer was delighted to discover, in an idle moment: that the manuscript is a copy of one or possibly two earlier documents, parts of which clearly date from about 1600.

 

The section of this manuscript on proportions of masts and yards is manifestly (and almost verbatim) the same as the Scott Manuscript (RINA No. 798). Otherwise the general style and content of these two manuscripts are broadly similar, in respect of the processes of moulding, for example, but in no sense are they direct copies. In fact this new manuscript contains a more coherent description of some details of ship construction than can be found in the Scott MS.

[NAZGÛL]

Cheers jbshan and Wayne! Im really impressed with all the info you have, thanks for sharing it!

I haven't decided what to do with the size of the gunports. Some replicas of galleons seem to have larger ports than 76x76. I can be wrong of that when trying to judge by pictures though. And they are replicas, and not hard evidence of course.

 

One of the reasons I decided to go for Gripen is that little is known and I could get great freedom of design. I strongly suspect I will end up making decissions on it that is incorrect or speculative. But I will try and make what I think is beautyful. I feel it´s soon time to jump in and start the actual build.

 

Here is a sketch of the stern. I had an idea to make the balcony curved, kind of how the lines goes on Vasa. But looking at it now, I think I need to simplify those lines. Opinions?

 

 

 

/Matti

Edited April 2, 2015 by NAZGÛL

[jbshan]

I think I would just go with straight lines on the galleries, Matti.  The side galleries will be rising up with the sheer as they come aft, and the part across the stern could have the same roundup as the deck, parallel with the bottom as you have it drawn.  That should be enough.

[NAZGÛL]

Thanks for the feedback mate. Yeah That would probably look more in tone with the other lines.

 

 

I took some examples by Vroom. The more straight ones look more right for the lines in my scetchesI think:

 

 

/Matti

[Talos]

First off, excellent thread. I just had a great time reading through it.

 

With the gallery profile on the left, i wonder how much of the angle on the quarters is perspective though. The center is pretty much a simple arc, but I don't know if the outboard portions rise as much as your sketch in post #71.

 

Thanks for the feedback mate. Yeah That would probably look more in tone with the other lines.

 

 

I took some examples by Vroom. The more straight ones look more right for the lines in my scetchesI think:

 

 

/Matti

[jbshan]

Matti, I did a little more looking around as well.  The elaborate shapes you drew seem to be on larger ships, and, it must be said, on ships farther in the background of the pictures.

Talos, I don't think it is perspective, I think the double curves are accurate.  I think a stern gallery that followed the roundup of the deck would appear in the aft view as two arcs, one top, one bottom.  Since the stern of the ship rakes aft, and is not rounded aft, if the gallery followed that rake, there would be no reason for a double curve to appear 'by accident'.

[NAZGÛL]

I also think it's a design, not the perspective.

 

I think it may have been designed like that on ships in different sized ship aswell, at least variants of it. Speculations only of course, but I see no reason why not. 

 

Actually they are pretty close up, especially the top left one. The smaller size of the top right is because of the small picture I found. The images are in different sizes. Here is the top right one uncut:

 

 

Still I'd like to make the gallery more simple, Partly as it would make it more in tone with the ship lines and I also want to make Gripen a more basic ship.

 

I got a feeling that simpler lines would feel more like late 1500 and less early 1600. That's just how I feel though.

[NAZGÛL]

Hi all!

 

First I'd like to thank you all for the advices and information you've given in this thread.

 

I have now started to build the model and you can follow it here:

 

http://modelshipworld.com/index.php/topic/10277-gripen-1591-by-mattinazg%C3%BBl/

 

 

 

 

/Matti

 

 

[*Hans*]

In the journaal van de eerste schipvaart there is a small drawing of the Duyfken:

 

 

As you can see the stern of these ships was quite small.

 

I think the image is in the following book:

 

De eerste schipvaart der Nederlanders naar Oost-Indië onder Cornelis de Houtman, 1595-1597; journalen, documenten en andere bescheiden, uitg. en toegelicht door G.P. Rouffaer en J.W. Ijzerman

[NAZGÛL]

Yeah, I've noticed. I've tried to shape my model to make it more narrow, but it's quite hard for me to get nice lines, I may end up with a stern that is to wide, but some reference show slightly wider versions also.

 

Thanks for the picture and advice!

 

 

/Matti

[midelburgo]

On 23/3/2015 at 6:28 PM, NAZGÛL said:

Cheers for the info guys! Lot's of new things to get into my thick head...

 

I have worked more on sketches. I really really like Duyfkens lines and this one has lots of her lines in it but scaled up. Since Gripen probably was a more simple ship compaired to the more exclusive ships ornaments will be sparse and focus will be on the painting. I think that is more correct for the time she was built in also.

 

 

Any feedback, advice or comment is appreciated!

 

 

/Matti

My apologies for resurrecting this old thread. I noticed the absence of the votive so-called Flemish galleon ("galeon Flamenco") from 1593, at the Madrid Naval Museum, which is pertinent to the subject. Also, there are several interesting images of Swedish ships at the volume on Christian III period (1533-1588) of the Danish fleet history by Barfod, 1995.