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Where French ship's boats sometimes double planked?

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  • Member since
    April 2004
Where French ship's boats sometimes double planked?
Posted by Chuck Fan on Monday, December 11, 2006 10:16 AM

This questions concerns the construction of the boats that Soleil Royal might carry.    While I was in Paris's national maritime museum, I noticed a curious thing.   The model are ususally exquisitly detailed at all levels, some of which includes full interior detail never meant to be seen by human eye other than those of the builder's.    Yet the inside of many the ship's boats from the early18th century usually do not show ribs eventhough they are exquisitly detailed in other ways, such as having chokes for the butt of the masts, foot rests for the rowers, etc.      Furthermore, it seems the rib detail tends to be ommitted mostly from larger boats.  Smaller boats seem to ususally have the ribs accurately represented.  

Could it be that the French double planked their larger ship's boats during the first half of the 18th century (And therefore possibly also for late 17th century when Soleil Royal sailed)?    I can't understand why they would do this, since it makes the boats, which needed to be hoisted in and out for work, much heavier, and it also makes the boats hard to maintain and repair.   But the model evidence seem to be there.

 

 

  • Member since
    July 2004
  • From: Monterey Bay, CA
Posted by schoonerbumm on Monday, December 11, 2006 8:03 PM

I checked my Boudriot library and didn't find anything but conventional construction as far back as Le Fleuron, 64 from 1729. The books on the larger ship classes don't show boat details. The other nomographs on individual ships (La Fleuron (1729), , Le Renomee (1744), La Belle Poule(1765), Venus (1782), 74 gun ship, etc. all show similar boat construction: the planked ceiling running from the keel to the turn of the bilge, but not up the inner, vertical sides of the ribs. But, of course these were middling sized vessels.

But it doesn't mean that it didn't happen. The larger ship's boats were bigger than most merchant vessels.

You are a keen observer.  I wish I could be of more help.

Alan

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Benjamin Franklin

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