HMS Surprise- The movie version

Pete--

Thanks again.  Your work over on bigbluetrains is just wonderful and amazing stuff.  Thanks for pointing me over there.  Bookmarked!

Charles

Charles, got your question about where I cut the hull. the first cut was at the forward edge of the 5th gun port, and the second cut, removed the next two gun ports, reducing the length of the hull, from the forward edge of the stem, to the aft edge of the rudder, to 11.25". Essentially, I removed the 5th and 6th gun ports. Hope that helps, and good luck.

www.bigbluetrains.com  I use the same name there as here, has info on what has kept me away from here so long. I'm currently rigging a 62' LWL two mast schooner, which will be part of the "Seaport Village and Museum", modeled, in HO scale, on those new modules.

The Lindberg "Brig of War" kit, provided the hull for the Lobster Sloop, in the recent pictures.

Hey Sumpter--

did you ever wrap this project up?  I'm planning to take on this same project, and would love to see where you ended up.

I really love your approach, and your attention to detail here.  Great work!

Charles

"O'Brien is not a reliable source for many technical details (he's not well considered by many sailors for the accuracy/realism of his sailing descriptions)."

In "Post Captain" he puts his hero on an experimental sloop, HMS "Polycrest". Some people went mad trying to recreate her, unaware that O'Brian admitted that he made her up out of whole cloth--nothing even remotely like her, even in the experimental lists--just some features of experimental ships, thrown together.

That's one of the nice things about Forester--he puts his man on a 36, calls it "Lydia" and leaves the rest to you.

First off, Jake, Thank You for the "captain's cabin, port and starboard". I didn't have those pictures when I started the model, but they would be a great help to anyone wishing to do "The Movie Version".

Framing the galleries, are two large knees each (visible). These provide the support and strength for the deck and transom, that hull planking would do if there were no galleries ( not required, unless the intention is to model the cabin interior ) . Jake's photos should help understanding the construction of the galleries, and, hopefully make the task a bit easier to work through. This model marks the first time I've tried to build quarter galleries, and I'm pleased enough with how they turned out.

On the subject of "common knowledge", I suppose I should offer some apologies, in that, as a model railroader, I had to learn how to model from photographs, as there weren't always plans to reference. I obviously haven't perfected the techniques, but I'm getting there, one step at a time. Working from photos does require some understanding / knowledge of the generic subject. Not so much "what the parts are", but why, and how they are used. Yes, over the years I have "stuffed the trivia bank", with all kinds of "details".

" And of course all the debate about whether O'Brien was really basing her off of the actual real Surprise, and even then there are differences between his fictional ship and the real one. "  What committed me to "The Movie Version " was all the above, plus, I was starting with a "Lindberg Pirate Ship" kit, which carries with it almost as much controversy as the "Book / Real" Surprise. In the end, it's a project more of art and fancy, than fact. ( Then again.........there is a real "Movie Version" ).

Nice photos of the Surprise and Star of India. Is the Star a clipper? Seeing your photos of the movie Surprise and reading back through some of this build has got me thinking again about which version I should build when the time comes. Building the movie version has many advantages not the least of which is the movie itself as a reference and all the existing photos of the ship. The problem there is in that the movie ship as I understand it is a compromise between the ship of the books and what was practical to use as a ship that was already out there. I gather from some of the stuff that I've read that there are some substantial differences between The Rose/Surprise and what the "real" Surprise from the books would have looked like. And of course all the debate about whether O'Brien was really basing her off of the actual real Surprise, and even then there are differences between his fictional ship and the real one. Of course you could put the kabosh on all of that by saying your version of Surprise depicts the ship as it appeared in the movie, and in many respects that would be perfectly fine with me. I barely understand enough about the ships of that era, even having read all the O'Brien books, that I would really barely know what I was doing if I was actually trying to build something totally accurate to the ship of the books.

I was in San Diego back in 2009 got a bunch of pictures of Surprise and Star of India, click link start on page 3 to see pictures, enjoy.

http://travel.webshots.com/album/573159075MMENHr?start=24

Jake

Unfortunately, no, the first photos posted in this thread, are the earliest that I have. After deciding to use the movie as the "primary source", along with photos of the "rose rebuild", and the "tank model", I removed the original quarter galleries, and cut the original transom, at the gun deck level.  I added side extensions to the gun deck replacement, that were as close as I could determine to the right shape for the new quarter galleries.

The original hull, sectioned, to remove the fifth and sixth gun ports, had only open space left, where the former galleries had been. The new galleries were built up from the deck extensions, and the transom, from the gun deck, up, was built up the same way, in layers of styrene sheet and strip. Based on the HMS Rose/Surprise photos, and modified to fit the "Roger" hull.

I suppose I am guilty of   "common knowledge syndrome", ( if I know it then it must have been common knowledge ). I wasn't intending this to be a tutorial, and I didn't document all the steps.

"Finishing the build":  What has put this on hold, is the building of a new three module set, 30" X 48" each, in HO (1:87) scale. Two of the modules, make up a "Seaport/museum" scene, that will also be a display for several ships, and work boats, in 1/87th, in addition to the tracks for the trains. The models for the modules are giving me the reason to build my own deadeyes, blocks, etc. so that I will have developed some amount of skill needed to rig "Surprise". I'm also getting some practice in on making hand formed wood spars, which I'll have to build, to replace the plastic ones from the kit..

All that, and......rigging the lower deadeyes / chainplates, was beginning to drive me up the wall !  I needed a rest. I have taken some time to read over Lennarth Petersson's "Rigging Period Ship Models", so I'll have some idea of where I'm going with "Surprise" when I take it back up. It's pretty much at the spars and rigging stage, once all the lower deadeys, chainplates, and hull / deck attached ironwork, are done.

Oh, That Star Trek group scratchbuild'09 project,  Star Fleet battleship, USS Kodiac NCC 6000, sneaked  in there too.

Thanks for bumping this back up. Do you have any "before" photos that show what you did to rework the stern gallery/transom area and how it differs from the original "Jolly Roger"? Any idea when you'll get around to finishing the build.

Matt

This build has been on hold, as another project "took its place". There has been some recent interest in "Surprise", so I thought I'd bring this back up.

If interested, I could present the kit with a few pictures (opening another thread, as this is getting somewhat out of topic here).

   I, for one would be very interested in this. Continuing here, or opening a new thread, is your choice.

DanCooper wrote:

Gerarddm wrote: DanCooper, that's the guy, Gebhard Kammerlander. I found the article: Building The Duke William Using The Kammerlander Method, by Ameil Klein, Seaway's Ships in Scale Jan/Feb 1999, Volume X, Number 1.   Thought so, on the website I also found his name as being responsible for the contents of the site, my guess would be that mr Kammerlander is not an employee for that company, but that he is the founder and/or owner of the company. Anyway, I'de sure like to see what he would make of a ship of the line with that building method, although I would be scared to have a look at the price if he ever released one of those.

This got me interested, and I had a look at the web site. G. Kammerlander is indeed the owner and founder of "GK Modellbau", and invented his own "system" of building wooden model ships. He offers a nice beginner set for a little boat that includes all necessary materials, including the tools neded for the Kammerlander system of wood bending (essentially a soldering iron with a special tip). Tempting, I never built a model ship in wood... So I took the opportunity and ordered the kit. It arrived this weekend, and looks actually pretty nice and of good quality (well, not that I knew anything about how to judge the quality of wood kits...). If interested, I could present the kit with a few pictures (opening another thread, as this is getting somewhat out of topic here).

SD

the depths of HECEPOB-dom

So! Atlantis wasn't the only place to sink below the waves, and become lost to reality!

Dalliance - welcome to the Forum!  I think you'll find some interesting and informative stuff here.  The "Ships" section, it must be admitted, is populated by some rather odd people, but I think most of us are relatively harmless.

Your comments on the new Mamoli Surprise kit are a little disappointing.  On the other hand, perhaps we should give the manufacturer some benefit of the doubt.  It probably wouldn't be reasonable to expect any firm to emerge from the depths of HECEPOB-dom and into the world of serious scale modeling without exhibiting some growing pains.  If Mamoli is making a genuine effort to produce kits that look like real ships, that's a major step in the right direction.

sumpter250 wrote:

Which makes whatever you choose to do, correct.

True, to a point. I try to make the model as it would have been built. I conform the rigging to standard practice (as far as is practical), the deck furniture  as per custom and so on. The actual design conforms to what is actually known. I want it to be a good representation of what could have been. I don't build just from whimsey.

Does this make any sense? I hope so.  

As to the figurehead, I believe there is a discription of it somewhere in the books and a very blurry rendition on the jpeg copy I have of the admiralty plans. The one provided is not even close and way out of proportion. 

The figurehead will take some major refining including massive breast reduction surgery.

   More often than not, figureheads were works of fantasy, and were subject to many different kinds of embellishments. The possibility exists that the casting may be closer to reality than it appears.

I look at my model building as creating a work of art, not a mechanical replication of an object.

   Which makes whatever you choose to do, correct.

Hi, I'm new to this forum and I've been reading this thread with great interest. I purchased the Mamoli kit of HMS Surprise a couple of weeks ago and I think it will make a good model. There are some glaring mistakes, mostly in the trim and decrative castings which are not of great quality. The figurehead will take some major refining including massive breast reduction surgery. All in all I'm satisfied.

I've read all the books and enjoyed them very much. I purchased all that were available in 1999 and saved them to read while cruising my 1:1 Scale sloop from San Francisco to Florida. A voyage that lasted more than four years. I aquired the remaing volumes as the became available and was sorry when I came to the end.

Earlier in this thread there was a very good discussion of the author. It reminded me of an article I read in a west coast sailing magazine, Latitude 38, that lends considerable insite as to Mr O'Brian (latitude38.com/features/O'Brian.htm). Well worth the read.

As to the the accuracy of the models. Since this is in fact a fictional vessel I believe, within certain limits as laid down but Mr. O'Brian and the Royal Navy, the final form lies in the imagination of the reader. When reading a book the appearance of the charactors, and the setting are suggested by the author and we the reader fill in the details in our minds. It is one of the wonderful aspects of reading. It is fairly certain that the Surprise of the books was suggested by the real ship HMS Surprise (L'Unite) and modified in some respects by Mr. O'Brian. The picture drawn in the mind of the reader base on their knowledge of ships of the period and the descriptions layed down by the author. This picture will vary from reader to reader and none will be the same. Each builder will see the ship in a slightyly different way and each model will be accurate in the eye of the builder.

I look at my model building as creating a work of art, not a mechanical replication of an object. The final product must be pleasing to the eye and convey a certain impressions and feelings in the viewer much as a painting would.

Just my $.02

Gerarddm wrote:

DanCooper, that's the guy, Gebhard Kammerlander. I found the article: Building The Duke William Using The Kammerlander Method, by Ameil Klein, Seaway's Ships in Scale Jan/Feb 1999, Volume X, Number 1.

Thought so, on the website I also found his name as being responsible for the contents of the site, my guess would be that mr Kammerlander is not an employee for that company, but that he is the founder and/or owner of the company.

Anyway, I'de sure like to see what he would make of a ship of the line with that building method, although I would be scared to have a look at the price if he ever released one of those. 

sumpter250 wrote:

Dan, tumblehome is the inward slant of the hull sides, above the waterline, slight at just forward of midships, and usually increasing towards the transom. In the photo, posted by shannonman, you can see the fore and aft edges of the forwardmost gunport, appear almost vertical, and the same edges of the aftmost gunport slant inward. That inward slant indicates the tumblehome in that hull's lines.

Thank you very much, prof., ...oh boy do I need to do some reading up :) 

Gerard, I think this is indeed the case, as these kits on that german site are made in a very peculiar way.  What you get in those kit boxes is a plaster mold of the hull on wich you form the frames by warming up very thin strips of wood with a kind of soldering iron.

By the way, the finished models of these kids are very small, I believe the largest one is about 35cm long. 

This is how these kits are built :

And on this picture of the Duke William, you can see how intrigate and delicate the whole structure of the hull is :

On the following link you can see how a Hamiltons Gunboat is being built, step by step :

http://www.gk-modellbau.de/DE/Galerie/Baustufen2028/index.html?

what's a "tumblehome" ?  A question from a "wanting to learn pupil" ?

   Dan, tumblehome is the inward slant of the hull sides, above the waterline, slight at just forward of midships, and usually increasing towards the transom. In the photo, posted by shannonman, you can see the fore and aft edges of the forwardmost gunport, appear almost vertical, and the same edges of the aftmost gunport slant inward. That inward slant indicates the tumblehome in that hull's lines.

The photo Shannonman has posted appears to be the same one that's in the Model Expo printed catalog - i.e., the new Mamoli kit.  So now we've got photos of all three:  Mamoli, Artesania Latina, and Calder/Jotika.

One slightly odd aspect of all this:  it seems curious that not one, not two, but three ship model manufacturers have jumped on this idea simultaneously - ten or fifteen years after the O'Brian novels appeared, and three years (right?  Or has it been longer than that?) after the movie was released.  It does take some time to design and produce a wood sailing ship kit, but the coincidence is remarkable.

  OK, I'm impressed!

   Being very new to the world of kit design, and development, I can only say, WOW!!! This is a well thought out model! I would have a hard time believing that the necessary research wasn't done, considering the effort that has been put into the design. Having scratchbuilt plank on frame, this looks to be very "builder friendly", but by no means, an entry level project! Adjustable elevation on the carronades indeed! Yes!, I am impressed so far.

Now I see that Calder/Jotika is getting ready to release a wood H.M.S. Surprise kit.  Here's a link to a discussion of it - with some pretty impressive photos:  http://modelshipworld.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1885&postdays=0&postorder=asc&&start=0

The scale is 1/64, so the model will be pretty huge.  And it presumably will be expensive.  But these people quite obviously know what they're doing.  If I were contemplating a model of this vessel, this is the kit I'd wait for.

I just took another look at that Model Expo catalog.  The new wood Surprise kit that I referred to in several posts above is made not by Amati but by Mamoli.  Mea culpa; I apologize - and hope my mistake hasn't thoroughly confused everybody.

The photo in the printed catalog (which isn't on the Model Expo website yet) suggests that this may be a pretty good kit.  Caveat again:  it would be idiotic to pass judgment, positive or negative, solely on the basis of one, relatively small photo.  But the photo appears to show a reasonable scale model.  If the kit does indeed meet that description, it's an historic first for Mamoli, which has long held a reputation as one of the very worst of the HECEPOB companies.  If this manufacturer has in fact seen the light, and discovered what a scale ship model is, that will be good news for the modeling community - if not a harbinger of the End of Civilization As We Know It.

I have no idea what sort of relationships exist among the HECEPOB companies.  As I understand it Amati and Mamoli are Italian, and Artisania Latina is Spanish.  I should perhaps emphasize that I've never bought, or built, any of their kits.  I did review a couple of AL products for a magazine quite a few years ago; I wasn't favorably impressed. 

There are signs that Amati is thinking about breaking away from the pack, so to speak.  It's started a range called Victory Models, the kits in which, as I understand it, are designed by a gentleman who used to work for Calder/Jotika.  On the basis of the photos in the Model Expo catalog, they certainly appear to be genuine, honest to goodness scale models - which is more than can be said for any AL or Mamoli product I've ever encountered.

I haven't built, or even seen, any of the kits from that German company; they seem to be quite rare in the U.S.  They've been discussed here in the Forum a few times, but I can't recall any Forum participant's having said he's actually bought or built one.  The photos, however, look pretty impressive.  The people responsible for those kits certainly seem to know what a scale ship model is.

Gerarddm wrote:

The Aubrey/Maturin ship you were referring to that didn't know if it was coming or going was HMS Polychrest, not Boadicea, which was a pefectly orthodox 38-gun frigate.

Aha, ok, thanks I now know what to google for to have a look at it :)

Dr Tilley, I'm afraid I was a bit confused before, the image I posted is the Artesania Latina version, but I always get confused with Mamoli, Amati and AL because, over here they share the same catalogue, or at least they used to, so I always thought they were actually the same factory.

Speaking of wooden ship kits, have any of you ever tried one of these ? And if so are they worth the money ? 

Is this the one, dr. Tilley ?

Costs 599 euro's or, at this shop "only" 499 euro's, 1 euro is currently 1.31 dollar

(A small American firm recently announced a resin-hulled Morris-class kit.  One has to wonder if this is a coincidence.)

  Well, this thread is about using a "pirate ship" kit to build something else. So, piracy is not completely out of the question here.  On the other hand, $300.00, give or take could be taken as an awfully high rate for pie. I think I would have to look long and hard at one of these kits before I'd fork over that much dough for the kit!  I really didn't....yeah I did say that!

A big, glitzy new catalog from Model Expo arrived in my mailbox the other day.  It includes a new, wood H.M.S. Surprise kit, under the Amati label.  [Later edit:  Actually the kit is from Mamoli; see correction below.  My fault; sorry.  Mamoli's reputation among serious scale ship modelers is, if anything, even worse than Amati's.]

Amati is one of the notorious HECPOB manufacturers, about whom I've ranted at some length elsewhere in this forum.  (In the unlikely event that anybody's interested, a forum search on "HECEPOB" - that's Hideously Expensive Continental European Plank On Bulkhead - will produce several lengthy cures for insomnia.)  I've never bought an Amati kit, and I'm not sure anything could make me do so.  [Later edit:  The same comments apply to Mamoli kits.  I've never bought any of them either, nor am I likely to do so.]  On the other hand, that particular company [Amati - not Mamoli] has given some signs recently that it's seen the light - i.e., that its management has discovered, at least in the most general terms, what a scale ship model is.  I have to say that the color photo of this new Surprise kit in the catalog looks pretty good.  It's not big enough to inspire real confidence, but some of the really awful features that characterize a lot of the photos in that catalog (e.g., yards in the wrong places, horrible looking "sails," and ludicrously inaccurate rigging) aren't visible.  I'm not about to send off $300 for the thing, but it looks like it might - might - actually be a pretty nice kit.

The same catalog shows a couple of new Amati kits with cast-resin hulls (which apparently are intended to be planked with walnut).  One of them is a Morris-class American revenue cutter.  (A small American firm recently announced a resin-hulled Morris-class kit.  One has to wonder if this is a coincidence.)  We've cogitated several times in this Forum about the considerable potential of the cast resin hull as a basis for sailing ship kits.  Maybe - maybe - this company is actually listening, and making a genuine effort to produce some kits that appeal to serious scale models.  If so, it will mark a major reversal in the marketing policy of one of the worst of the HECEPOB firms.  I won't believe it until and unless I see some hard evidence to prove it - but it sure would be nice.

First the on-topic part of my Reply :  Fantastic work on that ship, I have started a couple of period plastic ships in the past, but for some reason they never got finished

And now the off-topic part, I think this is more a question for prof. Tilley or if another expert jumps in that's ok too. :

It's been a while since I've red the first 7 or 8 A/B novels, but in one of them (don't ask me for the title anymore please) Aubrey was given command to a new ship that was being built (I don't remember the name of it, but the name was also the name of a Celtic or perhaps Pictic queen), and since my knowledge of 19th century ships is rather limited, I had real difficulty imagening the shape of that ship.

Both Aubrey and Maturin are rather disgusted by the shape of the ship, and if I'm not mistaken, at a certain point it's Maturin who says, quote : "you can't see if she's coming or if she's going" end quote. (remember that I read a dutch translation, so the quote might be different in the english version of the books)

Is, or rather, was this kind of ship (the ship in the book doesn't even survive till the end of the novel) based on an actual design and if so, can someone please put up a drawing or picture, since I have absolutely no idea what to think of it, and I really hate that feeling

PS : I found this, maybe someone can find some use for it while building...

sumpter250 wrote:

When the photos were on "railimages" there were links to them. Now they load directly, as I replaced the links with IMG tags. To get the actual link, right click the photo and select properties.

Earlier in this thread? I'll take a look.

Thanks!

Sumpter,

Where are the links to the photos?

 Thanks,

Joe,

   Railimages.com changed hands, and in the process, my gallery there.....disappeared!

   Your post was here when I got done updating as many photos as I could find. There are still a couple I have to look for, and upload to photobucket, so, anything that still is a link to "railimages" won't work. I might have been able to fix this sooner, but I was negotiating with trainboard .com, in an attempt to find and restore the gallery in railimages. Unfortunately, that couldn't be done. There are several other forums where I have Railimage linked pics...It's going to be a while before all is well again.

   Progress has been temporarily halted, with Surprise. I have been busy with GCLaser(  www.gclaser.com  ). We're developing some new kit possibilities. If we are successful with the new line, I may be rather busy for an extended period of time. Talk about mixed emotions! I still have a lot of lower deadeyes to strop, and install, before I can start rigging the lower shrouds, and stays.

   It is rather interesting that on this day, as I'm "fixing" the pic problem, you should bring the thread back to the front page, cool.

Mr. Sumpter,

Please post some photos!  This is a wonderful project and I am enthralled by it, so much so I have begun building sqaure rigs myself and your work is an inspiration!

   Time flies ! it doesn't take too long to end up on the "back page".  In between several other required projects, I've been building lower deadeye/chainplate assemblies. To check the angles for each assembly, I put together the masts from the kit, and set them in place. Oops!, back to the movie, and hit the pause button.....yup, the kit masts are far too tall. I had to remove about one inch from all the lower masts to bring them into proportion with the new hull length, and the broadside shot of the movie prop surprise. Looks like the topmasts will also have to be shortened slightly. In one of the shots, there is a crewman in the main top, leaning on the rail at the aft end of the top. Judging from the angle of the man's arms, his hands were 3' apart. From that, the width of the top comes in at about 10'. The tops in the Jolly Roger are about 1/2" too wide. The spanker in the Jolly Roger is loose footed, in the movie version Surprise it has a boom, even though it is brailled up. The outhaul runs through a sheeve in the end of the boom. I'll have to look closely again to see where the outhaul is belayed. The DVD, and a set of proportional dividers are becoming the most used tools in this build.

    In another thread, jtilley mentioned "Master and Commander" as a good sailling ship movie. There's been a lot of discussion since the last post here, and watching the movie again, I was looking for some of the details, and facts. Most all of them were there. I am pleasantly surprised by the accuracy of detail, action, and script. There's a lot that can be learned from M and C, but there are some discrepancies with published facts. Still, watching the clew lines pay out as the main course is unfurled, and the removal and storage of the forward bulkhead of the great cabin, in preparation for battle, and all the other little details makes the movie a relatively good reference for how things worked.

WOW!

The build is great and the flow of information is awesome!  There was a comment concerning representing wood grain.

Well the build inspired me and I have been attempting a modification of the Jolly Roger.  Nothing like this one though.  I built the quarter deck from balso and strapped it to the plastic deck.  Then using my contour guage I "combed" both the plastic and balsa and think I got it!

I hope to post some pictures in a seperate post once the project begins to take shape.

In British and American frigates the break of the quarterdeck usually was aft of the mainmast, but there were plenty of exceptions - and I think the exceptions became more numerous as time went on.  By the time the gangway arrangement evolved into the spardeck, the oversized "hatch" formed by the break of the forecastle, the break of the quarterdeck, and the gangways occupied the space between the fore and mainmasts - as on the Lindberg kit.  I don't recall seeing a contemporary model or drawing of a spar-decked frigate whose mainmast emerged from the "big hatch."

That Admiralty drawing of the Surprise is kind of hard to decipher, because the reproduction doesn't include the deck plans.  It looks to me, though, like she had a separate, raised quarterdeck and forecastle, with the break of the quarterdeck forward of the mainmast.  (She was, after all, built in France, and probably deviated in lots of ways from typical British practice.) 

The profile view shows the major deck fixtures, including those on the main and berth decks.  (They seem a little lighter than the outlines of the ship.  That sort of feature on Admiralty drafts was often drawn in red or green ink, which has long since faded - and of course doesn't show up as such in black-and-white photos like this one.)  Notice that various pieces of deck furniture, such as ladders, capstans, and hatch coamings, on the maindeck, quarterdeck, and forecastle deckare shown clearly, but nothing projects above the bulwark in the waist.  On the quarterdeck just forward of the mainmast is what certainly looks like a side view of a railing stanchion; I think that's the railing at the break of the quarterdeck.  There's a small oblong structure near the aft end of the forecastle deck that I can't quite identify - but nothing between that and the rail stanchion.  I'm obviously not a hundred percent sure, but I think that space is the gap between the break of the quarterdeck and the break of the forecastle. 

The small steps in the rail at the top of the bulwark are decorative devices called "hances."  They generally were located in the vicinity of the breaks of the quarterdeck and forecastle.  (You can make out one of them in the photo of the Hancock model in the upper left of this page, and more clearly here:  http://www.hmsvictoryscalemodels.be/JohnTilleyHancock/photos/photo6.html ). 

Most - but not all - sets of Admiralty drawings from this period include the deck plans on separate sheets of drafting cloth.  I don't know whether the deck plans in this particular set have survived or not.  Publishers unfortunately are in the habit of reproducing only the profile and body plan portions of Admiralty drafts, but the deck plans often are at least as interesting - and just as helpful to modelers.  Without the deck plans there is, for instance, no way to tell how this ship's gangways (if any) were configured, or how wide they were.

One thing does come across loud and clear from this reproduction, though.  The real H.M.S. Surprise didn't look much like La Flore - or H.M.S. Rose.

 The Lindberg kit has what Prof. Tilley described as permanent gangways connecting the Quarterdeck, and the Forecastle deck, with no step. There seems to be a coming that runs completely around the open area. The ship's boats were stored on the gun deck, and there were gratings below them. One quick question; Did the Quarterdeck usually extend forward past the main mast? The area on the lindberg kit where the "gangways" are, is between the main and fore masts.

http://members.aol.com/batrnq/images/WSurprise.jpg  is a drawing of Surprise / L' Unite. The best I can figure is that there is a step in the spar deck to both quarterdeck, and forecastle deck, but only a slight one. Thankyou Prof. for the evolution of the spar deck. My knowledge of that era of sailing vessels is somewhat limited, my interests lying more in clippers, coastal schooners, and the workboats of New England, and the Chesapeake Bay. My only "gunship" models have been the Alexander Hamilton (Ideal), Constitution ( wood hull, unknown, dismasted by lowest bidder movers), and now Surprise (movie version).

I think there's some confusion over vocabulary here.  There's good reason for it to be confusing; it's not entirely rational.

A frigate, as the term was defined in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, had its main armament on one, full-length deck, variously called either the gundeck or the maindeck.  The typical first-generation British frigate, in the mid-eighteenth century, had, in addition to that deck, a raised forecastle deck and quarterdeck, leaving the maindeck/gundeck exposed in the waist. 

It wasn't long before somebody figured out  that everybody's life would be simpler if it were possible to walk directly from the forecastle to the quarterdeck, and vice-versa. So frigates started to be fitted with narrow wood "gangways" connecting the two raised decks.  When I was working on my model of the Hancock I made a mighty effort to figure out just how the gangway evolved; I became convinced that it developed inconsistently.  There was a period, about the time of the American Revolution (i.e., when the real H.M.S. Rose was in service), when some frigates had no gangways, some had gangways that were only a couple of feet wide, and some had wider ones.  (I base that statement on having looked at quite a few contemporary frigate models in the National Maritime Museum.)  Generally - but not always - the gangways during that period were portable; some Admiralty draughts from the 1760s and 1770s have platforms jutting out from the quarterdeck and forecastle labeled "fixed part of the gangway."

As time went on, the gangways got wider - not only in frigates but in larger vessels as well.  And the gangways came to be permanent fixtures.  They in fact became, to all intents and purposes, extensions of the planking of the quarterdeck and forecastle deck.  H.M.S. Victory, for instance, is generally said to have a separate, raised quarterdeck and forecastle, connected by permanent gangways.

Eventually the gangways got so wide that the space between them, through which the main deck/gundeck was visible, amounted to an oversized, elongated hatch.  (Example:  the U.S.S. Constitution.)  At about that time, people started referring to the whole "assembly" of forecastle deck, gangways, and quarterdeck as simply the "spar deck."  Literature about the Constitution generally refers to the full-length deck with the main armament on it as the "gundeck," and the uppermost deck as the "spar deck."  When somebody on board that ship talks about the "forecastle" or the "quarterdeck," he's talking about the forward or after section of the spar deck.

The Lindberg "Jolly Roger" is a reissue of an old kit representing a French frigate, La Flore.  I haven't seen the kit in a long time, but as I remember it has what amounts to a spar deck - a single piece of plastic that stretches from bow to stern, with a big opening in it through which the gundeck can be seen.  As I recall, the gangways (or, if you like, the central section of the spar deck) are fairly wide strips of  "planking" with gratings molded in them.  (I think that's a fairly distinctively French feature.  I can't recall seeing a British or American frigate with gangways built like that.) 

The replica of H.M.S. Rose (the one used in the movie) was built with a (sort of) spar deck - one that doesn't look anything like anything on a real eighteenth-century frigate.  Rather than a separate raised quarterdeck and forecastle, she has a simple, full-length deck, with no big hatch in the middle (at least that's how I remember her), stretching from the bow to the stern and completely covering the main deck/gundeck.  To put it another way, the space between the forecastle deck and the quarterdeck was planked over.  (The explanation for this obvious deviation from historical accuracy was that it "enabled us to make better use of the ship.")

I haven't seen the Admiralty draught of the real H.M.S. Surprise (there actually was a frigate of that name, though the Patrick O'Brian buffs think he modified her a little in his imagination), so I don't know just what the configuration of her decks was.  It's a fairly safe bet, though, that she had a separate quarterdeck and forecastle deck, with either temporary or (more likely) permanent gangways connecting them - and a big open space in the middle where the main deck was exposed to the weather.

I'd have to take a look at the Lindberg kit again to make an intelligent recommendation, but one possible approach would be to cut off the gangways, thereby leaving the forecastle deck and quarterdeck separate.  That wouldn't make the model look like the ship in the movie - but might make it look more like the real Surprise.  To make the kit look more like the ship in the movie, you'd have to fill in the space between the gangways - and thereby make the result look unlike an eighteenth-century frigate.  All of which constitutes one of the many reasons why I haven't been attracted by the proposition of building a model of the ship in the movie.

Hope that helps a little.  Good luck.

To JT and Sumpter,

Thanks for the response. But JT, am I to interpret your comments as saying that the movie version of Surprise is NOT accurate, in that it lacks a raised foc'sle deck (quote: "...like every other British eighteenth-century frigate")? Seems like a fairly easy task to add one to the Lindberg JR, but it looks just fine without it. Please forgive my naivete, but I'm still just trying to figure out which "version" of HMS S to model.

And Sumpter, the railroad bug is alive and well in me too. I feel your pleasure/pain. (Where does the time go)?

Thanks again for all the help.

Weasel505

 The scene, in the movie, where Dr. Maturin is shot, is done looking forward, and there appears to be no step in the fo'c'sl.  In light of "the movie version" the full size "tank" model is the most used version, and is the one I return to for the details I model. The spar deck and almost all the deck furniture, are Evergreen styrene. When using a wire brush, or sand paper to create woodgrain, try to keep the strokes all in the same direction. Don't try to gouge too deeply, at this scale you only want a hint of grain. Remember, these decks were holystoned fairly regularly, and were smooth in texture. More important than "grain" would be color difference board to board, and a hint of caulking between the planks.

 Construction is currently on hold, as I'm preparing modules for Trainfest, in Milwaukee, and I have some new projects with GC Laser, that need to be done by Trainfest. "Surprise" may just show up, in the drydock of my Ntrak module, I have some "logistics" issues I have to address before that happens.

The ship used in the movie, as I guess most enthusiasts know, is a reconstruction of H.M.S. Rose that was built quite a few years ago and bought by the movie makers.  I've only been on board her once - and that was a long time ago, when she was a "museum ship" (not a very good one) moored at Newport, Rhode Island.  My recollection is that, indeed, her waist was planked over, making her virtually flush-decked. 

The explanation, as I recall, was that this arrangement enabled the owners "to make better use of the ship."   They acknowledged, in other words, that the flush-decked configuration was completely bogus in terms of historical accuracy.  (The Admiralty draught of the Rose exists; it shows her with separate, raised forecastle and quarterdeck - like every other British eighteenth-century frigate.) 

I confess that, in all the times I've watched the movie, I didn't notice that point.  I think the movie makers may have deliberately - and largely successfully - camouflaged the discrepancy.  (They built their own "duplicate" of the Rose, which they floated in a giant tank; maybe the tank model has properly-configured decks.)  There's a scene in which Dr. Maturin is operating on the sailor with the injured skull.  If I remember correctly, we're given the impression that the operation is taking place in the ship's waist, with a gang of sailors gaping down from the break of either the forecastle or the quarterdeck.

This is the sort of thing that comes up when one decides to build a model of a movie prop.  In many ways the ship in the movie doesn't actually look like a frigate of 1805. 

I'm not aware of any manufactured plastic product that has "wood grain" molded into it.  Evergreen, however, makes some nice styrene sheets with grooves molded in them to represent planking seams.  There's considerable disagreement among modelers about whether wood grain ought to be visible in three dimensions at such a small scale.  If you do want to represent it, it can be done pretty convincingly by scratching the surface of the plastic with either a stiff wire brush or a sheet of fairly fine sandpaper.

Hope that helps a little.  Good luck.

Hi all,

This post has nothing to do with the subject being discussed. I just want to keep this thread about HMS Surprise alive, since I'm still seriously considering building one.

I have one simple question: all my sources about the "movie version" of Surprise appear to show the quarterdeck raised slightly above the main deck; the main deck is continuous to the bow. That is, there is no raised foc'sle deck. Nor is there a "three-deck" arrangement, as seen in some models on-line.

OK, another question: where can I buy plastic wood-grained deck stock to replace the Lindberg decks?

Thanks much.

Weasel

These are pics of a project started in late 1970, and completed in 1977. I laid down the lines for this 40" gaff rigged cutter in November '70, lofted and cut the twentyeight double sawn frames, erected room double space, and planked with mahogany strips, shaped and fitted to the hull. The only commercial parts used were blocks, deadeyes, belaying pins, and chain. It is a 1/64 scale model, 7-1/2" long on deck.

   Now that you've seen my "business card", you know where I am coming from. Prof. Tilley's comments about "hecepob" kits are fully supported by me. I have seen them in the store where I worked for a time, and at the industry shows in Rosemont. Il. I am not impressed with the quality, and assembly. I can loft frames and plank a hull, why should I spend the small fortune for a kit, that I can build from scratch, and produce a more accurate model, not to mention the immense satisfaction of the build. Can these companies produce something of value? Why not? As a model railroader, I remember the names Bachmann, and LifeLike. They still produce things that can be found in the slime under the trash can, but they also have new lines. Bachmann Spectrum, and LifeLike Proto 2000 Heritage, are among the top of the line in HO scale. Beautiful detail, and excellent running qualities. If these two companies can do it, then the hecepob manufacturers could also come out with a quality line. Most of the hobby shop people, in the Chicago area, came to expect that when I purchased a plastic kit, I usually purchased a new razor saw, to do the modifications. To the extent that if I didn't get a new saw, they'd ask. I can make a nylon purse out of a sow's ear(I haven't quite mastered silk yet). There are some kits that do not lend themselves to improvement, and, when they are too expensive to start with, I'll go the scratchbuild route. I still look at all kits, with an eye to what I can make out of them.

I am aware of four wood sailing ship kit manufacturers whose products are designed by people who know what they're doing, and are intended to produce genuine scale models.  Three are long-established American firms:  Model Shipways, Bluejacket, and the recently revived A.J. Fisher.  The other is British:  Caldercraft, aka Jotika.  (Caveat:  I've never seen a Calder kit in the flesh; they aren't widely distributed here in the U.S., and their prices - over $1,000 for the 1/72 scale H.M.S. Victory - are beyond my reach.  But on the basis of their literature and the reviews of their kits that I've read, it's pretty clear that Calder models are high-quality products.

The "Victory Models" line from Amati seems to be a new venture, mostly, if not entirely, headquartered in Britain.  As I understand it, the driving force behind these kits is a designer who used to be affiliated with Calder/Jotika; there's some interesting information about the company, and him, on www.modelshipworld.com .  Amati apparently is supplying the money and the marketing machinery, but little if anything else.  I haven't seen any of these kits either, but if the photos on that website are any indication they occupy a completely different planet than the HECEPOB trash that serious modelers have come to associate with the parent company over the years.

It would be nice to think that the combination of quality products from the U.S. and Britain, plus the ongoing screeches of protest from people like Charlie McDonald and me, are finally leading the HECEPOB companies to mend their sinful ways and either learn what a scale ship model is or go out of business.  That, however, probably is wishful thinking.  But I'll be interested to see what this Artisania Latina H.M.S. Surprise looks like.

jtilley wrote:

I've always made it a matter of policy to avoid disagreeing violently with, or criticizing the work of, other members of this Forum.  I don't think that's what it's for.  In this particular case, though, since the gentleman being quoted is not (I assume) a Forum member, I'll take the liberty of offering a personal observation.

No need to apologize for sharing your opinions.  I must confess that I've never built a wooden ship model, but everything I've ever heard or read about the european kitmakers is consistent with your description above.  Its my impression that their market consists of two groups: amateurs fated for disaster and advanced builders who are essentially using the parts as a base for scratchbuilding.

Given that, I wonder if there's any chance they are turning over a new leaf.  Perhaps with competition from Amati and Model Shipways there's starting to be an incentive to build quality kits.  Probably not, but either way I thought it was interesting news and wanted to share.

Dan

I've always made it a matter of policy to avoid disagreeing violently with, or criticizing the work of, other members of this Forum.  I don't think that's what it's for.  In this particular case, though, since the gentleman being quoted is not (I assume) a Forum member, I'll take the liberty of offering a personal observation.

I've reviewed a couple of Artesania Latina kits for publications (quite a few years ago, I admit), looked at some others in the boxes, and seen many photos of models built from them.  In my opinion, AL (known in Nautical Research Guild circles as "Artist in the Latrine") is one of the more objectionable of the HECEPOB (Hideously Expensive Continental European Plank-On-Bulkhead) companies, about whom I've ranted at considerable length here and elsewhere.  It's unfair to generalize too much, but the AL products I've seen have been characterized by ineptly drawn plans, utter lack of research, mediocre materials, impractical construction methods, a general lack of interest in historical accuracy, and utterly outrageous prices.  If somebody from that firm has indeed paid a visit to the National Maritime Museum, that's good news.  Maybe somebody at AL has finally learned what the term "scale ship model" means.  I'll reserve judgment till I've seen the kit, but every other product from this source that I've seen has been just about useless for anything but firewood.

I've made the following point before, but I'll make it once more:  my disgust with the world of the HECEPOBs is not in any sense unique to me.  It's a common viewpoint among serious, experienced ship modelers.  If my comments seem harsh, take a look at this article:  http://www.naut-res-guild.org/piracy2.htm

Dr. McDonald wrote that article more than twenty years ago, but the situation hasn't changed much since then.

Maybe Artesania Latina is genuinely trying to turn over a new leaf.  (At least one other HECEPOB company, Amati, seems to be doing so; its new range of "Victory Models" appears to be excellent.)  I certainly hope so.  But I'll believe it when I see it.

This may be old news here, but this is from the latest HMS Rose newsletter:

Interested in model ships?  Newsletter Reader Mark Goodman sent this in:

   You might be interested to know that the Spanish company Artesania
   Latina (they make model wooden ship kits) is about to release a
   detailed model kit of the Surprise.  Apparently they have been
   working with the Greenwich Maritime Museum to produce it.  It will
   be released in Europe shortly.  Email them direct if you want more
   info.  I have already made two of their kits and they are
   excellent quality.

You can email them from this page:
at http://www.artesanialatina.net/contactar.php

and the chainplates in the picture certainly would be easier to reproduce.

I built one deadeye-strop-link-chainplate-backing link combination from brass wire, and shim stock.......there is a simpler, quicker way of doing this...I will find it !

Building the "movie version" has its benefits. There are some decent photos to work from, and, for the most part, dimensions are "computable", it just takes time. Needless to say, there's not much of the original "Jolly Roger" that is usable. The only things on the spar deck that came from the kit are the cannon, and one of the boats. Everything else had to be scratchbuilt to "best guess" measurements. Mostly, because of the difference in hulls, things have been built proportional to the kit hull, as opposed to being exactly scaled from the movie "surprise". I'll be very satisfied with a "good looking reasonable facsimile", of the compromise between the "Rose rebuild", and the "tank model".......besides, I'm having fun !!

The chainplate configuration in the picture obviously doesn't match what I described.  The builders of the Rose made lots of compromises due to financial pressures; this looks like one of them.  I suppose it's conceivable that the French made chainplates like that, but I've never seen such a configuration in any British (or American) plans or artwork of he period. 

If your target is to reproduce the ship in the movie, though, that's irrelevant - and the chainplates in the picture certainly would be easier to reproduce.

Here's a trick for making cannonballs of any size you like.  It relies on trial and error, but doesn't take more than a few minutes. 

Chop a piece of brass wire into short, identical lengths.  (The exact length is what has to be determined by trial and error; it obviously depends on the diameter of the wire.)  When you've made a dozen or so little pieces of wire that way, spread them out on a fireproof surface (you probably have a soldering pad of some sort) and hit them with a torch.  In a few seconds the laws of physics will go to work; the brass will melt, and each length of wire will coagulate into a sphere.  Drop the spheres into chemical blackener, let them dry, shoot them with clear flat lacquer, and you've got your cannonballs.  Once you establish the initial measurement you can crank out a hundred of them in half an hour.

Chain plates are difficult.  Each assembly has to be of a different length, due to the changing angles of the shrouds.  In the early nineteenth century the chainplate assembly typically had four components:  the iron strop around the deadeye, two long, open iron links (the descendents of the actual chain that was used for the purpose in earlier centuries, and the backing link, an iron loop that was forged into a dumbbell-like shape and spiked into the hull at both ends.  The spike that went through the upper opening in the backing link also went through the lower end of the lower "chain" link, which was "pinched" together at that end to form an eye for the purpose.  In a warship with lots of shrouds, the aftermost chainplate assembly in a gang had to be considerably longer than the foremost one.  The discrepancy was taken up in two of the components:  the backing link and the upper "chain" link.  The lower links and the deadeye strops didn't vary.  On a good set of plans or a photo of the real thing, the points where the links overlap, and the upper and lower spikes in the backing links, form straight lines.

On small scales like this, making all those individual pieces would be quite a challenge. The appearance of the finished product can, however, be pretty effectively faked by using one piece of wire, or even smooth-surfaced thread, and a simple jig.  Drill holes in the channels for the deadeyes (or, if you really want to replicate prototype practice, cut notches for them in the edges of the channels and make a molding to close the notches and cover the edge).  Mark two lines on the hull below, and parallel to, the channel, to establish the heights of the two rows of spikes in the backing links.

The jig consists of a strip of  plastic sheet, about .020" thick and as wide as the opening in the upper link of the first chainplate assembly.  Start by twisting or knotting the wire or thread around the deadeye and passing both ends through the first hole in the channel.  Then make a half hitch in the wire or thread, at the point where the deadeye strop would hook into the upper "chain" link.  Hold the plastic strip there, and make another half hitch in the thread or wire just below it.  Drill the two holes in the hull for the backing link spikes.  Shove both ends of the wire or thread into the upper hole.  Make the backing link out of similar wire or thread.  Make the spikes from brass or steel pins, paying close attention to the diameter of the heads.  Shoving the pin into the hole on top of the wire or thread will hold the latter in place. 

As you make your way aft, the jig will ensure that the "joints" between the "links" (i.e., the half-hitches in the wire or thread) are lined up right.  When you're done, pull the plastic strip out and paint the whole business black.  (If you used thread, try mixing a little Elmer's glue in with the paint.) You'll find it's difficult to tell that the "chain plates" aren't made up of individual links.

That's the trick I used on my models of the Bounty (1/110 scale) and the Hancock  (1/128).  I don't think I'd recommend it on any larger scale than that, but on smaller scales the illusion is pretty effective. 

Disclaimer:  this post has been edited.  I initially typed it in a hurry, and realized later that I'd made some errors in it. 

Oh! It's 11. The first pic is an overhead shot of the spardeck:

The next, is a starboard side shot. This far along in construction, I realized that because I am not using the kit shrouds/deadeye assembly, I needed to remove the kit channels, and replace them. Not a wise thing to do with this much detail in place.

   Next is a closeup overhead of the quarterdeck: 

The cannonballs, are the smallest shot found in a .22 cal. birdshot round. They are still a little large, but about the same size as came with the kit. Last, the foredeck. There are two pinrails, in the bow, for spritsail, and jib lines.

      There's still all the pins to install in the fiferails, and pinrails to install at the bullwarks, along with any other eyebolts in the deck. I got some .015" X .024" flat brass bar stock, to make the through channel links between the deadeyes, and the chainplates. The chainplates are a rectagonal link made of round bar stock. I'll have to determine the size of these, and begin building them. I will probably use .012" brass wire for these.

There's nothing wrong with using glue blobs for blocks on small scales.  I'm pretty sure that's essentially how Donald McNarry does it - though he makes his rigging of wire rather than thread.  (He describes it as "glued up rather than rove in the usual manner.")

Try the brown version of Franklin Titebond - the stuff that's made for dark woods.  It dries in a hurry, and shrinks slightly when it dries.  Just before it hardens off completely, a little prodding with a toothpick will give it a thoroughly convincing block-like shape.  For best results, use enamel paint; acrylic may soften up the glue and put you back where you started. 

LHill,

Thanks for the link to jotika ltd. checked it out, smallest deadeyes are 2.5mm, very very close to 3/32", which I can get through my local hobby shop. I will keep jotika in mind though, for some of my other projects.

Jtilley,

  Of course I'll attempt to make the scale blocks before I use the knot/glue/paint method, but that is an option, and one I had considered.

   The new trucks for the carronades are about finished, and it's about time to sling some more paint.I'll post some pics after the painting is done.

Bluejacket's britannia metal deadeyes go down to 3/32".  Model Expo offers some nicely turned walnut ones; I'm never quite sure how these companies measure their fittings, but the smallest in that range is smaller than the smallest Bluejacket ones.  Model Expo sometimes sells them in bulk quantitities.

The two or three smallest sizes of blocks from Bluejacket are about right for a model on that scale.  The smallest ones - nominally 3/32" - are really tiny.  They take some time and effort to clean up; a knife-edged file is a big help in cleaning out the grooves.  It's also relatively easy to cut them down a little; chop off  1/32" or so from the long end and you've got a block that many observers will barely be able to see.  For anything smaller than that, you're probably better off with a knot covered with a drop of glue and painted.

Hope that helps.

Hey Sumpter,

You probably already know this, but try this place.  Its in England and sells some very small scale wood deadeyes and other things that might be of help.

http://www.jotika-ltd.com/Pages/1024768/Fitting_Front.htm

I don't know what the shipping is like to the US though.

Did the kit come with carronades?

Unfortunately, no. I'm going to have to scratch a set of four, two for the bow, and two for the forward part of the quarterdeck.

I finally decided not to add camber to the deck, I have to scratchbuild too much of the details, and with far more years behind, than I expect ahead, well, anyway. This is the spar deck, with some of the deck furniture placed where it will be attached after painting.

This one is the quarterdeck area.  , and this shows the new capstan, and wheel.  It's been fun with the deck furniture, as I've had to use what "known" measurements I could determine from the photos, and use them to "guess" the dimentions of all the parts I've had to build so far. I've exercised my Chopper extensively. The gratings are photoetched brass mesh, stk no.02714 from K&S Engineering. Evergreen strip, sheet, rod, and quarter round were used to fabricate the rest. The nine pounders on the quarterdeck, will be reworked to include tackle, and a repaint of the cannon to a more bronze color. The trucks will get new wheels, and quoins, for elevation adjust. I still need to build waterways, steps to the quarterdeck, pin rails (at the masts, and on the bulwarks), the binacle cabinets, and on, and on.  

You MUST read both 'Youth' and 'Typhoon'. Conrad is one of my all time favorites. What style!

But I must throw my oar in here and say that as much as I revelled in Hornblower in my youth, Aubrey/Maturin takes the bell for me now. I am happy to follow PO'B on whatever digression he chooses, it's all good. 150 word sentences don't faze me, mate, I've read Mervyn Peake's 'Gormenghast', where a sentence can consume the better part of a page (!).

The only time PO'B let me down was ( SPOILER ALERT   SPOILER ALERT) when he summarily and off-handedly killed off two important characters.

Another great virtue of Conrad, from the purely practical standpoint, is that, because his works have long been out of copyright, paperback versions of them are cheap.  There's a wonderful paperback volume called The Portable Conrad (from Penguin Books, I think) that contains most of his major works between two covers.  It's undoubtedly more expensive than the $5.00 I paid for it thirty years ago, but still a huge bargain. 

The first Conrad book I read, back in high school, was The Nigger of the Narcissus.  I don't know that I'd recommend it for starters; it's a masterpiece, but loaded with symbols that literary theorists still argue about.  I think I'd recommend starting with the longish short story "Youth," then the short novel Typhoon.  I have that one in the form of an audiobook.  I listened to it in my workshop once, on a beautiful, clear evening in May.  By the time it was over I had to look out the window to convince myself it wasn't raining - or worse.

Another one that's worth reading is The Mirror of the Sea.  It doesn't get as much attention as some of Conrad's other works; it's sort of a casual anthology of stories and articles, some of them non-fiction, about various maritime-related subjects.  It's available in paperback, though somewhat harder to find than the more famous volumes.

Sumpter 250 - you owe it to yourself to try Joseph Conrad.  Of the nautical authors with whom I'm familiar, he ranks at the top.

Thankyou John, I will have to do that. I have found little to disagree with you on, so I look forward to what should prove excellent reading. Now let's see, library card.......oh yes, there, under that fifty pound pile of cob webs, along with most of my unbuilt kits.

Pete

jtilley wrote:

For what it's worth, I am not a fan of Tom Clancy.  I read The Hunt for Red October during a hospital stay, and it was just the thing to keep my mind occupied under some rather unpleasant circumstances.  And I rather enjoyed Red Storm Rising - especially the conclusion, wherein the Soviet military professionals are revealed to have a clearer understanding of the horrors of war than the politicians do.  But Clancy doesn't  belong in the same category as either Forester or O'Brian.

I agree with about that.  I have read all his Jack Ryan books, but they got to be so ridiculous that I just gave up on his ability to create a worthwhile story (Case in point:The Bear and The Dragon).  I did like Without Remorse and Clear and Present Danger though.  Rainbow 6 is also one of my favorites, if he ever picked up on writing a novel exclusively about the Rainbow 6 unit, I would pick that one up.  My dislike of Clancy however stems from a phone call when he was on some show and taking questions.  I had the (mis)pleasure of trying to get through for an hour to ask a simple question about his empire other than novels.  Well he didn't want to go in that direction and completely blew me off by just cutting the line with a "I don't know anything about that." 

I came to the conclusion that unless one has a military background or celebrity status, he doesn't want to give a fan the time of day.

Sumpter 250 - you owe it to yourself to try Joseph Conrad.  Of the nautical authors with whom I'm familiar, he ranks at the top.  Unfortunately for us, sea stories actually make up only a small portion of his output.  But the imagery in Typhoon, Youth, and The Nigger of the Narcissus is unforgettable - and I think any trained literature expert (which I'm not) would agree that they outclass any of the works we've been discussing in this thread.  I venture to predict that a hundred years from now, neither Forester, O'Brian, or Clancy will be on the required reading lists for graduate literature courses.  Conrad will. 

What makes Conrad's style especially remarkable - if not downright unbelievable - is that his native language was not English but Polish.  He adopted the English nation, and the British merchant marine, as his home in his adulthood; how he managed to acquire such an ear for the subtleties of his second language I can't imagine.  And he did it without writing 150-word sentences.

By the time O'Brian got halfway through the series he was an elderly man (he was 86 years old when he died, with the last novel in progress), with a massive following of worshipful groupies and a publisher who, presumably, was prepared to offer him an enormous cash advance for anything he wanted to write.  Under such circumstances it's certainly understandable that he indulged himself. 

 Lufbery - Flying Colours is probably my least-favorite of the Forester novels.  The plot and characters probably wouldn't have much appeal to anybody who hadn't read at least the preceding book in the series, Ship of the Line.  If I had to recommend one to start with, it probably would be Beat to Quarters (British title:  The Happy Return), the first one he wrote.  On the other hand, there's a great deal of pleasure to be gained by reading the books in "series order," in which case one would start with Mr. Midshipman Hornblower.  That one reads like a series of short stories (which is how it was originally published in the Post), but it's great fun and a fine introduction to the subject.  The second book in the series, Lieutenant Hornblower, is one of my very favorites.

One other big difference between Forester and O'Brian:  O'Brian was notoriously reclusive (to the point of inventing a past history for himself), and revealed scarcely anything about how he happened to write the books.  Forester, late in his life, published a book called The Hornblower Companion, in which he gave lots of interesting insights into how the mind of a novelist in those days worked.  (A childhood encounter with a family friend from the Continent who wrote the numeral 7 with a bar across it, for instance, led to an encounter with a French privateer in Hornblower and the Atropos.)  And he announced, with tongue firmly in cheek, that Hornblower was the first adulterer to appear in the pages of the Saturday Evening Post.   Apparently Commodore Hornblower's one-page rendezvous with the Russian countess caused something of a stir among the Post's editors.

For what it's worth, I am not a fan of Tom Clancy.  I read The Hunt for Red October during a hospital stay, and it was just the thing to keep my mind occupied under some rather unpleasant circumstances.  And I rather enjoyed Red Storm Rising - especially the conclusion, wherein the Soviet military professionals are revealed to have a clearer understanding of the horrors of war than the politicians do.  But Clancy doesn't  belong in the same category as either Forester or O'Brian.

jtilley wrote:

His books strike me largely as exercises in self-indulgence.  He gets an idea (about a character, an event, or some concept that seemd for some reason to appeal to him - like a man walking around in a bear skin, or a three-toed sloth getting drunk), and would spend page after page writing about it until he happened to get tired of it.  Then he would drop the subject and go on to something else.  Characters sometimes appear in and disappear from O'Brian novels almost arbitrarily.

O'Brian is a reflective observer, someone who fleshes out the world to the smallest details with reveries and elaborate, ruminating prose rather than leaving it a purposeful skeleton of single minded staccato sentences.   His caters to different tastes than that which would appreciate a Tom Clancy novel.

I respect O'Brian and I've enjoyed the five or six of his books that I've read.  I do not worship him the way some of his readers do.  He was an expert in the use of the language (on a certain level), and extremely knowledgeable about many, many aspects of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European history.  He also was a supreme egotist and an extreme eccentric.  His books strike me largely as exercises in self-indulgence.  He apparently would get an idea (about a character, an event, or some concept that for some reason to appealed to him - like a man walking around in a bear skin, or a three-toed sloth getting drunk), and would spend page after page writing about it until he happened to get tired of it.  Then he would drop the subject and go on to something else.  Characters sometimes appear in and disappear from O'Brian novels almost arbitrarily.

He also had a fascination for long-winded sentences.  I've counted the words in a few of them; the totals sometimes exceeed 150.  Apparently he had the notion that the "eighteenth-century cadence," as I've heard it called, was advanced by such linguistic monstrosities.  Maybe it was, in the hands of Jonathan Swift or Daniel Defoe.  O'Brian was neither.  To my ear his page-long sentences are nuisances.  If one of my students turned in such a thing I'd hand it back and tell him to start over.

On more than one occasion, though, I've been on the verge of tossing an O'Brian book aside when he's opened a new scene - a storm at sea, for example - that really grabs me with its eloquence.  There are some examples of outstanding literature in those books.  I just wish they weren't puncuated with so much ideosyncratic silliness.  Some of O'Brian's readers admire him so much that they're willing to go along for the ride wherever he takes them.  I just haven't been able to do that.  I'm sure his description of what it feels like to walk around for several days inside a bear skin is accurate, but I don't think that knowledge has added much to my life.

O'Brian was a good writer and an expert on his subject matter; his books certainly are worth reading.    But I just can't join those who worship him as a near-deity.  I've read repeatedly that comment from the New York Times critic who called the O'Brian books "the best historical novels ever written."  I have to wonder how many historical novels that critic had read.  Had he ever heard of Sir Walter Scott?  Or Arthur Conan Doyle?  Or Leo Tolstoy?  Or, for that matter, Charles Dickens? 

C.S. Forester lived in a different era, and had to appeal to a different audience.  (Most of the Hornblower books were first published as serials in the Saturday Evening Post. )  In my opinion Forester handled the English language far better than O'Brian did; you won't find 150-word sentences in any Forester book.  Forester also made his share of mistakes.  (The bomb ketches in Commodore Hornblower didn't resemble anything in use by the Royal Navy in 1812.)  Many of the books that O'Brian obviously consulted didn't exist in Forester's day.  But Forester knew how to develop characters, he knew how to construct a coherent plot (better than O'Brian did, in my opinion), and he knew how to tell a good story in a way that entertained his readers while simultaneously educating them.  And Forester never crammed two years' worth of events into one calendar year. 

I wouldn't want to label either of those authors "better" than the other overall; they represent extremely different, and, I suppose, legitimate approaches to the genre.

QUOTE:

BTW, Historical events would place Fortunes of War at 1812, and the hundred days in 1815.    Does anyone besides me think Patrick O'Brian lost track of time between those two books?   Come on.   In those 3 years from 1812 and 1815, Aubrey, Maturin and the Surprise circumnavigated the world twice, morooned on a East Indies pirate island once, marooned on a uninhabited south sea island once,  mounted a land expedition in Arabia once, deployed to the Baltic once, captured by the French and sent to imprisonment in Paris once, escaped from France back to England once, got deployed to the Mediterranean twice, deployed to the red sea once, and Aubrey got struck off the list once, elected to the parliment once, and reinstated onto the navt list once.   It is not every century when all these things can be accomplished in just under 3 years!

Many O'Brian fans refer to this as the LONG year of 1813. O'Brian notes in the preface to The Far Side of the World that if he had known he would end up writing a series (and FSOTW is only #10 of 20) instead of just one novel he would have made better use of the historical time scale, e.g. started earlier. He stays historically accurate up till about 1812, but then necessarily departs from from it after. It is, after all, fiction.

P.S.: How does one quote somebody in the yellow box on this board? I can't figure it out.

jtilley wrote:

O'Brian was a novelist - an intensely knowledgable but highly eccentric one, to say the least.  I'm not the least surprised (oops) that he changed some details of the ship to suit his own purposes.  What does surprise me, in fact, is that he picked an actual ship to put in his fictitious stories.  C.S. Forester didn't do that.  Real ships occasionally poke their bowsprits into the Hornblower books (Hornblower was court-martialed on board H.M.S. Victory), but the Atropos, Hotspur, Renown, Lydia, Sutherland, Witch of Endor, etc. are all purely fictitious.  (Somebody may find one or more of those names attached to a ship somewhere in the history of the Royal Navy, but Forester clearly didn't intend any such association.)

"Geoff Hunt Cover Art:

 The Truelove

 1. Shows ship’s boats on davits at stern and on starboard quarter (and, presumably, larboard quarter), ca. 1813-1814"

In several books leading up to the True Love, O'Brain explicitly said the shape of Surprise's quarter precluded the installation of the new fangled quarter davits.

In the British navy of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, cable-laid rope was generally used for standing rigging.  (Cable-laid rope is spun up left-handed; that is to say, if you look at a piece of it running vertically, the strands go up and to the left.)  The shrouds, lower stays, and some other extremely large lines were shroud-laid, which is the same as cable-laid but with four strands instead of three.  (To the modeler that's not terribly relevant, unless the observor can see and count the ends of the strands.)  Running rigging, with some exceptions, was generally hawser-laid (i.e., right-handed)Almost all the commercial thread I've encountered is hawser-laid.  At least one specialist company produced cable-laid linen line specially for ship modelers a few years ago; I'm not sure whether it's still available or not.

I've made a considerable amount of rope over the past thirty years or so (using a couple of incredibly crude but perfectly workable "rope-making machines), and I've never worried much about the lay of the raw material.  If the lay of the individual strands is wrong, the first thing that will happen is that the "rope-making machine" will unlay them and twist them up in the other direction.  The amount of time for making an individual piece of rope will thereby be increased a little, but the result will be fine.

I used to use silk thread, which was available in a couple of diameters from good sewing stores back in the Goode Olde Dayes, but I haven't been able to find a good source of it lately.  On my last model I used the "cotton/poly mix" stuff from Model Shipways, and was pretty satisfied with it.  It has a nice, rope-like texture and a believable color.  It's hawser-laid (at least all the spools of it I bought are). 

Russ,

   I'll have to check that out. Your caution is well worth noting. If you are going to "make rope", you have to be aware of the "lay" of the material you are using. Right laid line requires left laid strands, and vice versa.

Pete

Pete:

A word of warning about the rigging line. Be careful to note how the thread is laid up before you use it to make rigging line. I am not certain, but I think that the commercially available prewaxed thread that is commonly available is already left hand laid.

Russ

Hmmmm, The "chainplates" on the cast deadeyes, are just a bit brittle. Go to plan "B", build new chainplate connections to the lower deadeyes...........Plan "C"?.....scratchbuild all new deadeyes. One of the things that's come to light is the placement of the deadeyes, and chainplates, on the rail,and hull. The original kit had the chainplates, in some places, bent around the gunports.....They cannot be "bent", and they can't interfere with the opening of the gunports. Looks like I will have to move them...Ahhh, the joys of kitbashing.

I got my copy of " The Making Of Master and Commander, the far side of the world". I didn't get all that I could have wanted, but there is a lot of good information there, and a lot of detail can be gotten out of the photos..   The piece of copper I've had soaking in a sea salt solution for the last week or so, hasn't shown any sign of discoloring yet. There is a nice color photo, in the book, that shows the full size tank model of "surprise" on its gimbal, while the tank is being filled. The copper bottom is turning the typical "green". Unless my little experiment shows other, I will probably weather the bottom according to this photo. The book also indicates that "lefthand laid", or "cable laid" line is used in the rigging. There is one photo where this line can be seen. I'll have to very carefully search all the photos, to see where it has been used.....I might have to finally build a "ropewalk", so I can build the "cable laid" rigging lines.

Pete

Have you figured out what you are going to do for deadyes and lanyards yet?

  I currently plan on using the cast deadeye/lanyard from the kit, removing the cast shrouds, and rigging new ones around the cast upper deadeye. Likewise, I can attach the chainplates to the lower deadeyes, and fasten the chainplate to the hull with escutcheon pins, or brass wire. I'll try to take pictures of the process and post them.

Pete

Dude, you da Man! Those gallery windows are beautiful! Please keep posting pics, this is really inspirational!

Weasel

Peter,

This is turning into a beautiful model. It would impossible to guess its pedigree from the photos.

Have you figured out what you are going to do for deadyes and lanyards yet?

A couple of new pics, with paint:

 a port bow shot,

and the transom.

yeah, I got the waterline climbing up under the counter. I'll get that corrected before I shoot the bottom color.

I agree with Armchair Sailor on all points - with the tiny caveat that Hornblower appeared a generation before Bolitho, Ramage, and Drinkwater.  The first Hornblower book, Beat to Quarters (British title:  The Happy Return) was published, I believe, in 1937.  If I remember correctly, the other series started in the sixties.  Forester, of course, was by no means the founder of the Napoleonic naval fiction genre.  I think that title goes to Capt. Frederick Marryat, who was a veteran of the Napoleonic Wars himself.

I'm a big Dudley Pope fan.  My only regret is that, probably for financial reasons, he wrote so much more fiction than non-fiction - because his non-fiction books are pretty terrific.  I particularly recommend Decision at Trafalgar, The Great Gamble:  Nelson at Copenhagen, The Black Ship, and At Twelve Mr. Byng Was Shot.  Pope's World War II books are good, too.  Graf Spee:  The Life and Death of a Raider (British title:  The Battle of the River Plate) ought to be required reading for anybody building a model of that ship, and 73 North:  The Defeat of Hitler's Navy is a remarkable story of a decisive convoy action between British destroyers and German heavy surface units on the Murmansk run.  First-rate stuff.  Pope knew how to do his research, and he knew how to write - a regrettably rare combination of skills.

sumpter250 wrote:

You know what might be fun? Make the Surprise the way she looked after her first encounter with the Acheron! I'll bet the battle damage would be (if you'll pardon the pun) a real blast to do.   OK, if it doesn't turn out to my liking, I'll take it out to the range, and see if my Dad's .22 rifle is still accurate.

You know what might be fun? Make the Surprise the way she looked after her first encounter with the Acheron! I'll bet the battle damage would be (if you'll pardon the pun) a real blast to do.

  OK, if it doesn't turn out to my liking, I'll take it out to the range, and see if my Dad's .22 rifle is still accurate.

For that matter, I'd love to see a kit of the Interceptor from Pirates of the Carribean.

 I could go for that kit, "Pirates" was one of the more enjoyable movies of the genre.

I just might print out this whole thread, and keep it with the finished model. In reality there were too many "surprises", and, as has been mentioned here and elsewhere, there was more than one "surprise" in the movie, each with some detail variance. While it makes building a model difficult, it also makes criticizing difficult. I guess I could be accused of taking the easy way out, bulding the ship based on the movie. I am about to begin masking the hull so I can shoot the second color. This will not be easy.

Pete

I can easily understand why anybody who hadn't read any of the O'Brian books would find the plot of that movie baffling.  The moviemakers apparently assumed - for better or worse - that a large portion of the audience would be made up of O'Brian fans.  Such people would know that the captain and the doctor are close personal friends.  (Critics have commented at length that the series is a 21-volume rumination on the nature of male friendship - rather remarkable in view of the fact that O'Brian, an extremely eccentric and not-altogether-likable character, seems to have had few if any close friends of his own.)  The two met at a chamber music concert, and discovered a mutual interest in that subject.  (One of the least impressive aspects of the movie was Russell Crowe's attempt to look like he was playing the violin.  I speak as a former, extremely unsuccessful violin student.)  The doctor, like many members of his profession in those days, is an expert on natural history.  And - though this point doesn't figure in the movie - he's also a clandestine agent for British intelligence.  (There's one brief piece of dialogue in which he and the captain refer in passing to the fact that both sides in the war have intelligence agents.  That brought grins of recognition from the O'Brian fans in the audience.)

The moviemakers must have been at least partially right in their assumptions; the movie apparently made lots of money.  I repeat:  I'm not among O'Brian's biggest fans.  But I have read some of the books (not all of them yet - though I've bought all of them), and I do recommend them to anybody with an interest in this area of history. 

Regarding the old Gregory Peck "Hornblower" movie - one curious aspect of it is that Forester himself was credited with the screenplay.  I don't know who else may have had a hand in it; I rather suspect he got leaned on in various directions by the Hollywood moguls.  But to my knowledge he never openly disowned the movie or expressed any dissatisfaction with it.  I believe Forester moved from England to California for the specific purpose of trying to break into the Hollywood scriptwriting game.  Several of his books and stories got made into movies, including the novels Payment Deferred and The Gun (movie title:  "The Pride and the Passion," with Cary Grant, Frank Sinatra, and Sofia Loren - a really awful flick) and the short story "Brown on Resolution" (movie title: "Sailor of the King").  If I remember right, the movie "Sink the Bismarck" also was identified as being based on Forester's book.  All those flicks got mixed receptions; the only Forester-based movie that was an unqualified hit, and has really endured, was, of course, "The African Queen."

Now we've really moved off topic.  Sorry about that; my fault.

John:

I will respectfully disagree with your opinion of Master and Commander. Yes, the details are good. Yes, the battle scenes are remarkably well done. The film has a lot of little things to attract viewers.

But, and I am coming at this from the standpoint of one who has never read any of O'Brien's books, what about characters? The film does little, if anything, to really develop the main characters. If you have not read the books, you can get lost pretty quick. I have no idea why Aubrey and Maturin are arguing about punishments and spying on the crew. Why? Because I have never read the read the books and I do not understand right off the bat the kind of relationship they have that allows the ship's doctor to barge into the great cabin and grouse with the captain. I can get past this problem because I have read quite a bit on the period and on naval officers, but what about someone who is a lay person and does not have any basis on which they can understand these characters?

The main problem I have with the film is the story. Like you said, they wanted to find elements from O'Brien's books that would attract people and yet not blow the budget. Fine, But, this film suffers the same problem they had with Peck's Hornblower film. They ripped up two or three books and created a 2 hour screen play. There were scenes in the movie that had nothing to do with the main plot. I think the main plot was the chase the Acheron and take her or sink her. Fine. But what does Maturin's little science expedition to the islands have to do with that? What does the young officer committing suicide have to do with it? And that wonderful little fully framed model that the two crew members just "knocked together" to show the captain what he was up against? That was useful in the story, but come now!

Well, I do not want to turn this into a debate on the merits of the film, but I just had to get this out. Sorry if its off topic. :) 

Russ 

jtilley wrote:

To make a good movie about sailing warships, and make it appeal to today's mass audience, requires an almost unimaginable amount of money.

I've heard, though, that Peter Weir and Russell Crowe are talking about a sequel.  If it happens, they'll get my ticket money again.

Well, that seems to sort it out pretty clearly.

I have the impression that lots of cooks stirred the broth of that movie.  Somebody apparently got the notion initially that a Patrick O'Brian book would make a good movie, but picking one of the novels for the purpose apparently just wasn't practicable.  It's fairly easy to reconstruct the logic that probably went into the eventual decision.  The plot from The Far Side of the World offered a big, obvious attraction:  it only involved two ships.  But the Bad Guys in it were Americans, so something needed to be changed:  the American frigate (obviously based on the actual Essex) had to become a French privateer.  And the people responsible for the script apparently couldn't resist interjecting little bits of plots from other books into the movie.  They apparently were desperately worried that if they didn't do everything just right, the thing would be a financial flop.  And somewhere in the process somebody decided to put a title together out of two book titles.  It is indeed amusing that the finally-chosen title has nothing to do with the finally-realized story.  Unless I'm much mistaken, there's not a single person with the rank master and commander in the movie.

The other side of the coin is that, in my opinion at least, the result was pretty daggone good.  I'm not O'Brian's biggest fan.  (I like O'Brian's books, and I respect his knowledge of early-nineteenth-century British history, but, unlike a lot of his fans, I don't worship him.  In the long-standing conflict between the O'Brianites and the Foresterians, I'm still in the latter camp.)  But that movie is so much more believable than any other flick about sailing warships that it practically occupies its own planet.  Hollywood has had a horrible time bringing stories like this to the screen effectively.  The only other movies I'm aware of that even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath are "Damn the Defiant" and "Billy Budd."  (The latter is marginal.  The distant shots of the ships in it are pretty hokey, but the depiction of naval life and discipline is excellent - and the acting is superb.  "Damn the Defiant" is, in my opinion, an excellent movie - a good story, excellent photography, fine performances.  The last shot always makes me regret that Alec Guinness never had the opportunity to play Nelson.  But a frigate with a cargo boom on the front of its main mast???)  I liked the British TV mini-series "I Remember Nelson," but the budgetary limitations on it were glaringly obvious.  And the old Gregory Peck version of "Captain Horatio Hornblower," though lots of fun for audiences at the time, really doesn't stand up to modern scrutiny.  (I certainly wouldn't want anybody to get introduced to the Hornblower series by that  movie.)

To make a good movie about sailing warships, and make it appeal to today's mass audience, requires an almost unimaginable amount of money.  (The "Hornblower" mini-series on A&E cable shows what happens when people with good intentions try to make such movies without having enough money.)  Those of us who are interested in such things should, I think, be grateful that "Master and Commander" is as good as it is - and that it did, as I understand it, make a respectable profit.  If it had been a financial bust, it's unlikely that anybody would ever try to make such a movie again.  I've heard, though, that Peter Weir and Russell Crowe are talking about a sequel.  If it happens, they'll get my ticket money again. 

Well, the Royal Navy was full of Surprizes....  nine of them are listed in David Lyon's 'The Sailing Navy List', serving from 1746 to 1837.

Three British built fifth rates, a 1741 Establishment 24 X 9, a 1770 Enterprise class 24 X9, an 1808 Leda class 28 X 18 (a sister to the Shannon).

A captured sixth rate upgraded to a fifth rate, the Unite 24 X 9 (french 8 pdr) rearmed by the Brtitish with 24 X 32 pdr. carronades, 8 X 18 pdr. carronades on the quarterdeck and 4 X 6 pdr. on the foc'sl.

A captured American Privateer

A captured french cutter

A British cutter

A captured French merchant schooner.

A captured American schooner on the Great LAkes 

As Dr. Tilley points out the Unite/Surpris(z)e was the inspiration for Aubrey's ship.  The 1741 ships were from the Seven Years War, the Enterprize class Surprize was sold in 1783 and the Leda class came too late.

Of course O'Brian took liberties with the ship and her armament and Hollywood stretched them further. Even though 'Master and Commander' is a catchy title and was probably the most read Aubrey book, that title is incorrect for the story portrayed in the film. Master and Commander refers to the fact that the officer in command of a sloop (or smaller vessel) was not a captain and did not have a sailing master. One person was responsible for both functions. As a post captain, Aubrey was in command and would have had a dedicated sailing 'master'.

Ah, the things I loose sleep over.

Ferg:

John is correct. The plan in the link is certainly the ship that inspired O'Brien's Surprize, but that is about all that can be said. From this point it is all a matter of trying to figure out where the Surprize in the plan stops and where O'Brien's Surprize begins. Unfortunately, there is no way to know for certain.

Russ

I can't sort out the whole story either, but a partial answer is:  yes, there was a British ship named Surprise that was captured from the French.  This, courtesy of Russ, is her Admiralty draught:

http://members.aol.com/batrnq/images/WSurprise.jpg

The label "SURPRISE late L'UNITE" appears clearly on it.  There's little room for doubt:  this is the ship that (well, sort of) inspired the O'Brian books. 

The careers and dates of the other Surprises ought to be in Lyon's Sailing Navy List (and, for that matter, its older predecessor, Colledge's Ships of the Royal Navy).  I gather Schoonerbumm has a copy of the Lyon book; maybe he can help.

It sure would be nice if navies would agree never to use the same ship name twice.  (I wish I had a dollar for every photo I've seen that purports to show the Yorktown that sank at Midway, and in fact shows the later, Essex-class ship.)  Sometimes, of course, the re-use of a name is almost a patriotic ritual.  But other times it just seems to beget confusion.

I think the most spectacular case of such mistaken identity I've witnessed was one I saw in the museum where I used to work.  In the ship carving gallery was the figurehead from a big, early-twentieth-century luxury yacht named Mayflower.  With my own ears I heard a visitor tell his kid, "look, Jimmy, this figurehead came off the Pilgrims' ship!"  Next to the figurehead was a huge photo of the vessel from which it had been removed - complete with belching smokestack.  Oh, well...whatever.

OK ,now I'm more confused.

                                          Ok,the Royal Navy themselves state that they had 4 ships named HMS Surprise (Surprize). Ship #1 was a small ship not a frigate. I know the # 4 ship was a "cut down" 64 or 74 gun ship to a "british 44 gun" aledgeitly (sp?) to compete with the Americian 44 gun frigates ,ie: USS Constitution. She was at Fort Mc Henry , Francis Scott Key was detained or her during the shelling of the fort.

                                         Ok was there a ship named HMS Surprise that was a converted captured French frigate ? Is this a myth or fact ? Does any one have facts on ships # 2 and # 3 ?

                                                                                                          Ferg

L'Unite was a 'Corvettes 24 de 8', in service from 1793 until captured in 1796 (Boudriot). The British uprated her to a 'fifth rate' or 'frigate' (Lyon). By this time she was effectively a sixth rate based on her 9 pdr. armament (but if my memory is correct, rating her as a fifth rate entitled her commander to a post captain slot) 

L'Imperieuse was an 18 pdr. frigate in service from 1786 until captured by the British in 1793 (Boudriot). The British renamed her Unite in 1803 (Lyon). She was finally hulked in 1836 (Lyon) a remarkably long life - so much for the stereotype that the French built frail ships.

Well, this is getting interesting.  I do have a copy of Mr. Goodwin's book, and when I compared the L'Unite drawings in it with the Admiralty draught Russ posted it became pretty clear that they depict two different ships.  It seems the British captured two French frigates of that name. 

The one described in the Goodwin book, according to the text, was in Royal Navy service for six years, being captured in 1796 and sold in 1802.  She retained her French name throughout that period.  The one shown in the Admiralty draught that Russ posted is, obviously, the one that got renamed H.M.S. Surprise.

There are quite a few differences.  The Unite in Mr. Goodwin's book has a raised poop (actually more of a roof over a roundhouse); the one in the Admiralty draught has shoulder-high bulwarks on her forecastle.  The distribution of the gunports is different, as is the number of deadeyes for the lower shrouds.  The angles made by the sternposts and transoms are a little different, as are the shapes of the rabbet line at the bow.  The bow of the ship in the Admiralty draught has a considerably leaner and meaner look - as one would expect in a ship that was built quite a bit later. 

Presumably Mr. Goodwin (a fine scholar who knows precisely what he's doing - and is listed as one of the technical advisors for the movie "Master and Commander") based his drawing on the Admiralty draught of the earlier Unite.  Which - if either - was the inspiration for Mr. O'Brian I have no idea.  Bottom line:  we know what the real H.M.S. Surprise looked like, because we have the Admiralty draught.  We know what the ship used in the movie looks like (quite a bit different from the real ship), because she still exists.  We know that O'Brian, when he was writing his novels, was (some of the time, at least) visualizing a vessel that looked at least a bit different from the real one.  But we don't know, and have no way of knowing, just what the one in O'Brian's head looked like.  Maybe Captain Aubrey did command a ship that looked like La Flore.  Nobody can prove he didn't.

Folks, I do believe I'll stick with models of real ships.  I enjoy digging up bits of information from historical sources, and filling in the inevitable gaps with inference and personal taste.  But reading the mind of an eccentric, ideosyncratic, and deceased novelist is beyond my capacity.

John:

I dug this up over at DDM. This may be what you were thinking of. This is the NMM plan of L'Unite aka Surprize.

http://members.aol.com/batrnq/images/WSurprise.jpg

Russ

Shipmates:

                     In the book Nelson's Ships by Peter Goodwin ,Chapter 22 is the profile of the captured French ship L'Unit'e. There is a RN profile of the ship when she was still French "configured". She was a 38 gun ship in the French Navy. The profile shows her having 14 gun ports per side on the gun deck.The history is "mixed" in the text it is known that the first "refit" the RN did to her was change her to a 36 gun ship.It is not clear if she was "cut down" her bulwarks were changed to reflect the higher "step up" of the aft bulwarks. I can not remember where I read this but some writer once claimed that the L'Unit'e was reworked agin and became the 2nd HMS Surprise. I do not know if this is factual or the writers opinion.

                     Bill Luther took the profile from this book and enlarged it to 1/130 scale, he laid the starbroad hull 1/2 from the JR kit on the scale copy. The fit was almost perfect. The aft bulwarks did not match up perfectly but that might be due to what plans were used to make the Lindberg JR. I cut down the hull of the JR to 13 gun ports per side.That was two gun ports from the center waist. I covered the aft most gun port over. She now has 12 gun ports per side.

                      I can scan this profile and send it anyone who would like a copy. I am currently working on the sails, the vac sails are not up to par. I am expermenting with making paper sails.

                                                                                              Ferg  

Well, Schoonerbumm has saved me a trip to the library.  My recollection of the photos being in the Lyon book obviously was (like so many of my recollections these days) in error.  Sorry about that.  Seems like I've seen those drawings somewhere or other.

What's the scale of that old Lindberg kit?  For my 1/128 Hancock I found that the smallest size britannia metal deadeyes from Bluejacket were about right for the lower fore and main deadeyes.  Model Expo sells some nice walnut ones that are smaller than that.  They're a little thick, but can be filed down.  The smallest deadeyes I've ever encountered commercially are some beautiful turned bakelite ones that I bought from Model Shipways about 25 years ago. I used them for the topmast shrouds of the Hancock.  I haven't seen those bakelight deadeyes on the market for years; I have a few left, but nothing would induce me to part with them.

sumpter250 wrote:

I still haven't settled exactly what I'll do about deadeyes,and lanyards, but it's getting close to time for at least lower deadeyes, and chainplates.

Apparently, then the NMM has a fair set of drawings for L'Unite. That's the good news. Note the description given in Lyon that mentioned decoration. That might very well mean they included her figurehead and perhaps some of the stern carvings as well. I have seen several "as captured" drawings from the NMM collection and most of them do include the figurehead and stern decorations. Quite often, when designing their own ships, the British did not include all the decorations on a "design" draught, but did on a few of the 1770s "as built" plans of their frigates.

Provided they did not do any serious rebuioding of L'Unite's struture before sending her back to sea, those drawings might well be useful in recreating Surprize.

Russ

The Sailing Navy list doesn't have any drawings of Surprize (L'Unite) but does confirm that the NMM has 'lines & profile & decoration/quarterdeck and forecastle'.

O'Brien is not a reliable source for many technical details (he's not well considered by many sailors for the accuracy/realism of his sailing descriptions).  His talent was in scripting soap operas for men.

P.S.: Yo, Sumpter250, got any more pics of your excellent model?

I'm in New Jersey for the weekend, and left "Surprise" in fresh paint. At this point, I have some serious masking before the next color is sprayed. I need to get the hull paint done before installing the guns, and working the main deck details. I'll get pics up as soon as I can. I still haven't settled exactly what I'll do about deadeyes,and lanyards, but it's getting close to time for at least lower deadeyes, and chainplates. I did get a reasonable facsimile of the carving on the transom done. I'll feel better about it after the painting is done.

I think Russ has it right.  O'Brian seems to have based his fictional ship on the real Surprise/ex-Unite. Why he did that, rather than inventing a fictitious ship, will, I guess, remain a mystery.

The Royal Navy's policy was to prepare plans for every significant vessel it acquired, whether by construction, purchase, or capture.  (Thank goodness.  Admiralty draughts are among our best sources of information on American sailing warships - especially those of the Revolutionary War.)  My recollection is that the Admiralty draught of the Surprise/ex-Unite is indeed the one that's reproduced in David Lyon's Sailing Navy List.  The more I think about it, though, the less confident in my memory about that I am.  Our university library has the book; I'll try to remember to take a look at it the next time I'm over there.  Apparently the book is out of print and hard to find.  I couldn't locate a new or used copy at either the Barnes and Noble site, Amazon, or Bookfinder.com.  That's a shame.  It's a first-rate reference work - and a real wish book for modelers.  In addition to tabular information about every ship of the Royal Navy during the sailing ship period, it contains hundreds of photos of Admiralty draughts.

Russ is, of course, right about the problems of working with those old drawings.  Aesthetically they're things of great beauty, but as plans for modelers they do have their drawbacks.  The truth of the matter is that for many practical modeling purposes a good photo of an Admiralty draught is as good as the full-size prints the NMM sells.  When I was working on my little model of the Continental frigate Hancock some years back I worked from a print of the Howard I. Chapelle drawings, which are available from the Smithsonian (which charges quite reasonable prices and offers good mail order service).  Chapelle's drawings are tracings from the Admiralty draught, with corrections to fair the lines (among other things).  I found photos of the Admiralty draught in a couple of books, enlarged them to the model's scale on a xerox machine, and used them as a check on Chapelle's details.  (He had the nasty habit of making changes from contemporary sources - sometimes for questionable reasons.  That's another story.)  For anybody starting with a kit, buying full-size prints from an Admiralty draught would be a waste of money - if you can find a photo of it.

John:

I cannot comment on the oines in that book either, but I can add a few tidbits to yours.

It may be that the plans Lavery refers to are, in fact, the admiralty draught of the captured L'Unite that was later renamed Surprise. As I understand it, it was this ship that was the inspiration for O'Brien's novel.

Now, regarding the copies of plans from NMM. They are, in fact, very expensive. As I commented recently on another forum, a set of 7 drawings for a British light frigate of the 1770s would cost me, after all was said and done, around $200 US. And then I would have to redraw those plans in order to use them as they would have distorted from temperature and humidity over the last 200 years.

Russ

I don't have the book Weasel505 mentioned, so I can't comment on the drawings reproduced in it.  It should, however, be fairly easy to tell whether they're the genuine Admiralty draughts or a modern version.  An eighteenth- or nineteenth-century Admiralty draught is characterized by beautiful draftsmanship (though the amount of detail varies considerably from drawing to drawing), handsome cursive lettering all over the place, and a "scale bar" running along the bottom of the outboard profile.  The scale bar consists of seven closely-spaced horizontal lines running the length of the ship.  Vertical lines are marked every foot, and numbered every five feet.  In the last foot at each end are a pair of diagonal lines forming a V, which let you step off units of two inches.  Some modern draftsmen (e.g., Howard I. Chapelle) adopted the same system, but virtually every Admiralty draught of the period has a scale bar like that.  The cross sections (which generally appear to the left of the sheer plan and waterline plan) include a series of diagonal lines that have no obvious relation to reality; they in fact indicate the radii of the circle arcs that form the cross-sections.  In good reproductions the background of an Admiralty draught usually looks light grey, probably with some darker spots at one end.  (The original was done on drafting cloth and kept rolled up for decades; the end with the stains was on the outside.)  Once you've looked at a few Admiralty draughts, it's tough to confuse them with anythig else.

If I'm not mistaken (as I could be; I haven't looked at the book in a long time) the Admiralty draught of H.M.S. Surprise is in fact reproduced in at least one other book:  David Lyon's The Sailing Navy List.  I don't have a copy of that one either; the price is beyond my budget.  But a good public or university library might have a copy.

The National Maritime Museum does sell prints of the plans in its collection.  They used to be notoriously expensive, and getting them delivered took a notoriously long time.  I think I've heard that the situation has improved in recent years; not ever having ordered any such plans myself, I can't comment from personal experience.

O'Brian was a novelist - an intensely knowledgable but highly eccentric one, to say the least.  I'm not the least surprised (oops) that he changed some details of the ship to suit his own purposes.  What does surprise me, in fact, is that he picked an actual ship to put in his fictitious stories.  C.S. Forester didn't do that.  Real ships occasionally poke their bowsprits into the Hornblower books (Hornblower was court-martialed on board H.M.S. Victory), but the Atropos, Hotspur, Renown, Lydia, Sutherland, Witch of Endor, etc. are all purely fictitious.  (Somebody may find one or more of those names attached to a ship somewhere in the history of the Royal Navy, but Forester clearly didn't intend any such association.)  One of the HECEPOB (Hideously-Expensive-Continental-European-Plank-On-Bulkhead) kit companies did produce a kit labeled "H.M.S. Atropos" some years back, but it was a reboxing of another kit representing a French corvette.

It seems that modelers determined to build Captain Aubrey's ship have their work cut out for them.  On the other hand, it's pretty clear that, in some respects at least, the vessel in question only existed in O'Brian's imagination.  Since he's dead, it would be hard for anybody to prove that a model of Jack Aubrey's Surprise was "inaccurate."

Hi all,

Surprise is still alive. A question about Surprise drawings:

In the book "Patrick O'Brian: Critical Essays and Bibliography", the chapter by Brian Lavery states that the plans for Surprise  "...survive in the National Maritime Museum". His chapter includes line drawings and a cut-away of Surprise, but nowhere does it indicate that these are THE National Maritime Museum plans.

Can anyone confirm or reject that these plans are from the National Maritime Museum? Better yet, can anyone recommend a source for the "official" Surprise plans from the museum? Other than going there myself?

I ask this because these plans (and others from various Internet sources) conflict with O'Brian's written descriptions of Surprise. Yes, I am a pain in the ass.

Thanks,

Weasel

P.S.: Yo, Sumpter250, got any more pics of your excellent model?

As was mentioned alsewhere here, sectioning the hull in the area of the sixth, and seventh gunports, the two halves mate up well with little distortion.

I laid out a centerline on paper, and then crossed it with two lines, perpendicular to the centerline, and spaced the exact distance of the removed section of hull, and another line to mark the aft end of the keel. The hull half was then laid down, with keel on the centerline, and at the aft end mark, and taped down, to hold it in place. A machinists square (or any small square) was positioned on each of the "cut lines", against the bulwark. The keel, and bulwark were marked with a scribe line. The second hull half was done the same way. Masking tape was carefully laid on the hull, in line with the scribe marks (forward and after, on each hull half). to provide the line to cut to. Joining the sections was not difficult. I use MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone) as a solvent cement, it evaporates quickly, and the joint stabilizes fairly rapidly. A strip of styrene backs up the joint. Any mismatch, will occur somewhere in the turn of the bilge. It is most critical that the keel be straight. and the line of the bulwark be fair. It is better that there be a small space open at the turn of the bilge, where it can be backed with the styrene strip, than to have the hull crooked at the keel or bulwark. Cutting, close to the mark, and sanding to final fit is, of course, always the correct procedure. Pre assembly fit can be checked by laying the hull sections on a sheet of glass, and checking the joint alignment. The joined hull sections can be laid back on the glass sheet to help maintain alignment untill the joint sets.

   Woodgrain detail? Go look at a board that has been painted, and maintained. Find the wood grain if you can, then picture it reduced 130 times. You will have to sand the hull in the area of the joint, you can re-create the wood grain, or sand the whole hull. After a coat of paint, anything close to scale, in the way of grain detail, will probably disappear. Hiding the seam?  Any gaps in the seam should first be filled with styrene pieces/strips/bits, and sanded, then, use your favorite body putty, wetsanding if necessary. I use Squadron white putty, and help it flow into the finest areas with a little Testors liquid plastic cement, on the "application tool" (whatever you use to apply the putty).

A glass of wine with you, sir!

One last thing, The sheet of paper, with the lines on it? keep it safe, I used it to lay out the transom windows. The arc of the bottom of the transom windows, is laid, across the centerline, and gets the window spacing laid out on it. The tramsom piece is marked with the centerline, and the slant of the outer window openings, and taped on the marking line on the paper. Following the slant of the outer windows crosses the centerline, some distance up from the transom. That point is the radius point for all the windows on the transom. The same technique is used for the gallery windows, which radiate forward from the line of the slope of the transom. In this case, the aftermost edge of the gallery window plate, is laid against the centerline, the window spacing, at the bottom of the windows, is marked on the plate, with the approximate slant of the forwardmost window edge, which then determines the radius point for all the gallery windows.

Pete

weasel, First, my appologies, I didn't intend to hijack your thread, but it began to appear that I did.

A glass of wine with you, sir! Apology? Never in life! Hijacking a thread, such stuff! The more threads on our dear ol' barky the better, do you not see, ha, ha, ha! I give you joy in your new thread!

But seriously folks....

I think you have hit the proverbial nail on the head with your decision to model the movie version of Surprise, a.k.a. the "HMS" Rose, as modified for the film. It's the only source of "accurate" plans we have, at least to my knowledge. I like the idea of following one KNOWN plan and sticking to it; to try to go with questionable published plans, fanciful wooden models, and written descriptions leaves me uncomfortable, like I'm just guessing. If I put that much effort into a model project I want it to be accurate according to something real.

As I'm sure you are well aware, there are great pics of Rose-as-Surprise at the HMS Rose website. To adapt the Lindberg kit I suppose you have abandoned the kit decks for wood-grained styrene sheet? And here is my burning question: can you describe how you cut and spliced the hull, specifically, how you rejoined the sections, and blended in the seam? What happened to the kit's wood grain? Sand it all off? How did you hide the seam, please?

I'm currently on book 20 (the last) in the series, Blue at the Mizzen (and I'm bummed). In reading the series I have made some notes on POB's written descriptions of Surprise, as well as notes on Geoff Hunt's cover artwork for the series. Hunt's artwork is reputed to be "very accurate", even by O'Brian himself, but accurate according to what I don't know. In any case I present my notes below for the board's perusal, use, or non-use:

HMS Surprise According to PO’B

 Text References:

 The Letter of Marque

Quote 1, p.37: “’… And even now, although this is not the Admiral’s supper table,’ he said quietly, looking at the wheel, which in the Surprise was just forward of the mizenmast, ten feet away, with its helmsman…”

 Quote 2, p. 66: “…but the four men at the wheel and the officer standing behind them with one arm around the mizenmast…”

Implication:       The wheel is in fact forward of the mizzen, not behind, as usually depicted, ca. 1813

Quote, p. 66:    “Most of the watch were in the waist, sheltering from the worst of the spray, rain and flying water under the break in the forecastle…”

 Implication:       Either 1) that there is a step up from the waist to the forecastle, OR 2) that the waist is open and one can go directly under the forecastle deck (2 seems more likely)

The Yellow Admiral

Quote, p. 131:  “…he fell: fell almost straight, just brushing the maintop in his fall and striking one of the starboard quarterdeck carronades…”

Implication:       The quarterdeck had more than one carronades and one was located very near the main mast, ca. 1813-1814

The Hundred Days

Quote, p. 127-128:      “The gun crews had been waiting for the word, and now the red-painted lids all flew up as one, while two seconds later the guns ran out…”

 Implication:       The gun port lids were painted red, presumably on the inside, since the exterior had the Nelson Chequer; perhaps the interior walls of the gun deck were red, ca. 1813-1814

Quote, p. 165:  “…he had given Billy Green, armourer’s mate, a shove as he went aft along the gangway, a shove that Green had returned with such force that Killick plunged between the skid beams to the deck below…”

 Implication:       The waist was indeed open, with gangways on both sides and skid-beams for the boats and spars, and not grated over, ca. 1813-1814

Geoff Hunt Cover Art:

 The Truelove

 1. Shows ship’s boats on davits at stern and on starboard quarter (and, presumably, larboard quarter), ca. 1813-1814

 The Wine Dark Sea

 1. Shows the quarterdeck extending forward to the location of the main mast, ca. 1813-1814

2. Shows an open-topped waist with skid-beams supporting ship’s boats, ca. 1813-1814

 Blue at the Mizzen

 1.  Shows the quarterdeck extending forward to the location of the main mast, 1815

2.  Shows an open-topped waist with skid-beams supporting ship’s boats, 1815

3. (on full-sized painting, not just the book cover) Shows ship’s boats on davits at stern and on starboard quarter (and, presumably, larboard quarter), 1815

 A lot of variability here. That's why I like the idea of doing the movie ship plan, since trying to sort out all the other info seems undoable.

Anyway, I am inspried by your Surprise thus far and am glad that my kit (well, the hull) is still on my desk, masking taped together, and not put back into the stash. Your gallery windows are some fine styrene work, outstanding! Can't wait to see more!

All for now, and hope I haven't been boring,  

Weasel

P.S.: If you see weird formating above, I have no idea how that happened.....

weasel, First, my appologies, I didn't intend to hijack your thread, but it began to appear that I did.

In the pics I posted, I hadn't yet cut back the bulwarks, That cut happens behind the main shrouds, and wasn't immediately visible. It's been done  I'm working on the bow, and gun deck details. Attaching, and painting the gunport lids will be fun, and I don't know if I will try to reproduce the lanyards used to open the ports. That will depend on what materials I can find.

Greg,  I emailed you some info on the sails.   Pete

 Sweet!  Send me the info about the sails...sounds excellent!

           ewaldbros@hotmail.com

                        greg

Mighty impressive work! Do keep us informed. I see you cut back the quarterdeck; should the bulwarks be similarly cut back too? That's how it looks in pictures of HMS Rose that I have. More later.

Weasel

Transom, and quarter galleries are scratchbuilt from Evergreen sheet, and strip styrene. I still have some detail work to do on the galleries, and a lot of work on the bow. The Surprise's bowsprit has a lower rise than the "Roger", I have some changes to make.

All the cannon are ready to install, and I'm starting on the gratings that I'll need. I cannot, in any form of good conscience, use the shroud/ratline/deadeye assemblies. I am looking into the possibility of using just the deadeye/lanyard part, with thread shrouds, and formed wire chainplates. Also, at 1:130 there are a lot of details I may have to leave off the finished model, though, the challenge is there to try to include them. I think furled sails will be the best approach, and I'll include as much rigging as I can find material to do it with. The heavy rigging will be fine enough at this scale, some of the lighter rigging may be left off, as it would be almost invisible.

I could use a full front, clear, picture of the figurehead. I'm still trying to determine whether or not the fore deck is raised, and if so, how big is the step, and how far abaft the bow it raises.

And my next project was to be an outside frame 30" gauge 2-6-6-2 in O scale!

Beautiful job!

The new transom looks almost like a resin casting.... any for sale? 

How about a peek at the new bow?