"Age of Sail Ship Lengths and Beams?" Topic

Info on many vessels is hard to come by in some cases, so just curious what the general concensus is on ship lengths that don't provide a waterline, or gun deck measurement.

Do the lengths given generally include the bowsprit, and any boom overhangs to the rear, or are they generally considered to be waterline lengths?

I imagine the former, but am not really sure.

I'm also curious about sloop and cutter/corvette length to beam ratios, for the 1700 – 1800 period. These seem to start out fairly beamy, at about 2:1, or 2.5:1, and then to trim down fo 3:1, or 3.5:1 in the case of the sloops, later on.

Thoughts about that as well?

Any good on-line or book resources with scaled drawings of some of the smaller vessels, e.g. sloops, cutters, corvettes, brigs, brigantines, and some of the smaller, earlier frigates, or Men of War for this period?

Generally at that time, lengths were expressed as the length of the gun deck, and breadth is usually from outside of one wale to the outside of the opposite.

Dimensions of the rigging including the bowsprit are rarely given, and waterline length is usually not stated either.

one that you will see occasionally is PP,which is post to post – which is a nebulous measurement from the part of the front of the ship where the keel turns upward to the part of the ship where the the sternpost turns upwards.

Some good books include:

Naval War of 1812
Any book from the Caxton Pictoral series
Naval Warfare in the Age of sail (either one – 2 by this title)
Howard Chapelle's The American Sailing Navy and The Search for Speed Under Sail

Don't hold out too long for deckplans though.

Lots of good data in these places:

koti.mbnet.fi/felipe/index.html

link

all-model.com

Jeff

The United States Naval Institute is usually a good publisher of books with technical drawings of age of sail ships.

link

You will find a few original ship plans in the eleven volumes of the Naval Documents of the American Revolution, but you will need to look for those at the library.

Mark

Brian Lavery's books are good

link

Also, Harland:

link

The term LOA includes the bowsprit, the measure is rarely used for length. Generally speaking "length" is either the LOD (length on deck) or at the waterline. Occasionally it is the length of the keel.

as for plans, hull ratios and dimensions of different hull types I recommend

Architecura Navalis Mercatoria by Frederik Henrik Af Chapman

This book is a period (1768) naval architecture treatise and includes hundred of plans of all types of vessels, as well as a section on the math behind the perfect privateer. I own the Dover reprint in paperback, which MSRP's for 16.95 and is available thru amazon

If you would like some plans for early galley frigates, drop me an email, I have a few images i can send along to you that were part of my research for my galley frigate kit

@TGA: From a little bit of poking around, it seems that the smaller ships had a wider beam (proportionally) than the larger ones.

A 12-gun sloop has a waterline:beam ratio of about 2 or 2.5:1, while the Constitution has a wl:b ratio of about 4:1. Both were built at about the same time, late 1700s.

Thanks for all of the info guys.

I really appreciate it.

I disagree with some of the above information presented. Generally if a ships length and beam measurements are given they refer to the Between the Perpendiculars (BP) lines at the bow and stern (defined more specifically as the weight bearing portions of a vessel) and a molded beam measurement.
BP locations can vary widely between different vessels depending on their shape and molded beam is defined as an interior dimension of the hull at its widest part (widest part at the tumblehome for old time square schooner rigged vessels) and does not include outer planking or such things as channels, rigging or other protrusions. If a given measurement is anything other than BP it is normally spelled out as length overall (loa) or waterline (wl). LOA is defined as the extreme length overall of the main vessel hull and does not include the bowsprit because their length could vary widely. Same goes for beam; an overall beam measurement may be termed "extreme". Dimensions of sidewheelers normally do not include the width of the side paddlewheels and housings unless specifically mentioned as including them.
For plans, a lot of hull perspcetives, descriptions and tidbits on anchors, guns and such furniture you can't beat any volume written by Howard Chappelle. His work on the "The American Sailing Navy" is excellent and an indespensible book in my library.
Toby Barrett

Age of Sail "Length" is usually the Length on GD (Gun Deck) and Length of Keel; Bredth is usually Moulded (Before Planking?) and depth, depth of hold. Lot's of specialized books out there give this data, most are, er, not cheap. Rif Winfield has a series of (UK) tomes currently in print. Other countries are a LOT harder to find this data on.

As a point, I would argue that any "historical" figure should be taken with a grain of salt.

Here are the realities . .

Ships were built by hand, and often times were built in fairly different ways then the original draughts. Thus even a plan for the ship may vary from the final ship.

The problem gets worse when you speak of ships from other nations then the UK/US, or pirate ships.

Different books will quote the same figure as a different measure, even in "reference" books . . . I have a rather large naval library and have observed serious discrepancies even in better books.

So take the Cruiser class brig . . . One will see the same tonnage figure quoted as both displacement or tons burden (old measure)

Or evidence the "known" figures for the ships at the battle of lake Erie. Most of the figures on the British fleet are based on reports by Captain Ellis, who turned in the figures in his report.

Thing is, we know he exaggerated his figures, probably to increase his pay, because when these same ships were sold at auction by the coast guard some years later, the figures were smaller, and more correct to known hull ratios.

Chapelle, an oft esteemed source has errors as well. By all historical evidence the large swivel cannon he pictures on the brig Oneida is based on build plans of the ship. In reality, this cannon was instead mounted on the schooner Julia and never used.

Chapelle also pictures the US brig Niagara with an open rail top and a plain bow, details that were speculative, and contradict a primary source painting by an eye witness to the battle.

This is not to say Chapelle is not a good source . . . I own 3 or 4 books by Chapelle and value them highly. I am merely pointing out that if it matters to have exact dimensions, you have to dig deeper then a single reference book. When you do so you will find that we don't know nearly as much about these ships as one might think based on the massive amount of reference material out there.

For the average hobby gamer, this is probably not worth the time to sort out, and one can get a good approximation from the sources we have and this is more then good enough to make a very nice historical game scenario.

Brian Carnes
Designer, Sailpower
sailpowergame.com

As a long time student in things naval with a degree in history I do not recommend for one second that one source be it all. By mentioning Chappelle above I was trying to answer one of Top Gun Ace's original questions. Chappelle is an excellent place to start for what he's asking.

A history of naval architecture: to which is prefixed, an introductory …
By John Fincham (1851)
link

I read accounts in OBrian or another writer about heavier, longer ships able to beat up to lighter, shorter ships in a stern chase. The phenomenon had much to do with naval/maritime architecture. I don't understand the dynamics. Also, critical to a given vessel's seaworthiness, and speed were the disposition of the ballast and cargo in the hold. Rake of the masts, and correct balance and position of the stays were also important. In games where stays are cut, I've witnessed little impact on game play. Only when a mast goes, is there a drop off in speed. Most of these details probably don't need game time on a miniature board, but it is clear to me that key to success on the seas is someone in command who knows what they are doing. In Close Action with a D-Class crew, much of all that is assumed. Games then generally swing on weight of metal. And we get down to the business of the guns, or whack-a-mole time as I call it.

Master Caster, exactly right! its a long time since I've studied naval architecture, but the definitions you've given are exactly correct. They haven't changed since then; breadth is still moulded, and length is still between perpendiculars. Next thing somebody will refer to a vessel's tonnage as its weight, as I saw on another thread…….

Chouan,
Caster is correct if your period of interest happens to be after the year 1800, or you happen to be referring to royal navy ships after the formation of the royal navy establishments. The industrial age brought a lot of innovations forward not the least of which would be standardization.

In the period ace is asking about there is far less "known" information. In many cases there are no known plans of vessels, including ones that would be popular choices for gamers.

In many cases numbers conflict widely, or there are no numbers. In other cases the only known numbers we have were from non naval sources that are appropriations, or based on hearsay, or just dead wrong (most pirate ship stats we have fall into that category)

In the age of Elizabeth, many ships, such as the Golden Hind, measures were of the keel.

In Dean's doctrine of naval Architecture of 1670, all lengths are of the keel.

However by the time of Architecura Navalis Mercatoria in 1768 (Frederik Henrik AF Chapman)all his dimensions were "length between the perps" and "breadth moulded"

I have also seen references to length of gundeck used in navy sources such as the online US navy ship dictionary

In any case, no one has said Caster's information is incorrect, or has referred to tonnage as "weight" as you describe so perhaps you should leave other threads to themselves ;)

I read accounts in OBrian or another writer about heavier, longer ships able to beat up to lighter, shorter ships in a stern chase. The phenomenon had much to do with naval/maritime architecture. I don't understand the dynamics.

A non-planing vessel's speed has a lot to do with length of waterline compared to beam. The problem is that a wider beam gives better seakeeping if you aren't running with the waves, but for best speed you want a narrow beam (assuming the same available power). Best examples of this currently are the Ticonderoga and Arleigh Burke classes. The Ticos are a bit faster in calm seas (narrower beam), but the Burkes are better when the weather gets nasty.

Those trimaran ships like the USS Independence or the Brit's Triton are close to the penultimate example of this: they have a very narrow beam in the main hull for good speed with low fuel consumption, but due to the outriggers they have similar seakeeping to much beamier ships.