"My notes on HMS Ontario for 6MM Sailpower kickstarter" Topic

As Sailpower designer, i noted the HMS Ontario was generating questions and interest in my kickstarter campaign and wanted to take some time to talk about the Ontario and what makes her interesting.
• The real Ontario is not famous for a battle but rather was a ship that wrecked in a storm.
• The ship was found in recent years in a remarkable state of preservation which means there is a lot of documentation of the ship's appearance. (see YouTube link
• My observation of Sailpower over the years was that people liked to "up-arm" the 12 gun brig model to about 18 to 20 guns. This historical subject represented a heavily armed brig (although technically it's a snow) that seemed to be the ship everyone wanted to play.
• When I was collaborating with the Lead 6MM sculptor Sarah Christensen, Pictures of the Ontario were used to illustrate another vessel. Sarah's comment was "Ohh that's a pretty ship, I'd love to sculpt that for you some day!"
• Unlike adding cannons to the 12-gun brig, players of this ship will find the majority of her battery is well protected below decks. This makes her fairly powerful for a vessel for her size. (note 16 below deck ports on the ship's plan, link
• There is also a 15MM scale Ontario project in the works for down the road, sitting in the backlog shelf on my sculpting desk. (not part of this campaign, but something I want to release for my 15MM fans down the road)
• A Snow is a variant of the basic Brig rig, in which the main mast has a smaller mast, called a trysail mast, immediately behind the main mast. This is a very small detail which may or may not make sense to represent in the small scale we are working in. (see item 21 on the deck plan linked here link
• The Ontario was built as part of a North American force called the "provincial marine" which operated with structure mirroring the Royal navy, but serving as more of a North American Coast Guard.
• The Provincial marine recruited locally, but also borrowed actual royal navy personnel. The whole of this force was eventually absorbed into the full navy for the War of 1812.
• The force was nicknamed the "Tin Pot Navy."
• Tragically, the Ontario sank in a storm on October 31, 1780 while underway from Fort Niagara to Oswego. Approximately 130 men perished with ship. News of the sinking of the Ontario was kept quiet for a number of years to hide the military loss.
• I feel the Ontario is a neat example of a small warship, and one I think would be powerful, but not overwhelming in a game full of smaller ships. I hope this campaign succeeds so we can bring her to life in 6MM!
Brian Carnes,
Creator and Lead Designer for Sailpower

Sorry, the posting tool was complaining about the subject length, and in my efforts to fix it double posted.

-Brian

Deck plan link bad (extraneous parenthesis at end of url).

Here is the correct link.

Thanks for the info. I have a peculiar interest in the Great Lakes squadrons.

VSB

i strongly suggest this book to anyone interested in this ship. Be sure if you loook used you gt the new discovery edition as it has additional info based on the wreck find.

link