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WIP Centurion

Well, guess I'll manage to squeeze in a few hours tonight. I might have to start taking naps like I do during Pilgrim sails. Those myths about square-rig sailors falling asleep in under two minutes are entirely true, by the way.
 
Anyone find anything of consequence yet? :D

Nice to hear I'm not the only one with this observation Kris. Good sources. MK

“Kipper said: When will this ship be in Age of Pirates 2? This is one of my favorite ships. I learned about it in an excellent book. Has anyone read THE PRIZE OF ALL THE OCEANS, by Glyn Williams. Super book!!! This book is all about Anson's voyages and the Centurion mostly set in the 1740ies. There aren't many pictures but the ones in the book dont show any of those stay sails yur talkig about."​


YES! Very good read. On land in continental Europe this is a wonderful era and I am a huge fan of Frederick the Great vs the Austrians and Russians - and the War of the Austrian Succession, However at sea (and in the New world especially) I consider this a very boring time - other than the War of Jenkins Ear. I call it the era of utter boredom.

I would venture to say that Anson's exploits were the most interesting thing to happen at sea during the 1740s, but so few have studied this chapter these days because they're all twitterpated with Aubrey-Maturin, Hornblower and POTC.

:readAs far as staysails are concerned I spent WAY more time than I should researching this - this evening. My family is mostly gone now and a sort of routine of retired nothingness is returning to my house. So I scoured over two dozen books tonight and I have found some interesting results.....

I not only looked at historical books including ALL the "Arming and Fitting" books, I also looked though my art book portfolios of paintings by all the notable maritime artists - including Geoff Hunt, who did all the illustrations for the Aubrey Maturin books. I have in my collection, copies of every print he has ever done.

So here's my observations: After looking though hundreds of illustrations - to include paintings, drawings, lithographs, and woodcuts, I have found only two badly proportioned renderings of British ships of the era of 1706 to 1760 with stays'ls displayed - all were triangular. ONLY TWO. All of the dozens of others CONSPICUOUSLY illustrate a complete LACK of stays'ls - in battles or under half or full sail - NO staysails are shown. Even ship portraits and harbor scenes of Deptford and Chatham show detailed very historically accurate renderings of Ships of the Line with sails airing or taken in and no stays'ls are shown.

I found two sets of contemporary Admiralty plans of rated MOW from the 1719 establishment. Both show all sails fully drawn on the side-views - there are no stays'ls shown.

Even the modern artists show no stays'ls for this era. Geoff Hunt's own painting of Centurion giving chase shows no stays'ls.

I am still in the process of scanning and compiling the 18th century British flickr sets, but they will be done soon and will show what I'm talking about.

A few things went through my head....

- maybe the artists were not being historically accurate? ALL OF THEM? Geoff Hunt is known for being a stickler for research.

- maybe the staysails are not artistically attractive, so artists leave them off the illustrations to create a contrasting aesthetic space to exist between masts???? I don't really think so.

- maybe the staysails were only quickly hanked on when needed and mostly left in the lockers? I don't know....

So I have a couple of half baked theories. The smaller craft from these same illustrations SHOW staysails on the ships sailing around and about the capital ships - to include brigs and frigates. So the artists put the staysails on the smaller craft, but left them off the larger ones. Hmmmm...That means that my idea of them being artistically deliberately omitted is not correct.

Hmmmm. Maybe during the first half of the 18th century, British naval convention was to go without stays'ls unless specifically ordered???

Last I will offer that the staysails start conspicuously making an appearance in maritime art of larger British ships AFTER 1780, but NOT before.

My final conclusion is that we should omit them from the model, because the historical illustrations show this type of ship with NO staysails. Our beloved video games are a form of art and should stay true to historical proof as much as possible. For COAS/GOF Era's the staysails are staying off the model unless someone can give me compelling proof otherwise.

So I throw down the gauntlet. Find me some good period illustrations of Rated British SOTL carrying staysails or with staysails set between 1715-1760. An extra taut of rum to the seadog that can show me.

Good Luck :D

Now back to skinning more ships. Excuse me. I love the quiet of the wee hours of the morning.

MK
 
My thoughts on the matter: I hypothesize that they did exist, but were used very rarely. I know of plenty of sails that were used, but never showed up in any sail plans or artwork. (Think skyscrapers and flying kites. Those aren't even mentioned in most texts I have encountered, but there is evidence that they were used. I have found one reference to skyscrapers outside of O'Brian, and I've heard of flying kites on two occasions, one from a seamanship expert who had encountered an illustration of a 74-gun flying one.)

Many sail plans of full rigged ships of all sizes and eras did away with stays'ls.

Stays'ls would have been very useful for lying to under severe weather conditions, but I could see where the characteristics of the hull and rig made them unnecessary most of the time. From experience, bending on a sail can take as little as a few minutes with experienced hands. Sails were often taken down when not needed. Paintings of ships of the line lying to might be something to look for, but that's getting to be very specific.

Ultimately, agreed. It would probably be best to just leave the heads'ls up, and scrap the stays'ls. Maybe turn the canvas into a few pairs of trousers or slops.
 
This is the earliest ship of the line I remember seeing with stays'ls in a sail plan. It's far to late to be relevant to this depiction of Centurion, and I doubt it's derived from an original document, but it is still of some interest.
Captain Armstrong's photos from the National Maritime Museum
Also note the large jib. It seems to be following some of the conventions later adopted on Napoleonic vessels like Constitution, specifically with its downward-sloping foot that matches the slope of the jibboom. This would have been the most useful of the heads'ls in reasonable weather. The entire sail plan fills the rig up very nicely, with little gaps and little overlapping.

I haven't looked into its accuracy at all from a historical standpoint, but the stays'l plan is definitely viable from the standpoint of seamanship.
 
Interesting.....However it still doesn't meet the challenge. Notice I said between 1715 and 1760. Bellona was built in 1760 and she is likely portrayed in that picture around 1800. It also doesn't appear to be a contemporary rendering.

I would just add that in the whole of the Greenwich collection which is the largest in terms of 18th century British examples.....that this is all that could be found. I think it makes a pretty good point for my earlier observations in the thread which I stand by. :D

MK
 
IIRC the sailplan is as built, though it looks to have been drawn more recently. Note the lateen yard, those were long since phased out by 1800, and the general appearance of the rig fits 1760 much better than 1800. Here is a photo I took in copenhagen of a danish 60 gunner model, of about 1730-1740 (Unfortunately the photo of the plaque is blurred, so the date is from memory. I am certain it was from before the bellona though)
100_4058.JPG
 
Agreed. The proportions of the rig and the mizzen sail place the sail plan at or before the 1770's. The 19th century rig would have been dramatically (a loose use of the word) different.



Was that model contemporary to the ship?
 
Almost certain it was. As far Is could be told all of the models there were contemperary to the ships, made for the danish navy. I'll try to get the full set up soon, I've run into the limits of two free flickr accounts already:p
 
I found a good 2-D reconstruction of a pre-1740 ship of the line with stays'ls in the Ocean Institute maritime barn. I'll snap a few pictures next Saturday. It might be guesswork, but it's still something.
 
I didn't have a chance to get the photos yesterday. We were taking down our main yard with only twelve people, so I was kept busy. Looks like it'll be the week after next.
 
I am missing a texture still. I had fixed the AOP wood texture by adding a missing underscore that prevented the game from applying the correctly mapped texture. As you can see, the Centurion is missing the rope lashing textures on the masts themselves.

Guidance?


One other problem is that her stays - STAY - even after she's dismasted. Intentional???

MK

start_130308_0138064.JPG
 
That looks like you have one of the early versions that has many missing textures on the foremast. This is the latest version I have and has textures on that mast.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gpalg0tpyyfcivy/f6pRFSZbYY/repaired ships/after beta 2.3/Centurion.7z

The stay sails are modeled to a mast. If that mast stays up, so do the stay sails modeled to it. It the next mast falls that leaves the stay sails hanging in mid air. It is a guessing game trying to decide which mast is most likely to fall first and then attaching the stay sails to it. Sometimes we guess wrong.
 
Ah, that explains a lot. Indeed you wouldn't ever be able to set that up in such a way that it'll never end up floating in mid-air. Shame, really. :(
 
Can you have the stays and sails be taken out by either of the masts it's attached to? That way the fore and bowsprit would take out the fore and main stays, the main would take out the main and mizzen stays, and the mizzen would only take out the mizzen stays?
 
The stays, if modeled, can only be taken out by one mast, not two.
 
No, only ropes can do that. About all that can be done is attach the highest point to a mast so that it doesn't look as bad.

Hi Pieter!
 
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