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Released USS Constitution upgrade

Hylie Pistof said:
Are they really called antenae? I just called them that because they look like bugs antennas. I have seen a picture where one line goes to it, but I don't know where it goes from there.
Click to expand...

Nope. Just boomkins. The line that goes to it (from the bottom corner of the fores'l) Is run through a block hanging from underneath it to right in front of the cathead and then onto a pin or cleat on the inside of the bulwarks.

EDIT:
Hylie Pistof said:
Ok, I just had a look at both versions in TOOL. COAS has an extra sail locator that tells a sail how far it can bulge out with the wind. With the rearmost heads'l it is set to zero. On the others one is set slightly to port and the other slightly to starboard. That is the biggest difference between
the two versions of those sails. Does one behave better than the others?
Click to expand...

I think if we added extra locators like those we could get that annoying arch in the sails to look more natural. At least for CoAS.

EDIT II: There should be an obnoxiously long pennant on the mainmast, upwards of forty feet even.
 
I'm using the M&C storyline to work on this ship, and there is no food or rum! I'm hoping that the jibs will look better in different conditions. To adapt it to COAS lights and stuff will be needed to be added as well. This will also include a new walk file. There is actually so much that needs to be done that this is really a big project. There are a hundred locators that need to be repositioned.

This is where I am now. There are two jibs for simplicity and there will probably be a fourth stays'l between the main masts when the locators get repositioned a bit more. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/76702168/POTC screenies/Connie-7.jpg
 
I think the main royal stays'l (highest one up) should be removed for realism's sake. That was a sail that was so rare it would be set once or twice (or no times) in a vessel's entire career. It would only have been set when the vessel was becalmed, and would damage the rigging if set any time else. The only time that a royal stays'l would have been used during Constitution's career (at least during her Napoleonic career) would have been during the chase that occurred from July 14 to July 19, 1812. The other two you are using are the only two that would have been set often. I'd also urge you to reconsider the heads'ls. Thee three that you had before were universally set under all conditions, short of a tops'l gale, and are present on all working square-riggers of the era.
 
Remove the top one? Curses, I just got it looking good. I'm reshaping the middle one and thinking about bringing the lower one down farther.

To fit my sense of proportion a third heads'l would be small and low, with the other two being moved forward. I don't like many overlapping heads'ls like some renderings of the Constitution have shown.
 
Unfortunately the uppermost main stays'l is one that only would be seen every ten years or so, accompanied by skys'ls and royal stuns'ls. Even the main t'gallant stays'l is pushing it in terms of rarity. One of the things I wanted to get away from on the original model was the overabundance of high-up stays'ls due to the inaccuracy. The three heads'ls that I suggested would have been left up almost constantly, and are considered part of regular sail. I don't really think that the overlapping can be entirely avoided on any historic vessel of that time period. In my opinion, we should stick to the original sail plans as closely as possible. We made the hull more authentic, so I feel that it would only be right to do the same for the rigging.

On the bright side, The sails you've done already look far better than the ones on the original model.
 
Don't worry so much about overlapping sails. You can stop them from going through each other by offsetting some of the locators in the X direction (for triangular sails in particular, just moving the bottom corner works well).
 
Wow. Depending on how it turns out, we might want to get rid of the main t'gallant stays'l altogether. I'll leave that up to everyone else to decide, though. I think you got he heads'ls to turn out as nicely as the game will allow.

Edit: I'd make the t'gallant stays'l closet to what you had before. The stay isn't in the same position as the original, so the sail is coming out far larger than it would of been. I think you might be modeling the bottom corner to the proportion of the middle stays'l.
 
When I get back on it later today I will move the main t'gallant stays'l back closer to the mains'l like it was originally. I moved all of the sails forward to be closer to the old sail plans and then tried to fill the gap with a big t'gallant stays'l.
 
I personally think that the main t'gallant stays'l here is the best. I also think the cut of the heads'ls is much closer to the sail plan. The overlapping with the fore topmast stays'l and inner jib might not be as bad if you used the trick Armada suggested a few posts ago. (Although you know better than I do regarding the topic)
Connie-7.jpg


If it's not too much trouble, you could also make the fore topmast stsys'l larger. You can actually see the corners of the heads'ls on this plan:
ConstitSailScan.jpg
 
I like that plan! It has 4 sails instead of 5 like the others I've been trying to work off of. It also shows that I am currently not far off with just a little fine tuning left.
I am aware of the trick of staggering the jibs and am using it here. The topmast stays'l is centered, the inner jib is offset to starboard, and the outer jib is offset to port.
 
I'm lucky I found that one. As you probably know, most sail plans of Constitution are a confusing mess. I'm not entirely sure what year this is based on, but the cut of the sails looks close enough to the 1803 and 1817 plans to work.
 
The middle stays'l was hardly ever used, but at this point it looks so good that I'd just leave it in.
Edit: I'd cross-check with multiple plans for the mizzen. I think a mizzen topmast stays'l would work well, and possibly a mizzen t'gallant stays'l. The t'gallant stays'l would be too rare on the mizzen. I would go with a mizzen stays'l and mizzen topmast stays'l. If you decide to keep the middle stays'l, you might be able to get away with a mizzen t'gallant stays'l.

Edit II: I recently saw a very nice period engraving of a Constitution-like frigate with main stays'l, main middle stays'l, mizzen stays'l, mizzen topmast stays'l.
 
Ok, moving to the mizzen I will use your recommendation based on the sail plans I have.
 
It might also be a good idea to add a mizzen topmast stays'l, as shown in this photograph, depending on how much time it would take.
uss-constitution-sails.jpg
Having the mizzen t'gallant stays'l set (which happened exceedingly rarely) looks a bit strange without a topmast stays'l under it.

Edit: How many versions of this model will we end up with? If we have multiple ships we should remove certain stays'ls for variety. (Again, that should depend on the amount of time it will take.)
 
Wait I thought we were keeping a very
Minimal set of one or two stay sails? Also
The pennant should be on the main, not the
Mizzen. It's great to see her shaping up!
Excellent work, just some minor adjustments
Like the pennant should finish that off. I think
There will be as many versions as are currently
Ingame, with the president model replacing all
The others and this one the constitution herself.

Edit: oh and that sailplan is of the conny when
She was fitting out under commodore
Preble in 1803 To subdue the Barbary pirates in tripoli.
 
Captain Armstrong said:
Wait I thought we were keeping a very
Minimal set of one or two stay sails? Also
The pennant should be on the main, not the
Mizzen.
Click to expand...

That was my original intention, at least. That's why I was asking about multiple versions. I think a main topmast stays'l and mizzen stays'l would ideally be everything, with one version retaining the full set of stays'ls. It just got a little... uhhh... out of hand?

I agree about the pennant. To add to the above statement, we could go with two sizes. The first would be a commodore's pennant, which would look something like this:
images

(the one on Bellona's mainmast)(the 74 gun two-decker)
aubrey.jpg
The other style pennant would be that of a Post Captain. They look like the other two pennants visible in the painting in the spoiler. Which one we'll end up using and on which versions is up for debate, I guess.
 
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