Nuestra Señora de la Santísima Trinidad (1769)

Very nice; and if I recall, the largest warship afloat at that time

Portsmouth Bill wrote:

Very nice; and if I recall, the largest warship afloat at that time

If I remember rightly 130 guns,but still got shafted at St Vincent and Trafalgar by much smaller ships.Superb drawing Alex.Looks brillant on a page next to Victory.Would you do an HMS Captain? I don't think the Spanish ships were copper bottomed at the time on the drawing.

bezobrazov.Please note I only refer to the Trinidad and not to the Spanish fleet in general,and the date of Alex's drawing is 1769,when you say the Spanish began coppering their ships 1782.

Alex that is amazing work.

_________________
[ img ]

Thank you Kim for the crest

"Never fear to try on something new. Remember that the Titanic was built by professionals, and the Ark by an amateur"

A bit of useless trivia.3 ships called Neptune fought at Trafalgar.

Very nice attempt Alex, but since this time period is one of my fields of expertise, if I may say so, I like to point out a few things. Firstly, there's an ugly gap betweeb the forward gunports on the main gun-deck. The original configuration was 30-32-30-12. You probably have made the ship a tad too long.
Secondly, the Armada Espanola's ships during this time (1st Bourbon Era) did not carry pennants. Rather they had square flags denoting ranks, and a private ship oftenmost had no flags at all hoisted on her tops! As this ship was the flagship for several noted Spanish Admirals (1797: Teniente-General Don Juan de Cordova; 1805 Gefe de Escuadra Don Balthazar de Cisneros) the appropriate rank flag should be hoisted. If depicted as of 1797,the that should be hoisted on the main top, if as of 1805, it should be on the mizzen top. The rank flag was nothing more or less than a half- to a third-sized naval ensign. Also, speaking of that ensign; you should make the CoA considerably bigger and offset it towards the hoist.

Bombhead: while it wasn't universally done, already by 1782, had Spanish naval authorities begun to copper sheath their ships, so the ST most certainly had such a protective layer. In fact, during the late 18th c. the Spanish naval administration was continually headed by a range of very enlightened and far-sighted reform-minded ministers, who really did try and increase their navy's efficiacy. In fact, it should be noted that one of the biggest ever blows against British economic supremacy and staying power was dealt by Teniente-General Don Luis Cordoba y Cordoba in 1781, when he captured a British convoy estimated to be worth a whopping £3,000,000! It almost sent Britain out of war and was a huge factor in theirs deciding to settle their quarrel with the Thirteen Colonies! The fact that the Spaniards got 'shafted' as you put it at St Vincent was due to acute shortage of crews; not only well-trained such but in general! This was, in turn, due to the fact that the new King, Carlos IV didn't appreciate the navy as had his father, Carlos III. And, please study Trafalgar a little more in depth and you shall learn that it wasn't such a lop-sided affair at all. In fact the Spaniards had a solid reputation as tough, curageous and stout fighters, who kept fighting on even after anyone more sensible would have surrendered, seeing the hopeless odds. Such was the famous Moonlight Battle off Cabo Santa Maria off Portugal on January 16, 1780. The British always had to pay a high price for their Spanish conquests. The sole exception being St Vincent, where, also the Spanish fleet was sorely led by an inept commander.

PB: No, it's a myth, only perpetuated by the number of her total gun complement in 1800 (136). In fact she was about the size of the Victory. The French fleet flagship La Bretagne (110 guns), during the American Revolutionary War, was considerably larger, and the following classes armed with 112-118 guns were even larger. So, too, were the new series of 112-gun ships designed by Don Romero Landa in Spain. In fact, the ST was quite cramped. Her enormous symbolic value mostly derived from the fact that she used to be the flagship of Spain's greatest admiral during the 18th c., Don Luis de Cordoba y Cordoba, and the fact that she was only the second three-decker built for the Bourbon navy!

_________________
My Avatar:Петр Алексеевич Безобразов (Petr Alekseevich Bezobrazov), Вице-адмирал , царская ВМФ России(1845-1906) - I sign my drawings as Ari Saarinen

bezobrazov.Please note I only refer to the Trinidad and not to the Spanish fleet in general,and the date of Alex's drawing is 1769,when you say the Spanish began coppering their ships 1782.

Ahhh..but then Alex is quite wrong! Read my note about how the ST appeared originally. She was just an ordinary 110-gun three-decker! That makes the drawing beautiful as art nd as an SB rendition, but alas quite incorrect, since the fourth gun-deck wasn't added till after the American Revolutionary War (1775-83). And, as a matter of fact, at Trafalgar, the ST, although severely hampered by her bulkiness did put up a most spirited fight, Don Balthazar himself being severly wounded. So for Alex, the simplest way to correct this is simply by;
1) shorten the ship to fit a 15 ports-a-side lower gun-deck configuration and

2) Change the caption to read 1797. (Not 1805, since the ship was painted very differently by then! Dark red streaks on a black hull...)

Thank-you! I'll make that red version with sails too!

Shipbucket

Nuestra Señora de la Santísima Trinidad (1769)

Who is online