Sailing ships

That's a very fine way to finish your recent productive period.

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I guess I'll have to be the party pooper here (Sorry about that...) First of all, a great many compliments to DP for an overall well-executed drawing! But, with regards to the La Couronne (1636) I would be remiss (even though I'm semi-retired from SB) to let pass on a few remarks about both the ship and drawing:
So, this image should properly be labelled something like "La Couronne (1636) according to Vice-Admiral Paris (1908), since this image and, for instance the plastic kit by Heller, the wooden ditto by Corel etc all are based on this venerable naval officer's interpretation, and "decryption" of a few copper plate images, one sewn and stiched gobelain. The Paris' originals can be found in a long-out-of-print work called: "Souvenirs de marine. Collection de plans ou dessins de navires et de bateaux anciens ou modernes existants ou disparus avec les éléments numériques nécessaores à leur construction", printed between 1882-1908. A previous foliante edition was published in 1877. The author was Vice Amiral François-Edmond Pâris (1806-93), meaning that the last three volumes out of six were compiled and published after his death.

The importance here lays in the claim whether the ship portrayed really is the La Couronne. Even today, there has been no absolute positive identification, save Admiral Paris' claims to that effect. Also, the ship is invariably claimed as having carried up to 72 guns, which might have represented her maximum allotment (though unlikely), since warships of the day were frequently carrying a far fewer number of guns than officially registered for (One example is the Henry, ex-Dunbar, which carried from 64 guns up to 82 guns, between her commissioning in 1656 till her accidental fire in 1682!). A more recent "on average" calculation puts the Couronne's numbers of gun to a more modest and also realistic 56. This may have been the number of guns as planned for upon commissioning in 1638. We know a source that claims a certain "La Couronne" participating in Bishop Henri de Sourdis' naval expeditions against the Spanish in Rousillon in 1638-39 carried only 52 guns! The gunport configuration of the Paris' drawings seems to indicate that no more than about 56-58 guns could realistically be carried, which easily could explain the later number of 40, since guns were hard to forge and the French were hard pressed to divert whatever guns they had to the armies of the Prince d'Enghien and Duke Bernhard of Weimar, fighting in Germany together with the Swedes against the Imperials and Spanish!

The boast of 72 guns could as easily be explained by Richelieu's desire to have, at least a couple of ships worthy of the English 1st rates Sovereign of the Seas and Prince Royal (which, when commissioned did not carry more than 55 guns!) and second-rates such as Constant Reformation, Triumph, Victory, James, Swiftsure, Rainbow etc, which all carried gun numbers from 42-64 at the time.
It should be noted that with the famous "Le Grand St Louis" (Grand Vaisseau du Roi) of 1626, and her four near-siblings, France had such ships available, being armed with between 48 - 56 guns of varied sizes.

As for the image itself, besides the misleading caption, the shading around the stern section and stern post appers to me somewhat crude and inaccurate. The aft stern, float plane would be gently flared out from the base of the keel towards the top of the stern post, ending up at the conventional flat "cruiser" stern. The present shading does not appropriately represent this.

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

Ahhhh ok..... what should the caption be then? is the bottom copper plated? I thought they use copper plate much later time.
my drawing was base on this:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... ine122.jpg

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天滅中共全黨死清光!

Yes, DP, I knew that's the one you've used. It's a well known print. I fear you may have somehow been confused by my mentioning the word "copper". It does not in any way refer to the ship as such, only to the original illustrations of this ship - whose identity is still open to debate, btw. In this case the caption is a tricky one, in my view. Yes, most popular naval works would refer to it as the "La Couronne", though, again, there's no positive identification of the copper etching being that of a particular vessel named "La Couronne".

Again, I'd safeguard myself against annoying splerbogs such as me, by stating "La Couronne (1638) according to Adm. Paris", since that's only as close we are. The gun numbers you could flex from 52 to 72, since, again, we really don't know the actual numbers carried during her brief career.

DP, great work again on this latest batch of sailing ships!

Regarding your question regarding coppering the bottom...not until the very late 1700's. Call it the later 1780's to 90's. Then we have about 20 years of transition till coppering is fairly universal on large ships. Little ships may or may not have it due to initial cost unless well financed and intended for serious trade in warm water regions.

I agree on Bezo's comment regarding stern shading. Other than that, very pretty!

CraigH

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DP, any chance of seeing a Golden Hind, Revenge, or Swiftsure?

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"It is better to type nothing and be assumed an ass, than to type something and remove all doubt." - Me

I'm an old hand at the history of ships but new here. May I put in a request for creating one of your 1st rate (

) illustrations for HMS Sovereign of the Seas? This was the world's 1st true 100 gunner; meaning properly armed with 9, 18 and 42 pdrs on the broadside, not just a zillion "murderin' pieces" mounted wherever they will fit. Designed by Peter Pett and built in 1637, after a long and illustrious career, SotS was accidentally burned in 1697. She was the Dreadnought of her era and has been said by some historians to be so far ahead of her time as to be worthy of a place in the British battle line at Trafalgar (1805), so long as you don't try to hold her too close to the wind. I have always enjoyed her long history and a petty fair version is in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Sovereign_of_the_Seas. This "Great Ship" cost so much that she had a part in influencing the causes of the English civil war (a tenth her total cost was for gilding alone!). Later SotS had a place in the defeat of the Dutch in the great trade wars. She is truly worthy of class treatment here among so many fine works of ship art.

One day I hope to see a historical BBC series about the rise of English sea power set around her life (if only so we could all walk the decks of the replica that might be moored near HMS Victory and HMS Warrior). Huzzah!

Here's the classic 17th century illustration I 1st saw as a boy that put me on her trail:

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Here's a near period hull plan. You can see by her cut this vessel meant business:

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I see some one has already done some work on previous great sailing ships on other sites, such as HMS Henry Grace a Dieu, 1514, or The Adler von Lübeck, 1566, or the Manila galleons like The São João Baptista (366 puny guns) which were to reach up to 2000 tons. For reference, the Golden Hind may not have displaced 300 tons, fully loaded. It would be fascinating to see a lineup of Great Ships next to each other for size comparison, as per the works I just saw of the Kaiserliche vessals. I'd also include some of the Far East represented (esp. the huge Chinese Dragon Ships and the smaller, but impervious, Korean armored turtle ships). Much fine material to have fun with!

This is by PAUL GARNETT

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I couldn't find an author for this one:

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The last painting is by the late Swedish artist and naval historian Björn Landström, executed around 1961. Oh, the name "HMS Sovereign of the Seas" is wrong in the sense that the prefix "HMS" didn't appear till the latter half of the 18th c. Before that the proper prefix would be a simple "the".

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