While Imai is under discussion elsewhere, what’s a good easily accessible reference for rigging on the Victory?
I’ve been fortunate enough to get hold of Imai’s sectioned hull kit, the one which is a slice of the hull for a short distance either side of the main mast. The kit’s mostly wood (and I’m used to Imai’s plastic kits) and the amount of material and parts in the box is astonishing – talk about multi-media. It’s been started, at least the ribs have been assembled, so the price was reasonable, but a read through the instruction manual leaves me with a few questions.
In Imai fashion the instruction manual’s pretty clear, backed up by several full scale drawings sheets and a separate sheet showing all the various knots is included, but some things are not absolutely clear to me. For instance; in what order are the shroud ropes tied off at the mast? I got the idea from somewhere, another kit probably, that each shroud was tied to its deadeye then ran up to be tied at the mast and down the other side to the opposite deadeye. Perhaps that was merely for convenience and the correct manner is to run each one individually from deadeye to mast-head. If so, in what order are they tied to the mast? Which is tied first in the lowest place – port, starboard, foremost or sternmost? And do they alternate port and starboard? I would imagine so.
The only sections of the instruction manual relating to this are reproduced below.
I’m equipped to handle the woodworking side of things, if a little inexperienced, so I don’t envisage any difficulties there but it’ll be a steep learning curve all the same and any assistance will be greatly appreciated.
None of the shroud lines goes up one side and comes down the other. Most of them starts on one dead eye, goes up to the mast head, where it makes a cinched loop around the mast head, and then comes back down to the next dead eye on the same side. A few of the shrould cables goes up from the dead eyes and teminate in a cinched loop that goes around the mast head. You can find detailed diagrams of standing rigging on each of Victory’s masts in HMS Victory : Her Construction, Career, and Restoration by Alan P. McGowan, John McKay, and Alan McGowan. It illustrates in detail which shrould cable goes to each dead eye, and the sequence with which the loops are stacked on the mast head.
It also illustrate many masthead details which appears to be missing from the illustration you included.
The standard practice was to start with the forward starboard pair, then the forward port pair, and repeat side-to-side, working aft. Each pair of shrouds was “seized” or cinched around the mast with a wrap of a smaller diameter line.
The reason the shrouds were rigged this way was so the tension could be adjusted side-to-side on the mast using the lanyards and deadeyes. If you just looped the shrouds over the top, increasing tension would just be pulling down on the mast, not serving to support the side loads on the mast.
Some models, especially those with pre-molded shrouds/ratlines just have you tie them over the mast top as a matter of expediency, which gives the impression the shrouds ran from one side to the other.
One book that I’ve found to be helpful is Rigging Period Ship Models by Lennarth Petterson.
All the above is essentially correct. Shrouds are generally set up in pairs, going up to the masthead and down to the next deadeye on the same side of the ship. That takes care of everything if there’s an even number of shrouds on the mast. But there is some disagreement between sources about what happened when the number of shrouds is odd - as is often the case.
James Lees’s Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War is quite emphatic in asserting that, in such a case, the last shroud on each side was called a “swifter” and took the form of a single line, eye-spliced around the masthead. That’s certainly how I’d recommend rigging a model of the Victory. I’ve seen other books, however, that say the first shroud on each side was treated differently than the others, the idea being that it could be slacked off slightly to let the lower yard swing a bit further when the ship was working to windward. In that configuration the first shroud runs up to the masthead, goes all the way around it, gets seized to itself in front of the mast, and runs down to the first deadeye on the other side. I’d have to do some digging to find a book that shows that arrangement, but I have the impression that it was more common in merchant vessels of the nineteenth century than in warships of earlier periods.
Thank you gentlemen, for the advice. I’ve gone back over the instructions and illustrations with that knowledge in mind and there is definitely no information to that effect - it’s as if a whole page were missing. It isn’t, I’ve checked, it appears to be an uncharacteristic omission on the part of Imai. Still, thanks to your help now I know how to proceed.
I’d like to get those books that were recommended but they’ll have to wait due to budgetary constraints, I may have them by the time I get to the rigging stage and I’d be interested to see what may have been left out that can be restored. At least I only have one mast to deal with, a whole shipful would be a daunting task indeed.
jtilley, there are six shrouds in all four locations so the odd one out doesn’t apply here. There is an unexplained gap between the lower forward pair on each side and the other four though.
The illustrations and instructions show that the ballast in the bottom of the hull is made up of loose rocks. Imai suggest small stones be used. Would the rocks be just a pile of random chunks? I can imagine they’d be small enough for one man to carry and I sort of expected a neater installation than that shown. You wouldn’t want them shifting in high seas I reckon, but how would you prevent it?
To represent Victory’s ballast, any small stone larger than a grain of sand would be too large in modeling scale.
Victory’s ballasts consisted of shingles - pebbles drudged from river and shelly sea floors. On modelling scale an individual shingle would hardly be bigger than a grain of sand. The shingles are layed down in the bottom of the hold so that the top surface of the shingle layer forms a nice, flat, yielding surface on which the provision barrels are layed. If the ballast were consist of large stones, can you imagine what they would do to the provision barrels?
I can indeed! That was one reason for asking. I also felt it was inefficient use of the space unless the gaps between them were filled with smaller stuff. I won’t bother to post the illustration but suffice to say it shows large irregular hunks of stone which, at 1:80 scale, would be up to 2’-3’ across. These are piled at the forward end of the hull section, while the barrels and “food bags” (therein lies another query by the way) at the aft end, whereas I would have expected an even distribution of both, much as you describe.
Here’s another one; how were below decks lit? Did they have their existence in semi-darkness relieved only when the gun ports (if any) were open (or an enemy cannonball came through the wall…). Would any lanterns be hung from the beams?
Space below decks are bnorally lit with what are called “battle lanterns”, which are very robust, clylindrical, iron bound lanterns that are unlikely to shatter and set other things on fire if dropped or knocked over. The usually hang under overhead beams, although they can be set on tables also. In more upscale quaters in the stern where high level officers live, there are normal candles.
Thanks for that, I do appreciate the help. I’d like to add that small detail to the model if I possibly can. Do you know if there’s an image of a battle lantern somewhere so I could get an idea of what they look like and see if I can reproduce them? (Belay that, I have since seen a picture!) I don’t think the decks are cluttered enough on this model, would it be appropriate to include tables between the guns and perahps hammocks slung from the beams?
The Imai kit includes 72 small squares of wood, about 10x10x4mm which are supposed to be chamfered down around the edges to represent “food bags” to go in the hold. Apart from being an extraordinarily fiddly task I not sure these would be convincing and I’d be more inclined to make up sacks out of Milliput or something similar. Apart form such supplies in sacks and barrels would anything else be likely to be found in the hold? Apart from rats, cockroaches etc that is…
The hammocks would be a good touch. There are a lot of little details like crew’s eating utensils, which would either be on the table if the crew is eating, or stowed in leather bags hung from the ship’s sides when not in use. The gun servicing equipment, like the ramrod, the sponge rod, and the worm rod, are stowed on hooks next to the overhead deck beams.
I don’t know how much foods are stowed in bags. As you know, rats are an ever present nuisance, and any food stowed in easily chewable bags would be gone long before the end of the voyage. Generally food, like water, are stowed in barrels.
The details present in the hold depends on which slice of the ship your model represents. Around the fore-mast the hold contains a special compartment for stowing coal used in cooking; the grand magazine where ship’s main supply of gun powder is stowed before they are made into ready-use flenal cartridges; the boatswain store room, where spare sailing gears are stowed; and carpenter’s store room where all the carpentry tools used for the ship’s maintenance are stowed. The grand magazine is particular rich in detail. It’s walls are lined with copper to keep rats from entering. To keep any the powder from being detonated accidentally, no light or flame of any kind whatsoever is allowed in it. It is only lit through thick glass panes from a separate light room next door.
Around the main mast there are special shelves on either side of the hold for stowing the ship’s anchor cables as well as other spare cables. Inside the hood, the main mast itself would be surrounded by the pump chamber, which contains the plumbing of the ship’s 4 big bilge pumps and 2 fire fighting pumpings. Right aft of the main mast is the shot locker, where the ship’s reserve canon balls are stowed.
Around the mizzen mast there are separate store rooms for this ship’s flour, spirits (grog), reserve powder store, and a walkway for inspecting the ship’s rudder post.
The section model represents the area about 35ft long centred on the mainmast. It includes two “shot lockers”, one each side of the mast step. Pump parts are included though I don’t understand how they were supposed to operate - then again perhaps no-one else will and won’t be able to criticise…
It’s unfortunate the magazine isn’t in this part because it sounds much more interesting. I think more barrels are called for to fill the hold and I’ll drop the “food bags” (too much work anyway).
I can see there’s a lot more detail that could go around the gun-decks, the ramrods, sponges etc are a great idea, and of course the hammocks.
On the 3 covered gun decks, the ready use cannon balls are mostly stowed in rows on specially prepared indentations along the raised coamings around the centerline gradings and companion ways. On the quarter deck, the balls are stowed are similar indentations in the special shelves built into the bulwurks.
That may be one reason for it. Men entering the magazine were also required to exchange their normal foot wear for felt flippers to further reduce the risk of sparks.
I am not sure if they would eat the powder, but they would chew their way into the magazine and ruin the gun powder by urinating in it. They also trail gun powder around the ship, effectively setting up many little fuses that all lead back to the grand magazine.
The cable tiers are shelves on either side of the hold. The floor of the cable tier are pierced with drain holes to expedite the draining of water from wet cables. The cable tier is the only major interior portion of the Victory to be painted red at the time of Trafalgar. For modeling purposes it should be said that stowaways on ship tends to hide in the cable tiers because few people look there. Although it may not be easy to imagine why one would stow away on a man-of-war, it does indeed occur quite often that wayward sailors or midshipmen would hide a girl or prostitute in the cable tiers, amongst the coiled cables.
