Greetings,
I’m really curious about the real story of the frigate “La Flore” that many of us has built or is currently building from the Lindberg kit.
best regards
Good morning
I'm presently working on La Flora. I have “The Story of Sail” Laszlo & Woodman Naval Institute Press and on page 114 there is a line drawing of the French frigate of 1744 “Sirene”, (38 meters on the gun deck, 30 * 8 pounders) that matches this model quite will. I have also found pictures of a model of La Flora that was presented to John Kennedy by the French. Do a Google search with La Flora and you should find some More information and pictures.
First of all the molds are extremely old and hence there have been extensive fitting problems and especially the masts and spars have required extensive scrapping and clean up. I have been able to use the supplied shrouds and ratlines, but getting the bottoms into the holes in the hull was only about 75% successful and the little “ts” at the top were impossible to install. I am using the supplied sails and have used a heated pin to make holes for attaching sail handling lines. The plans have only a hard to read sketch of the running rigging but I have other sources so I’ll get it close enough to look good. I also find many inconsistencies in basics, i.e. the capstan on the forecastle is basically unworkable (it should be somewhere amidships except there isn’t really any open space available), there aren’t any hawser holes for the anchor cables, there aren’t sufficient pin rails at the foot of the masts. Still over all it is going to make a nice looking model and since I intend it as a gift the inconsistencies won’t really matter.
CaptainRoadKill@comcast.net
As to the history here are excerpts of extensive discussion we had on another site:
The Lindberg Jolly Roger was, as were most of their ship kits, an old Pyro kit. Yes, It's an old mold, but it is by no means a generic ship...
The "Jolly Roger" kit is actually a model of the French 18th Century Frigate "La Flore" armed with thirty 9-pounders and measuring 47 meters stem to stern. Due its distinctively French features such as a very narrow beam, converting this model into an accurate rendition of an American vessel may be problematic. Some privateers might have been based on French frigate designs, but I doubt if any Continental or USN vessels were.
There are four paintings of her in British service by Francis Holman in the in , Ma. and there are two wooden models of her, one at "the Musee de la Marine" in Paris and one which was given to President John F. Kennedy by the French Minister of Culture when President and Mrs. Kennedy Visited France in the early 1960's. The second model is in the collection of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in .
According to Boudroit’s “History of the French Frigate” there were at least five French frigates called Flore, including the 8 pounder frigate mentioned in your note. None were built in .
Putting together the information in Lyon and Demerliac, we have the following:
The French had an HMXMS *Flore*, a frigate armed with 8-pounders, from 1768 until 1787. According to Patrick Villiers, *La marine de Louis XVI*, vol. I (unfortunately, there is only one vol.), HMXMS *Flore* was part of the squadron under d'Estaing that forced the British to scuttle several ships at in August, 1778. HMXMS *Flore* returned to in December, 1778 (presumably with dispatches, since d'Estaing's battle squadron remained on the western side of the ). In January, 1779, she departed on a cruise in the Mediterranean (so she probably returned to ). She was disarmed on to be repaired. The repairs were completed on June 9 and HMXMS *Flore* was recommissioned. She cruised around the of during the summer and then proceeded to , stopping at . She remained in the Levant (stopping at Constantinople, , and other ports) protecting French trade and finally brought a convoy in to Marseille, with another frigate, in June 1780. She was disarmed, refitted, and recommissioned again at between July and October, 1780. She was employed cruising in the western Meditereranean and in December 1781 helped escort a troop convoy to Minorca, under attack by a joint Franco-Spanish force; between April and August 1782 she escorted a convoy of food and munitions to Cadiz for the Allied fleet fitting out there, and in September 1782 and January 1783 she took convoys from Marseille to Tunis.
It was "Flora" in English and "La Flore" in French, never "La Flora." HMXMS *Flore*, the 8-pounder frigate in service from 1768 to 1787.
As Squbrigg mentioned, "Flore" (the "La" just means "the") was a common frigate name in the French navy. Just between 1792 and 1799, the French had three ships of that name:
1. The former French and British frigate already discussed, indexed by Demerliac as a corvette.
2. One of two brigs whose construction was started at Dunquerque in 1797; neither was completed.
3. A privateer schooner armed at in May 1793 and captured by the Spanish in June; they added her to the Armada Española under the name "Flor" and had her in service at in 1795. I don't have a comprehensive list of the Spanish warships to continue her story.
One small correction - on a point that probably doesn’t make any difference. I’m 99% certain that the Lindberg kit is not a reissue of a Pyro one. I bought it, in a Lindberg box with the name La Flore on it, in a department store in New York City in either 1966 or 1967. (The old memory cells aren’t capable of being more specific than that.)
Lindberg issued two sailing ships at about that time: La Flore and the Wappen von Hamburg. I remember thinking at the time that they were nice kits, but a little odd. It was pretty clear that both were designed by the same people; such things as the rendition of the “wood grain” on the deck and hull parts, the flexible plastic “shrouds and ratlines,” and the general appearance of the “carved” details make that clear. And I believe both kits included the same sprue of crew figures. The kits had a quite distinctive character to them - quite different from anything else Lindberg ever produced. I wonder if they were European in origin. But I can’t recall having seen either of them in a box with a label other than Lindberg on it.
Both of them, of course, are still on the market: La Flore as the “Jolly Roger” and the Wappen von Hamburg as “Captain Kidd.” Marketing stunts like that really irritate me. But I guess we should be grateful that, in the tiny realm of plastic sailing ship kits, these two are available at all. They have their problems (what kit from the mid-sixties doesn’t?), but they’re basically nice kits.
Wow what a confusing story ! I have an intention for a future project with that sound model. Some modelers as I know, very succesfully did HMS Surprise conversions from La Flore. I want to do a conversion also, but a HMS Seahorse of 38 guns, built in 1794 with a length of 146’ betweenperpendiculars. I’ll set the scale to 1/150. May I do it with some hope of succes ?
Does the La Flore have a beakhead bulkhead? Early frigates often had those. Frigates built in 1794 would almost certainly have built-up bow without any beakhead bulkheads.
sorry for my ignorance but waht is beakhead bulkhead ? [:I]
A Beakhead is a small platform at the fore part of the upper deck of a vessel, which contains the water closets of the crew
A bulkhead is an upright wall within the hull of a ship. Bulkheads in a ship serve several purposes: They increase the structural rigidity of the vessel, divide functional areas into rooms and create watertight compartments that can contain water in the case of a hull breach or other leak.
The word bulki meant “cargo” in Old Norse. Sometime in the 15th c sailors and builders realized that walls within a vessel would prevent cargo from shifting during passage. In shipbuilding, any vertical panel was called a “head.” So walls installed abeam (side-to-side) in a vessel’s hull were called “bulkheads.” Now, by extension, the term applies to every vertical panel aboardship, except for the hull itself.
Good afternoon
She has a solid bulkhead just aft of the beak, but no indication ot tolet facilities.
I have also added 6 small guns on the quarter deck, since some of the pictures show them.
thank you donnie. well as far as I remember, yes, Flore has a beakhead bulkhead. but can’t it be corrected ?
I wish I knew more, but I do not - I am very sorry.
I am struggling myself to learn. I probably know the least
about ships here in this forum. I think everyone is nice to
ignore my ignorance of ship building.
I need to study more of the building techniques and glossary.
I bought some very good books recommended by the freinds
here. Yes, I have read and started to read more, but is like
anything else. This takes time to devote oneself to the language
of ship mastering. I can only remember so much of glossary and
getting it into my head. There is ALOT of things about ships that
I do not know about and it remains a mystery. It is the mystery of
it that continues my favor towards ship building. I hope that everyone
here will someday think of me as a true ship modeler rather than
someone that just goes at this half interest. Yes, I wish that I could
answer your thirst for more, but I am lacking in my knowledge
of such wonders of ship building and terms (glossary).
Donnie
Donnie - fer cryin’ out loud, knock off the self-depracating b[censored] s[censored]. You’re picking up this stuff in near-record time, putting it to intelligent use, producing a couple of excellent models - and, incidentally, pointing several of us Olde Phogies in the direction of some websites we didn’t know existed. I had no idea that the entire text of Campbell’s Neophyte Shipmodeler’s Jackstay was on the web. From now on that’s the first source I’ll recommend to any newcomer.
I’ve read a couple of articles about La Flore over the years. The story is complicated and, largely I guess because Frensh warships aren’t really my “thing,” I’ve forgotten most of it. The basic problem is that several French frigates had that name, and the French records are a little ambiguous as to which was which. (French archival sources aren’t as neatly organized as British or American ones - largely because for a long time the French government had the disagreeable habit of getting overthrown once every generation or so.) I do remember that (1) the Lindberg kit seems to be based on the same set of plans that were the basis for the model (with the name La Flore on it) in President Kennedy’s collection; and (2) there’s considerable doubt among the French experts as to whether that model represents an actual ship.
Both the Kennedy model and the Lindberg kit do have beakhead bulkheads (i.e., the forward end of the forecastle deck is squared off, rather than rounded). I’m not sure just when that design got phased out of the French navy. Its disappearance from British and American shipbuilding was gradual. I haven’t looked at any original French drawings, but I do know something about American ones. Of the thirteen frigates whose construction was authorized by the Continental Congress in 1775, contemporary drafts of four have survived (two of them by courtesy of the British, who maintained the estimable practice of drawing plans of ships they captured). Three of those ships demonstrate different thinking among naval architects of 1775 regarding the beakhead bulkhead. The Randolph had a traditional, flat beakhead bulkhead, the Raleigh had a round bow, and the Hancock (the one I picked for a model) had what can only be described as something halfway between. The planking of her bulwarks continues right around the bow, but the cat beam (the foremost beam supporting the forecastle deck, to which the catheads are mounted) is so broad that the ship’s cross-section at that point swells outward at the top. In plan view, the forecastle deck has sharp forward corners, but the forward edge of it swells out in the middle. Here’s a picture: http://gallery.drydockmodels.com/album194/hancock_2c
Just why anybody would build a ship that way is hard to say, but the Hancock wasn’t unique in that regard. Several British frigate models in the National Maritime Museum, dating from the 1770s through the late 1780s, have similar bows. The Lindberg La Flore kit, from what I can gather on the basis of the various web photos I’ve seen, has something rather similar: a clearly defined beakhead bulkhead with a bulge in the middle. If it she were British, I’d say that dated her construction somewhere between 1775 and 1790. Since she’s French, I’m not sure. I imagine Jean Boudriot’s book on the history of the French frigate covers the point; that’s one of the many books I wish I had and don’t.
It’s also worth remembering that those ships had varying lifespans. H.M.S. Victory has a beakhead bulkhead, and apparently had it at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. The round bow was on its way in by then, but the Victory was forty years old.
At any rate, by the time the modern U.S. Navy got founded American designers had converted to the round bow concept. So far as I know, all the U.S.N. (as opposed to Continental Navy) frigates and ships of the line had round bows.
One of the best general authorities on such things is the series Conway’s History of the Ship. The relevant volume is The Line of Battle: The Sailing Warship, 1680-1840. Here’s how that book’s glossary defines “round bow”:
“Design in which the timbers of the bow were carried up to the top of the forecastle, eliminating the beakhead platform; common in small ships for most of the eighteenth century, for frigates from the 1750s and for line of battle ships from the early nineteenth century.”
Actually, at the time of battle of Trafalgar, every ship of the line the whole world over had beakhead bulkheads. The introduction of the first round bow onto ships of the line occurred a few years after the battle of Trafalgar partly as an accident, and partly in response to the experience of HMS Victory in the battle of Trafalgar.
During the battle of Trafalgar, HMS Victory approached the Franco-Spanish line bow on. She was raked by much of the center of the Franco Spanish line for about 20 minutes as she plodded forwards in light wind. While most of the shots hitting her solid hull at the level of the lower and middle gun decks failed to penetrate, those that struck her upper gun deck penetrated the light beakhead bulkhead with ease, and did a great deal of damage. After the battle, the British put a great deal of thought into how to strengthen the beakhead bulkhead to resist similar damage in the future.
Beakhead bulkheads were made thicker. However, tradition is strong, and beakhead bulkheads had been a fixture on ships of the line since the Royal Prince. So nothing really fundamental was done for till about 1808.
Then it was decided to remove the upper deck of a cranky 90 gun three-decker to make a 2 decked 80 gunner. Normally, that would involve cutting down the forward hull to enable a new beakhead, along with a new beakhead bulkhead to be installed at what use to be the middle deck level. But the
surveyor of the navy decided to take the opportunity to break with tradition, and let the old ship retain her old 3-decker bow eventhough the rest of her is cut down to 2 decks. The removal of the upper deck thus meant the old beakhead is now flush with the fo’c’stle, and no more beakhead bulkhead would be needed. Thus was born the first ship of the line with round bow, and without beakhead bulkheads.
Once the rupture with tradition occurred, its spread to the whole service was swift. By 1810, the Admiralty was entirely convinced, and an order was issued to the effect that hence forth all new ships of the line would be built with round bow, and all existing ships of the line would be modified with the new round bow as soon as they come in for a major dockyard maintenance.
Like almost all major innovation during that occured to naval vessels during the age of sails, from jib sails, to jib booms, to gaff spankers, to the departure of sprit topsails, round bows first found its way into smaller, cheaper, less important ships like frigates. British frigates dispensed with beakhead bulkheads at around 1770. Only gradually, usually over 30-40 years, do the innovation find their way up the ship rates. By 1808, 3rd rate ships of the line were being refitted with round bows. By 1812, new first rates were built with round bows. By 1820, almost the whole RN, including HMS Victory, had round bows.
Ok - I will !!! [tup] [(-D]
I found this
http://xenophongroup.com/mcjoynt/fleet01.htm
Fleet of D’Estaing
Expedition of D’Estaing: 1778-1779
The fleet of D’Estaing [Charles Henri Theodat, comte de Estaing, admiral, lieutenant-general naval armies of ] sailed out of the harbor 13 April 1778. His fleet consisted of 12 ‘ships of the line’ [vaisseaux] and 5 frigates [frégates] as follows:
|
Ship (guns) |
Class |
Commander |
Officers & Volunteers |
Crew |
Total |
|
Le (80) |
SoL |
Boulainvilliers, |
38 |
777 |
875 |
|
Le Tonnant (74) |
SoL |
Breugnon, chef; |
22 |
685 |
707 |
|
Le César (74) |
SoL |
Broves, chief; |
… |
713 |
793 |
|
Le Zélé (64) (74?) |
SoL |
Barras |
17 & 14 |
486 |
507 |
|
Le Hector (74) |
SoL |
Moriès |
… |
… |
… |
|
Le Guerrier (74) |
SoL |
22 |
400 |
422 |
|
|
Le Marseillais (74) |
SoL |
La Poype-Vertrieux |
19 & 3 |
584 |
606 |
|
Le Protecteur (74) |
SoL |
Apchon |
14 |
391 |
405 |
|
Le Vaillant (64) |
SoL |
Chabert |
… |
… |
542 |
|
Le (64) |
SoL |
Champorcin |
14 |
408 |
422 |
|
Le Fantasque (64) |
SoL |
Suffren |
13 |
419 |
432 |
|
Le Sagittaire (64) |
SoL |
Rioms |
… |
… |
… |
|
La Chimère (26) |
Frigate |
Saint-Cezaire |
15 |
225 |
240 |
|
L’Engageante (26) |
Frigate |
Gras Preville |
… |
… |
… |
|
La Flore (26) |
Frigate |
Castellane |
11 |
196 |
207 |
|
L’Alcmène (26) |
Frigate |
De Bonneval |
11 |
196 |
207 |
|
L’Aimable (26) |
Frigate |
Saint-Eulalie |
9 |
231 |
240 |
|
Ship (guns) |
Class |
Commander |
Officers |
Crew |
Okay, I thank everyone who contributed here. I’d like to update my researches and the conclusions I came. (I thank to Marine Master Sergeant Don Ferguson who is a wonderful man and a true soldier for his unselfish and devoted efforts of help to me. I’m heavily debted to him)
The Lindberg model, supposed to represent a certain 30 gun frigate “La Flore” would be 145’ long bpp if the kit is 1/130 scale as said. The HMS Seahorse is 146’ bpp. At least the hull length and scale are overlapping.
A look to the “Sailing warships of the Royal Navy 1688-1860” by David Lyons revealed that HMS Seahorse was an Artois class frigate designed by Henslow. But the Artois class itself was a very little changed design of the french “La Minerve”. Discovering the fact that Seahorse had basically french lines was a happy news too.
Finally came the discovery of the breathtaking caldercraft kit of HMS Diana, a sistership to Seahorse. Upon examining the photos of the finished kit, I remarked with relief that the underwater hull shape and the broadsides are happily similar.
so, I set the steps of the conversion project of Flore to Seahorse as follows:
-
Flore, as she was built in 1768, has an open bow with a beakhead bulkhead. This must be corrected by working a round and closed bow and a longer beakhead with appopriate rails and catheads.
-
whole the transom and quarter galleries need to be built from scratch.
-
Appopriate raised bulkheads must be worked to the quarterdeck section.
-
The lightweight “cage deck” (sorry, I don’t know how it is called properly in english) on which stays the longboats, must be built to the gap between the fore and quarterdeck.
-
Deck details and structures need to be arranged as close as possible to an artois class frigate.
-
Underwater hull must be coppered.
What do you think about this working plan ? Which materials would you use if you were attempting this ? The suggestions from master modelers are of extreme importance for me. I hope that you would grace a little portion of your vast knowledge and experience to an apprentice.
Best Regards to everybody
Several more things.
-
French capstans are different from English capstans. English capstans have a mushroom head, the French capstans are more nearly cylindrical. This is apparently a very characteristic difference to the nautical eye. Many contemporay accounts refers to how the origin of the ship is immediately identifiable by te type of its capstan. British thinks very little of French capstans and replace them as soon as possible in captured ships.
-
English frigates have crank actuated chain pumps on the main gun deck. The French only used lever actuated elm tree pumps.
-
The “cage deck” is called a spar deck. The bars of the “cage” are called booms.
-
English frigates of 1790s almost certainly would carry carronades on the quarterdeck. Carronades would be unknown to French Frigates of 1760s.
-
The British abandoned the longboat by 1790s and resorted to the smaller launch. The French always carried very large chaloupes on their warships. As a result, the largest boat carried by the French warships before 1780s is usually far larger than the largest boat carried by equivalent English warships of 1790s.
-
Natively designed English frigates tend to have a much more slanted rudder post. French frigate have rudder posts that are much more near vertical.
-
Natively designed English frigates tends to have a fuller section at midships than French frigates. As a result, English frigates usually boast more room for stores than French frigates.
-
On French warships in general, the part of the bow immediately adjacent to the stems enters the water almost vertically. One English warship is tends to be raked forward. As a result, their finner underwater lines not withstanding, French warships’s bow looks more “apple cheeked” above water then English warships.
-
The two arms of the British anchors come together at an angle to form a point where it meets the shank. The arms of French anchors merge into each other to form a smooth arc at the crown where it meets the shank
-
The frigates of 1760s would use a single, long mizzen yard rigged fore-aft on the mizzen mast, and slanted at an angle up and down. The mizzen yard of 1760s would use a lanteen sail, sometimes with the front 1/3 cut off. Frigates by 1790s would use a gaff sail, spread by a separate boom and gaff.
-
Royal yards and sails would be uncommon on frigates of 1760. It would be standard on Frigates of 1790s. Flying jib boom and flying jib sail would also be unknown to frigates of 1760, and would be standard on Frigates of 1790s.
-
Frigates of 1790s would likely have a set of stern davits, as well as a set of quarter davits to hang boats over the side for instant use. Frigates of 1760s would not yet have any davits. The boats either sit on the booms or is towed astern.
Here is an awesome step-by-step article about building the HMS Diana with scores of detail photos.