Admiralty White Hulls

M

mallacoota

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I am having a real problem with some historical accuracy questions regarding white hulls below the waterline on English warships. My understanding of the history is that the Admiralty suspected that white lead might stop Teredo worm, and as an experiment, white leaded the hull of Endeavour's longboat ( I think,...it doesnt matter)_ for Cook's South Pacific voyage of 1769-1771... when he went to Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia. His journals reveal that after 6 (?) months away he found that the white leaded boat was perfect and the others were full of worm. After he reported this to the Admiralty in 1771 they decided to paint white lead where it was important enough as it was expensive to do. ...So by that history, there were not any white bottoms before 1771-2 approx. This makes the popular Bounty ( 1784) models as white "possible" if not proven. In the case of "Revenge" by the legendary Chris Watton as one of the Amati Victory series, the white hull is 100 years before time in 1577 . I can only think this is a commercial choice by Amati rather than a modelling choice by Chris Watton. I am thinking about tackling their Revenge knowing that I am not really good enough and wanting the stretch...LOL...I hope there is a researcher out there who can comment on the white bottom question.? I must say I am not as obsessed with historical detail as it might sound..this is just a pretty noticeable question... not something obscure like " how long are your belaying pins..?"
 
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Ships of the late 16th century up to the mid to late 17th century covered their hull bottoms with "white stuff", hence the off-white color. It is made of whale or fish oil, pine pitch (rosin), and sulfur (brimstone) and was painted between the last two layers of planking and over the last layer of planking to try to stop teredo worms (shipworms) from turning the hull into swiss cheese like carpenter ants tried to do to my house. So, you won't have to worry about super-detailing the trenails below the waterline. There are two other hull coatings used, black stuff made of tar and pitch (shown on that Essex model you saw) and brown stuff, which was black stuff with brimstone added to black stuff.

All of these were partially effective against shipworm, but if you sail the ship to temperate waters like the Americas, the worms will have a hay-day on your hull and nothing will stop them short of copper sheathing. Spanish galleons in the late 16th century desperately tried sheathing the hull in lead, which worked fairly well, but slowed the ship with weight and water resistance.

As for asking about small details in historic accuracy, no one on this forum will criticize such questions. In fact, we encourage them because every reader who also has the same question benefits from the answers. It's why many of us are here, myself included, and we are fortunate to have so many members who are well researched and can provide answers to most of our questions. As you do more research on your own, you will note that as the ships get older, we know less and less about the details of their construction, leaving us model builders to have to make both educated guess based on later vessels or similar vessel from other countries, or making wild guesses from no historical knowledge whatsoever. Being someone who likes modeling ships from the early 17th century, the lack of information has been a huge obstacle in the quest for building an accurate model. Often, the only information we have on a feature is the guess made by a modeler from 70 years ago or before, and the model becomes more of an interpretative thing instead of a researched thing. That's hard for new modelers to accept.
 
Kurt
Thank you for your thoughtful and informed reply. That is totally consistent with what I have read... being an incurable Cook fan, and an Endeavour builder, I know it was covered with "brown stuff" and built it as such. So this really explains why I see pre 1770 ships with white ( undoubtedly too white) hulls. It is a nice balance isnt it to make something as reasonably accurate to history as you can without becoming obsessed. When the ships get older it becomes less certain as you say. Many thanks for your information .
 
mallacoota said:
Kurt
Thank you for your thoughtful and informed reply. That is totally consistent with what I have read... being an incurable Cook fan, and an Endeavour builder, I know it was covered with "brown stuff" and built it as such. So this really explains why I see pre 1770 ships with white ( undoubtedly too white) hulls. It is a nice balance isnt it to make something as reasonably accurate to history as you can without becoming obsessed. When the ships get older it becomes less certain as you say. Many thanks for your information .
Click to expand...
Good morning, I have some news about this but , I am afraid to..........
 
mallacoota said:
I am having a real problem with some historical accuracy questions regarding white hulls below the waterline on English warships. My understanding of the history is that the Admiralty suspected that white lead might stop Teredo worm, and as an experiment, white leaded the hull of Endeavour's longboat ( I think,...it doesnt matter)_ for Cook's South Pacific voyage of 1769-1771... when he went to Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia. His journals reveal that after 6 (?) months away he found that the white leaded boat was perfect and the others were full of worm. After he reported this to the Admiralty in 1771 they decided to paint white lead where it was important enough as it was expensive to do. ...So by that history, there were not any white bottoms before 1771-2 approx. This makes the popular Bounty ( 1784) models as white "possible" if not proven. In the case of "Revenge" by the legendary Chris Watton as one of the Amati Victory series, the white hull is 100 years before time in 1577 . I can only think this is a commercial choice by Amati rather than a modelling choice by Chris Watton. I am thinking about tackling their Revenge knowing that I am not really good enough and wanting the stretch...LOL...I hope there is a researcher out there who can comment on the white bottom question.? I must say I am not as obsessed with historical detail as it might sound..this is just a pretty noticeable question... not something obscure like " how long are your belaying pins..?"
Click to expand...
You can consult Chris directly on Facebook.
 
Tallow, the rendered fat of cattle, goats, horses, sheep, etc.. was applied over 'white stuff', 'dark stuff', 'brown stuff' and probably even over 'no stuff' at all on occasions. Without putting coats of tallow over these said surfaces they would all look dull and dark, or at best in the case of white stuff, a cloudy slightly yellow colour.
Here is a formula given for white stuff as described in a Navy Board report from 1702 giving costings of paying with different materials, ( reproduced in The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War 1600-1815 by Brian Lavery ); White Stuff- 7cwt rosin, oil 18 gallons, brimstone 84 lbs. I made up a sample of this, grinding the sulphur into what was a very thinnish lacquer using an old liquidiser, the result was an almost transparent coating. I brushed this onto an old piece of oak and let it ' 'dry' for several days. the surface coated showed a slight sheen but virtually no change of colour. I then melted some beef dripping ( the closest I could find to tallow), and brushed it over the coating. The result was a translucent whitish finish. The thicker the tallow was applied the 'whiter' the surface became.
I have seen photographs of models built in the early 18th. century that have their below the waterline hulls painted white, my opinion is that this was done to represent the tallow coating, and besides it looked nice, striking even.

JJ..
 
well researched..and very interesting. Nonetheless I think the presentation of models like Endeavour with bright white hull bottoms has more to do with attractive presentation than understanding "white stuff" as you have explained.
 
I entirely agree with you, and it can make a model look stunning. Likewise it is nothing new, (see pic ), this is an apprentice shipwright's model from the 1740's. A real beauty to my eyes.
As to the Revenge's hull being 'white' ? Well they would, most likely, have coated her hull with tallow therefore there is an argument to illustrate it painted white. My personal choice would be to leave the hull unpainted, besides I suspect that after even a few weeks at sea most of the tallow would be washed off.
Great talking to you. Jack.

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Jack
Thanks for that, it has been an informative discussion. I admit I am not clear on how to present the hull of my upcoming Mary Rose. That apprentice model above is brilliant...just looking at the running rigging is giving me a headache, but the colour of the hull bottom looks very realistic.
John
 
I have defaulted to an acrylic color called “antique white“ for the white stuff on hulls. It looks used and slightly dirty so it seems to be better on the hull than a regular or bright white. I also use the same antique white on any place that calls for white such as masts or spars…
 
mallacoota said:
Jack
Thanks for that, it has been an informative discussion. I admit I am not clear on how to present the hull of my upcoming Mary Rose. That apprentice model above is brilliant...just looking at the running rigging is giving me a headache, but the colour of the hull bottom looks very realistic.
John
Click to expand...
Hi John, I have no name for the model but she is thought to be a 24 gun, 6th Rate of the 1741 Establishment, she was of interest to me as I am building a 20 gun 6th. rate of the 1719 Establishment. The model was listed at auction Nov. 22 and sold for £12,400. Here are some more pics..

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She has worn pretty well for near three hundred years. Cheers JJ..
 
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