Quarter galleries

Don Case

Don Case

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I'm puzzling with the quarter galleries(and the whole stern) on the Discovery1789 and this is what I have to go with.

hiresz.jpgDISCOVERY_1789_RMG_J2022z.jpg

I can't really get an idea of the width of the gallery (Like, how far it sticks out from the side of the ship). It looks like it may be roughly the same width as each stern light but maybe a bit more. I know that there must be enough room inside for the captains head but I don't have a measurement of Vancouver's butt.;);). Does anyone know or have a plan that would show the width of the quarter gallery. I'm thinking somewhere between 18" and 30". I'm leaning toward the 18" as these ships were very cramped and I can't see wasting space on something that was only used for a couple of minutes.
Oh. I guess I need room for a magazine rack too:D:D
 
I went looking on the RMG site. Boy, what a tough site to navigate. Anyway I found about a half dozen deck plans that showed the quarter galeries. Bare minimum, they looked like ears on a teddy bear but the size seemed to be in my guess area. I'll head that way unless someone yells at me to stop.:)
 
Don Case said:
I'm puzzling with the quarter galleries(and the whole stern) on the Discovery1789 and this is what I have to go with.

View attachment 321893View attachment 321894

I can't really get an idea of the width of the gallery (Like, how far it sticks out from the side of the ship). It looks like it may be roughly the same width as each stern light but maybe a bit more. I know that there must be enough room inside for the captains head but I don't have a measurement of Vancouver's butt.;);). Does anyone know or have a plan that would show the width of the quarter gallery. I'm thinking somewhere between 18" and 30". I'm leaning toward the 18" as these ships were very cramped and I can't see wasting space on something that was only used for a couple of minutes.
Oh. I guess I need room for a magazine rack too:D:D
Click to expand...
 
Hi; what I have read, and that was in the 1690's period, is that the French ships had side galleries 3 french feet (2.707 cm/french inch)wide on each side while the English ships stayed with the old 6 English feet (2.54 cm/english inch) wide; It was written that it was more of a tradition related to comfort. As to why the French ones were narrower had to do with the turbulence they caused in cross winds which would act on the pointing direction of that ship. As for the the depth of them, or their height inside, I haven't got anything written but it would correspond to the height of the room which the gallery is related to under the main trusts of that room. the depth was more part of the overall design and would vary greatly. The information I don't have is whether the English finally narrowed those bottles in later constructions.....
 
Thanks a lot Guy. That really is a big difference, 3 to 6 feet. That should show on the few plans that I've seen and it didn't really but I was looking at very late 18th century and they may have changed by then. I'll go back to the RMG and see if they have any plans for the 17th century. I hope they changed because I'm well into building the quarter galleries. I've backed up before though. Thanks a bunch.

Oh, what size ships were you looking at? The Discovery1789 was only 10 guns. 300 tons and 97 feet long. Maybe smaller ships had proportionatley narrower galleries.
 
Don Case said:
Thanks a lot Guy. That really is a big difference, 3 to 6 feet. That should show on the few plans that I've seen and it didn't really but I was looking at very late 18th century and they may have changed by then. I'll go back to the RMG and see if they have any plans for the 17th century. I hope they changed because I'm well into building the quarter galleries. I've backed up before though. Thanks a bunch.

Oh, what size ships were you looking at? The Discovery1789 was only 10 guns. 300 tons and 97 feet long. Maybe smaller ships had proportionatley narrower galleries.
Click to expand...
They were the comparison between the 1690 SoleilRoyal and the Royal George of that time.... I'm looking through my books, and I could read that the gallery difference remained through the 18th century on those three deckers; I'm trying to find clues or indications for the smaller 6th class vessels......
 
Royal George1675 (Lauched as Royal James) had a beam of 45 ft so 6 ft for the Quarter galleries wouldn't be out of line.
 
So, a 50 gun English ship would have a 4 feet wide side ''bottle'' on the middle deck ( main deck in that class)......
I can't find the dimensions for smaller width and length ships. What it says is the three deckers had 6 feet, the bigger two deckers were 5 feet wide, and the smaller down to 5th class were 4 feet; The text says that Blaise Ollivier was surprised that the smaller ships carried bottles that wide, since, in his view, it would hamper the good sialing abilities of those ships.....I'all I could find for now...
 
Thanks a lot. It does sound like they were proportional to the size of the ship(which makes sense) and the sizes you give are leading toward what I'm doing so I will forge ahead.
 
But what puzzles me is the comment that says that all their smaller ships had the same gallery or bottle width.....So, 4 feet would have been the minimum?
 
Well, no. The parts I have made are about 3 feet. The trim may stretch that to 3.5 so I think I'll live with it.
Thanks for the help. You got me closer than I would have been I think.
 
Don Case said:
Well, no. The parts I have made are about 3 feet. The trim may stretch that to 3.5 so I think I'll live with it.
Thanks for the help. You got me closer than I would have been I think.
Click to expand...
Happy to be of assistance:)
 
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