Sovereign of the Seas, a reconstruction

[Heinrich]

Wow Maarten. I was scrolling down the Scratch Build section to find yours and Stephans's builds when I discovered this. Now obviously the contributions I can make to the SOTS are nil, so i was very happy to find mention of the Tatra, the RR - and then of course, the beauty of all beauties, @Tobias Tobias's Karmann Ghia.

How the builder of a Dutch Fluyt can get sidetracked by two British monstrosities are beyond me! Just joking, Maarten - if the RR had been a Bentley, I would have shut up!

 

[Maarten]

The next step is comparing the center frame construction of the different treatise with each other and the Pett center frame as handed over by Phineas Pett.

The Phineas Pett center frame of SotS is set up as below.

-Extreme beam bm = 46'6"
-Depth extreme beam to top of keel = 19'4"
-Breadth of the floor = 14'
-Sweep at the runghead = 11'
-Sweep at the right of the mould = 31'
-Sweep between waterline and breadth = 10'
-Sweep above the breadth = 14'

These values are handed over by Phineas Pett himselve, so these are a solid base for the center frame. Only the top timber sweep and tumble home are missing, so these should be reconstructed from historical data sources.

To draw the center frame first the frame grid is drawn, in this you show the prime parameters of the frame being the extreme beam, depth and floor.


The frame data as handed over by Pett is now drawn into the center frame grid and looks like below.


As we see above we are missing the top timbers of the frame which are certainly needed for a proper frame reconstruction. To reconstruct these we have 4 possible candidate temporary sources.

First is the 1620 Treatise on shipbuilding. Following this treatise and using the extreme beam and depth provided by Pett create a frame as reconstructed below.


and compared to the Pett frame you see the nearly similar underwater hull.

This frame is very close to the arcs as provided by Pett however above the bm the Pett hul is wider, expect this was done to create more space in the upper hull for the higher gun decks. After all it was a revolutionary ship design.

The next to compare is Bushnell, his book "the compleat shipwright" of 1664. This book is slightly more complicated to read, it is a real 17th century English book which is not rewritten, but sofar I have found all data for a frame reconstruction.
I have reconstructed his frame again using the same bm and depth as provided for SotS and the result is completely different to Pett and the 1620 results.


Comparison with the Pett design.

The underwater ship is much more square with a wider floor and a deadrise. The top timbers are also wider resulting in a wider upper deck.
Certainly not an SotS candidate to use but more a cargo ship frame instead of a warship.

The last one is Dean of 1670. Again same bm and depth used to reconstruct the frame.


The frame of Dean is again close to Pett. The underwater ship shape is more full and where the 1620 upper frame was more sleek than Pett the Dean frame is also in the upper frame more full.


Comparing all these Bushnell is far from the given data from Pett. 1620 treatise is spot on for the lower hull, closer than Dean. However the upper hull of Pett is wider due to his larger radius above breadth sweep of 14' instead of the continuation of his 10' radius of his breadth to waterline sweep. As mentioned I expect this was done to make more space on the upper gun decks, you see this also in the later designs of Dean which have less tumble home to create more space.

The choosen tumble home is determining the width of the upper deck.
In the 1620 treatise the tumble home is 7' 9" resulting in a top timber width of 46' 6" - (2 × 7' 9") = 31'. The top timber sweep according the 1620 treatise is equal to the bm or 46' 6".
Following the 1620 treatise Pett s frame would look like below. This is also the choice of Werner Bruns reconstruction.


In Pett s biography they also reconstructed the Pett midship frame, actually here they used Dean s methode for the top timber sweep which is equal to the above breadth sweep of 14" in combination with the 1620 tumble home.
As Dean uses a much bigger above breadth sweep of nearly 22' for this size of frame this example can t be right to my opinion.


Dean and also Bushnell are both using far less tumble home in their designs, but both are written over 30 years after design of the SotS when three deckers were normal.
Their tumble home is around 5' creating an upper deck space of over 35'.

See below the difference between Dean and the Pett biography frame using the 1620 tumble home, a significant difference.


This is the next step in my research. Determining the tumble home and top timber sweep. Pett s given data points to slightly less tumble home creating a wider top deck. The sweep I expect to be the 1620 bm sweep of 46' 6" or slightly less.
Deck width maybe between Dean and 1620.

How to determine? I will prepare the frames in Fusion 360 and project them on the Van de Velde drawings and Lely painting, lets see if we can find a match, but that will be next time.

So the proper top to the frame below has to be added.

 

[Heinrich]

So, Maarten, is my understanding correct that you favor Pett's interpretation?

 

[Maarten]

So, Maarten, is my understanding correct that you favor Pett's interpretation?

Hi Heinrich,

Pett was the original designer and builder of the ship. He provided the data for the lower part of the hull in his biography, so this is solid info.
1620 treatise, Bushnell and Dean should provide the missing data and sofar the 1620 treatise seems to be closest, then Dean and Bushnell is last in the row.

 

[Heinrich]

Hi Heinrich,

Pett was the original designer and builder of the ship. He provided the data for the lower part of the hull in his biography, so this is solid info.
1620 treatise, Bushnell and Dean should provide the missing data and sofar the 1620 treatise seems to be closest, then Dean and Bushnell is last in the row.

Thank you, Maarten.

 

[WilliamM]

Impressive - wish you the very best.
Terry

I hate to admit, but is this the 17th century Ship-of-the-line. or is it the 19th century American clipper?

Bill

 

[AnobiumPunctatum]

Maarten,
this is a really interesting comparison of the different frame designs. Well researchesd.

 

[Maarten]

I hate to admit, but is this the 17th century Ship-of-the-line. or is it the 19th century American clipper?

Bill

Hi William,

This is a reconstruction attempt of the Sovereign of the Seas. She was one of the most famous vessels of the 17th century and the link between the galleon and the ship of the line.

 

[Peter Voogt]

The next step is comparing the center frame construction of the different treatise with each other and the Pett center frame as handed over by Phineas Pett.

The Phineas Pett center frame of SotS is set up as below.

-Extreme beam bm = 46'6"
-Depth extreme beam to top of keel = 19'4"
-Breadth of the floor = 14'
-Sweep at the runghead = 11'
-Sweep at the right of the mould = 31'
-Sweep between waterline and breadth = 10'
-Sweep above the breadth = 14'

These values are handed over by Phineas Pett himselve, so these are a solid base for the center frame. Only the top timber sweep and tumble home are missing, so these should be reconstructed from historical data sources.

To draw the center frame first the frame grid is drawn, in this you show the prime parameters of the frame being the extreme beam, depth and floor.
View attachment 427231

The frame data as handed over by Pett is now drawn into the center frame grid and looks like below.
View attachment 427241

As we see above we are missing the top timbers of the frame which are certainly needed for a proper frame reconstruction. To reconstruct these we have 4 possible candidate temporary sources.

First is the 1620 Treatise on shipbuilding. Following this treatise and using the extreme beam and depth provided by Pett create a frame as reconstructed below.
View attachment 427946

and compared to the Pett frame you see the nearly similar underwater hull.
View attachment 427955
This frame is very close to the arcs as provided by Pett however above the bm the Pett hul is wider, expect this was done to create more space in the upper hull for the higher gun decks. After all it was a revolutionary ship design.

The next to compare is Bushnell, his book "the compleat shipwright" of 1664. This book is slightly more complicated to read, it is a real 17th century English book which is not rewritten, but sofar I have found all data for a frame reconstruction.
I have reconstructed his frame again using the same bm and depth as provided for SotS and the result is completely different to Pett and the 1620 results.
View attachment 427947

Comparison with the Pett design.
View attachment 427956
The underwater ship is much more square with a wider floor and a deadrise. The top timbers are also wider resulting in a wider upper deck.
Certainly not an SotS candidate to use but more a cargo ship frame instead of a warship.

The last one is Dean of 1670. Again same bm and depth used to reconstruct the frame.
View attachment 427948

The frame of Dean is again close to Pett. The underwater ship shape is more full and where the 1620 upper frame was more sleek than Pett the Dean frame is also in the upper frame more full.
View attachment 427957

Comparing all these Bushnell is far from the given data from Pett. 1620 treatise is spot on for the lower hull, closer than Dean. However the upper hull of Pett is wider due to his larger radius above breadth sweep of 14' instead of the continuation of his 10' radius of his breadth to waterline sweep. As mentioned I expect this was done to make more space on the upper gun decks, you see this also in the later designs of Dean which have less tumble home to create more space.

The choosen tumble home is determining the width of the upper deck.
In the 1620 treatise the tumble home is 7' 9" resulting in a top timber width of 46' 6" - (2 × 7' 9") = 31'. The top timber sweep according the 1620 treatise is equal to the bm or 46' 6".
Following the 1620 treatise Pett s frame would look like below. This is also the choice of Werner Bruns reconstruction.
View attachment 427950

In Pett s biography they also reconstructed the Pett midship frame, actually here they used Dean s methode for the top timber sweep which is equal to the above breadth sweep of 14" in combination with the 1620 tumble home.
As Dean uses a much bigger above breadth sweep of nearly 22' for this size of frame this example can t be right to my opinion.
View attachment 428212

Dean and also Bushnell are both using far less tumble home in their designs, but both are written over 30 years after design of the SotS when three deckers were normal.
Their tumble home is around 5' creating an upper deck space of over 35'.

See below the difference between Dean and the Pett biography frame using the 1620 tumble home, a significant difference.
View attachment 427953

This is the next step in my research. Determining the tumble home and top timber sweep. Pett s given data points to slightly less tumble home creating a wider top deck. The sweep I expect to be the 1620 bm sweep of 46' 6" or slightly less.
Deck width maybe between Dean and 1620.

How to determine? I will prepare the frames in Fusion 360 and project them on the Van de Velde drawings and Lely painting, lets see if we can find a match, but that will be next time.

So the proper top to the frame below has to be added.
View attachment 427958

That's a solid piece of research of the center frame, Maarten.
You have worked it out nicely in Fusion 360. By turning the view of different 'sketches' on or off, you can display the differences in one view.
Regards, Peter

 

[Maarten]

That's a solid piece of research of the center frame, Maarten.
You have worked it out nicely in Fusion 360. By turning the view of different 'sketches' on or off, you can display the differences in one view.
Regards, Peter

Hi Peter,

Yes I know but the line colours in Fusion 360 are fixed so it was unclear to show all the frames in the same overview. My first idea was every frame its own colour but that is only possible when I change it to a surface instead of a line.

 

[KOCH]

I hate to admit, but is this the 17th century Ship-of-the-line. or is it the 19th century American clipper?

Bill

Bill,
My comment was regarding the SOTS research effort involved in the post. I trust you were not referring to my progress.
Terry

 

[Maarten]

I have one last addition to the above frame comparison which is the John McKay frame from his SotS reconstruction.
McKay is mentioning in his book he based his reconstruction on Dean and his midship frame is drawn as below.


And if we compare it to my SotS Dean based reconstruction it is very close with only some minor changes by McKay in top timber sweep and top timber height which he corrected to the Boston drawing height.


However if we compare it to the frame bottom as handed over by Pett it is way off and I don't directly understand why he did it like this. Maybe I will understand it after I have worked out the Rising and Narrowing lines of the hull, we will see.


Attached you will find the excel sheet which is work in progress containing the formula's from the different Treatise.

 

[Maarten]

The next step is projecting the frames onto the Lely painting to see what would be the best choice for the top timber width and top timber sweep. For the top timbers I have to select two parameters. First the tumble home determining the width of the deck, secondly the top timber sweep. Werner Bruns used here the full 1620 treatise setup of the top timbers on top of the Pett frame. McKay used the full Deane frame and ignored the contemporary Pett frame.

To project the frame on top of the Lely painting I have drawn the deck heights, waterline and gun port heights into the frame. The data from the deck heights, waterline and gun ports is taken from Septhon, and is contemporary data from measurements from the finished ship. This date I have drawn into a kind of intermediate top timber frame between the 1620 and Dean frame tumble home.


Now I am projecting the intermediate frame onto the lely painting. Using the gunports to level the drawing at more or less the correct height.


Next is comparing all three frames being 1620, intermediate and Dean onto Lely.


Now it looks like in respect of the top timbers Dean is fitting best following the shape of the top of the hull very close.

However Dean used a different set up of breadth sweeps then handed over by Pett, which are far closer to the 1620 treatise. To deal with this I have drawn another frame using the Dean tumble home, which is far less then the 1620, in combination with the 1620 top timber sweep of the full breadth bm= 46,5'.


In this frame again I have drawn the decks and projected it onto the Lely painting.


This seems to be very close. Most probably Pett widened his upper hull to place all his guns on the two upper gun decks situated in this part of the hull.


Next step is to project these frames onto the Van de Velde drawings of the ship, he made some 3/4 stern and stem drawings, lets see if the frames match.

 

[AnobiumPunctatum]

Do not forget, that the Van Velde drawings are youger and are not showing the original version of the ship. I do not know what was changed during the first great repair 1655?

 

[Maarten]

Do not forget, that the Van Velde drawings are youger and are not showing the original version of the ship. I do not know what was changed during the first great repair 1655?

In the hull structure there was not changed much. Mostly a new design beakhead and removing the grating decks. Also the open parts of the side galleries were removed but that was it. The hull shape remained the same but I will show this in a drawing comparison.

 

[Peter Voogt]

The next step is projecting the frames onto the Lely painting to see what would be the best choice for the top timber width and top timber sweep. For the top timbers I have to select two parameters. First the tumble home determining the width of the deck, secondly the top timber sweep. Werner Bruns used here the full 1620 treatise setup of the top timbers on top of the Pett frame. McKay used the full Deane frame and ignored the contemporary Pett frame.

To project the frame on top of the Lely painting I have drawn the deck heights, waterline and gun port heights into the frame. The data from the deck heights, waterline and gun ports is taken from Septhon, and is contemporary data from measurements from the finished ship. This date I have drawn into a kind of intermediate top timber frame between the 1620 and Dean frame tumble home.
View attachment 429277

Now I am projecting the intermediate frame onto the lely painting. Using the gunports to level the drawing at more or less the correct height.
View attachment 429275

Next is comparing all three frames being 1620, intermediate and Dean onto Lely.
View attachment 429276

Now it looks like in respect of the top timbers Dean is fitting best following the shape of the top of the hull very close.

However Dean used a different set up of breadth sweeps then handed over by Pett, which are far closer to the 1620 treatise. To deal with this I have drawn another frame using the Dean tumble home, which is far less then the 1620, in combination with the 1620 top timber sweep of the full breadth bm= 46,5'.
View attachment 429278

In this frame again I have drawn the decks and projected it onto the Lely painting.
View attachment 429279

This seems to be very close. Most probably Pett widened his upper hull to place all his guns on the two upper gun decks situated in this part of the hull.


Next step is to project these frames onto the Van de Velde drawings of the ship, he made some 3/4 stern and stem drawings, lets see if the frames match.

Nice drawing/foto overlay comparison, Maarten.
Regards, Peter

 

[-Waldemar-]

.​

Admittedly this is only in the next stages, so I'm curious as to what method you will use to reduce/morph the contour of the master frame to get the shapes of the other frames. In general and in detail.

Oh, and don't forget the actually obligatory deadrise, also for the master frame. It is so often forgotten today even by generally well-informed authors/experts/reconstructors...

.​

 

[Maarten]

.​

Admittedly this is only in the next stages, so I'm curious as to what method you will use to reduce/morph the contour of the master frame to get the shapes of the other frames. In general and in detail.

Oh, and don't forget the actually obligatory deadrise, also for the master frame. It is so often forgotten today even by generally well-informed authors/experts/reconstructors...

.​

Hi Waldemar,

Good that you mention the Deadrise as I have been looking into this and the explanation about it in the different treatise is slightly different.
To my knowledge the dearise is creating a slight angle in the floor adding extra thickness to the frame for the limber holes next to the keel.
In Septhon it is mentioned the keel and deadrising is 2'6". Bushnell mentions the dead rising as 1" to the foot of the half breadth floor which would be here 7" for a 14' floor.

Am I correct that the deadrise would be like this? The 0,583 is foot, being 7"

 

[-Waldemar-]

.​

This may be a bit of a simplification, however, for the sake of brevity one can say that for a ship of this size the deadrise value at the master frame should be about 14 inches, or about 1/10th of half the length of the floor (ie. max. hull breadth / 4 / 10, or 46.5 / 4 / 10). This is for warships. Even Grebber in his duodecimal (ie. 1 foot = 12 inches) universal table published by Witsen 1671 and van Yk 1697 uses exactly this multiplier, although for a slightly longer length of the floor, ie. 2/3 rather than 1/2 of the max. hull breadth. For merchantmen a multiplier closer to 1/20 would be more appropriate, giving a flatter ship bottom.

I would suggest that you should probably check this 14-inch deadrise value by comparison to the extant dimensions of the ship, but it must also be said that the designer (Pett) may have individually adopted other value in a rather arbitrary way that is not in accordance with 'standards'.

The method of determining deadrise contours is probably the most poorly described aspect in the naval construction textbooks and treatises of the time. Probably because of its triviality, but that is precisely why it gives (almost) everyone so much trouble today. The least bad in this respect is the so-called Newton manuscript (from the second quarter of the 17th century, ie. the exact period of Sovereign's 1637 construction), specifically sections 20 and 21. It would be most convenient to direct you to my threads on this forum on English designs, but I can also give you yet another method, which gives very good results in a practical, rather easy way.

.​

 

[Maarten]

Hi Waldemar,

Thx for the comment, I will check the Newton manuscript to see if it brings more clarity.
Do you know where to source it?