I decided it's time to start a build log for this ship.
I'm doing the drawings as a collaborative effort with @JosephH he offered to rework my drawings in 3D to see it things fit together before I start hacking up wood. I posted in the research section a while back and will probably repeat some of that information.
I'm planning on doing this as a Plank on Bulkhead fully masted and rigged, and then I would like to do a cross section cut where you can see the inner workings of the mortar bed and have it placed in the same case under the bow sprit.
I downloaded 42 plans from the Danish National Archives for bomb vessels of this class. There were 8 built the names are,
’Dristighed’ – ‘Boldness’
’Modet’ – ‘Courage’
’Mandighed’ – ‘Manly’
‘Forskækkelse’ - Frightening’
‘Den gloende’ – ‘Glowing hot’
‘Cometen’ – The Comet
‘Dragen – The Dragon
‘Alvorlighed’ (The) Serious
The Danish refer to these as “Type Bombadér – Hukkert”
Thanks to @William and Inger for this definition; A lesser north European freight or fishing vessel common in the 17th.C. The hull was round ‘gattet’ (the same form both ends but with a quite flat bottom (keel) and therefore drew very little water. It was usually two masted: the first a full-rigger mast which stood quite some way back on the ship and a lesser ‘skønnet’ mast ( schooner-rigged mizzen mast) and a bow sprit with a long standing jib'.
Main references I’m using;
This is one of those elephant in the room issues so I’m going to address it right up front. This ship class looks a lot like the Granado, which for those that don’t know is an English bomb vessel. The Granado was built in 1742 the Danish ships were built in 1771, I have read, it wasn’t unusual for shipwrights to move around in the 1700’s. Even if that isn’t what happened here, it would be hard to make a case that the designer of these ships hadn’t seen the Granado or at least the plans. The similarity is hard to miss even the overall size is nearly identical. That being said there are some definite differences. The most obvious is the Danish ships have a bed of ropes under the mortars for shock absorbers. The Granado does not. Some of the fittings are drawn differently, and the Danish ships have six windows in the stern instead of 5 and no stern gallery on the side.
One thing that drew me to this particular class of ship is that the plans also include plans for masting and sails. Of note is that the English plans for the Granado do not include sail and mast plans but the rigged models of the Granado I’ve seen match the Danish sail and mast plans. My suspicion is that the Danish plans were used to rig the Granado models.
So to this point in order to build the Danish ship as much as possible the only thing I’ve used the Granado book for is to understand the construction of the stern. There is a Wing Transom and 6 transom beams shown on the Danish plan that I didn’t understand, so I used the Granado book to figure out how the stern was most likely constructed.
Here's the layout and the body plans from the Danish archives so these plans are free download from their website.
On the Historic end of things, I’ve done a lot of research with some but not a great deal of success. These ships were built at a relative time of peace for the Danish and there doesn't seem to be much to be found on the history of the particular ships. I thought possibly they could have gone to the Caribean or possibly sunk or scuttled in one of the Battles of Copenhagen however neither any searches of the Carribean that I could find or records of the ships sunk and taken in the Battle of Copenhagen or any of the English NMM records had any reference to any of these ships.
The Den Gloende was built in 1771 and fitted out as a bomb vessel originally. The only other record I could find for the Den Gloende is when the Danish government bought the Danish East India Company and renamed it the Danish Asiatic Company in 1772. There is maintenance record for the ship that indicates the ship was transferred to the Danish Asiatic Company and most likely re-fit. The plans call for an alternate 16 gun loadout for use as an armed escort or it could have been refit for merchant purposes, the record is unclear about this. I'm going to build it as it was originally fit out as a bomb vessel.
I'll continue below with what I've been doing the last Couple months.
I'm doing the drawings as a collaborative effort with @JosephH he offered to rework my drawings in 3D to see it things fit together before I start hacking up wood. I posted in the research section a while back and will probably repeat some of that information.
I'm planning on doing this as a Plank on Bulkhead fully masted and rigged, and then I would like to do a cross section cut where you can see the inner workings of the mortar bed and have it placed in the same case under the bow sprit.
I downloaded 42 plans from the Danish National Archives for bomb vessels of this class. There were 8 built the names are,
’Dristighed’ – ‘Boldness’
’Modet’ – ‘Courage’
’Mandighed’ – ‘Manly’
‘Forskækkelse’ - Frightening’
‘Den gloende’ – ‘Glowing hot’
‘Cometen’ – The Comet
‘Dragen – The Dragon
‘Alvorlighed’ (The) Serious
The Danish refer to these as “Type Bombadér – Hukkert”
Thanks to @William and Inger for this definition; A lesser north European freight or fishing vessel common in the 17th.C. The hull was round ‘gattet’ (the same form both ends but with a quite flat bottom (keel) and therefore drew very little water. It was usually two masted: the first a full-rigger mast which stood quite some way back on the ship and a lesser ‘skønnet’ mast ( schooner-rigged mizzen mast) and a bow sprit with a long standing jib'.
Main references I’m using;
- Plans from the Danish national archives, most are in the A1237 series.
- The Bomb Vessel GRANADO (Anatomy of the Ship) by Peter Goodwin.(trying to use only when everything else fails see explanation below).
- The Bomb Vessel - Shore Bombardment Ships of the Age of Sail by Chris Ware
This is one of those elephant in the room issues so I’m going to address it right up front. This ship class looks a lot like the Granado, which for those that don’t know is an English bomb vessel. The Granado was built in 1742 the Danish ships were built in 1771, I have read, it wasn’t unusual for shipwrights to move around in the 1700’s. Even if that isn’t what happened here, it would be hard to make a case that the designer of these ships hadn’t seen the Granado or at least the plans. The similarity is hard to miss even the overall size is nearly identical. That being said there are some definite differences. The most obvious is the Danish ships have a bed of ropes under the mortars for shock absorbers. The Granado does not. Some of the fittings are drawn differently, and the Danish ships have six windows in the stern instead of 5 and no stern gallery on the side.
One thing that drew me to this particular class of ship is that the plans also include plans for masting and sails. Of note is that the English plans for the Granado do not include sail and mast plans but the rigged models of the Granado I’ve seen match the Danish sail and mast plans. My suspicion is that the Danish plans were used to rig the Granado models.
So to this point in order to build the Danish ship as much as possible the only thing I’ve used the Granado book for is to understand the construction of the stern. There is a Wing Transom and 6 transom beams shown on the Danish plan that I didn’t understand, so I used the Granado book to figure out how the stern was most likely constructed.
Here's the layout and the body plans from the Danish archives so these plans are free download from their website.
On the Historic end of things, I’ve done a lot of research with some but not a great deal of success. These ships were built at a relative time of peace for the Danish and there doesn't seem to be much to be found on the history of the particular ships. I thought possibly they could have gone to the Caribean or possibly sunk or scuttled in one of the Battles of Copenhagen however neither any searches of the Carribean that I could find or records of the ships sunk and taken in the Battle of Copenhagen or any of the English NMM records had any reference to any of these ships.
The Den Gloende was built in 1771 and fitted out as a bomb vessel originally. The only other record I could find for the Den Gloende is when the Danish government bought the Danish East India Company and renamed it the Danish Asiatic Company in 1772. There is maintenance record for the ship that indicates the ship was transferred to the Danish Asiatic Company and most likely re-fit. The plans call for an alternate 16 gun loadout for use as an armed escort or it could have been refit for merchant purposes, the record is unclear about this. I'm going to build it as it was originally fit out as a bomb vessel.
I'll continue below with what I've been doing the last Couple months.