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HMS Surprise - 1st Scratch Build

Hello Mustafa,
I used the original British Admiralty draft lines drawn when the Surprise (ex-French L'Unité) was captured in 1796, together with details from the book, "The Frigate Surprise" by Brian Lavery and Geoff Hunt, Conway, ISBN 978-1-8448-6074-6. I also used contemporary tables for mast and yard dimensions from the book, "The Elements and practice of Rigging, Seamanship and Naval Tactics; Volume 1: The Art of Making Masts, Yards, Gaffs, Booms, Blocks and Oars", by David Steel, Cambridge Library Collection, ISBN 978-1-108-02651-2. The draft line plans are widely available on the internet although quality varies. I believe a high quality copy can be purchased from the national Maritime Museum, Greenwich Museum Collections (https://prints.rmg.co.uk/collections/ship-plans). I used these plans and books to create my own detailed plans in Blender (free 3D modelling software).
Have fun
Stuart
 
Stuart, your research is truly commendable. Even for anyone building a kit, not just scratch builds, more often than not, for English ships, the original plans are readily available to study and compare. There are about 800 high resolution plans on the WikiCommons site along with over 2000 in low res, like on the RMG Collections site that you referenced. I do find an alternate RMG site easier to use (it may be just me) as you can just type in the name of the ship to see the specifics without a lot of searching. Example https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/search/Surprise 1796 Unfortunately the Wiki site only has the Unite/Surprise plans in low res, same as on the RMG sites so the only way I know to get copies of the originals in high res is to buy them from RMG. The Wiki site has about 20 pages showing what plans they have and the resolution. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Category:Ship_plans_of_the_Royal_Museums_Greenwich
Allan
 
Well, I learned a lot, there is much I would like to do better next time. I still struggle to get the finish I want on the woodwork and I struggle to get the rigging taught enough to look realistic without stressing the model too much.
 
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