Questions re: Hahn's depiction of HMS Halifax's hold & stores

[davidcsimon]

I've been referring to Harold Hahn's depictions of HMS Halifax (1768) for my 3d reconstruction, but when it comes to recreating the interior I have some concerns about how he depicted the hold and stores:



He shows the hold as a large open space with plenty of headroom, no ballast, and no cabins or living quarters for the crew (aside from the officers at the stern). The video tour of the HMS Sultana replica says that this space would have been divided on Sultana by a deck, separating the crew's cabins from the stores below. Hahns also shows only a single ladder leading down from the weatherdeck, the one below the companionway, despite also showing other suitably sized hatches amidships and at the fore. This seems impractical to me:



Even more confusing to me is that he shows barrels stored under the stern cabins in what appear to be watertight compartments. How could these stores be accessed?



Given the absence of sails and ropes being stored below deck, and the paltry number of barrels, I'm assuming that Hahn wanted a clean, uncluttered model for his (undeniably gorgeous) display and took some liberties with the layout. However it's equally likely that I'm a total noob who knows nothing about how ships actually work.

Help? I'd like to make my model as authentic a depiction of an actual working schooner as possible.

 

[Uwek]

There is a contemporary drawing of the HMS Halifax existing

'Halifax' (1768)​

Scale: 1:48. A plan showing the body plan with stern board detail, modified sheer lines with inboard detail, longitudinal half-breadth, deck plan, and fore and aft platforms for 'Halifax' (1768), a purchased American-built 6-gun Schooner.

'Halifax' (1768) | Royal Museums Greenwich

www.rmg.co.uk

 

[davidcsimon]

There is a contemporary drawing of the HMS Halifax existing

View attachment 391169

'Halifax' (1768)​

Scale: 1:48. A plan showing the body plan with stern board detail, modified sheer lines with inboard detail, longitudinal half-breadth, deck plan, and fore and aft platforms for 'Halifax' (1768), a purchased American-built 6-gun Schooner.

'Halifax' (1768) | Royal Museums Greenwich

www.rmg.co.uk

Aye, and Hahn based his drawings on this, but while I don't doubt its accuracy, I do wonder about its completeness. It was drawn while the boat was being refitted for service in the Royal Navy and may be missing certain details.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

having known Harold Hahn personally and spent many hour with him as my mentor i do remember him saying many times when the historical accuracy of his work was questioned he replied his models are not ment to be absolutely historically correct, at one time he said there are NO models that are absolutely historically correct unless you are working from an intact ship wreck where every detail can be studied and reproduced. A model such as the Halifax is a diorama showing the life aboard a wooden ship of the period and that is the point of the model. Harold Hahn was an engineer by trade and artist with his work in various art museums. As any artist, artistic license is a tool used to get a point across or to provoke the imagination of the viewer.

 

[Dave Stevens (Lumberyard)]

thoughts to consider
taken from the archives of Harold Hahn

Those who would elevate ship modeling in the public’s estimation render their community a disservice when they loosely label models “to museum standards” when they actually intend to indicate that these are the products of high quality research, craftsmanship and artistic sensibility. Museum curators, gallery owners, and professional ship modelers would be well advised to seek out a more accurate label, such as “historically accurate” and learn to be rigorous in its application.
wo issues underlie the current debate in ship modeling circles about “museum quality”. One is the question of standards of construction, and revolves around the longevity of materials and accurate correspondence to contact construction drafts. Several organizations have published comprehensive though mutually contradictory standards. I personally would not agree that the resulting models are not necessarily built to museum standards of detail.
The second and, I consider, more serious issue is that of historical accuracy. Far to many so-called “museum quality” models, although built of the finest materials and to the highest standards of craftsmanship, exhibit gross historical errors. Often this results from too readily accepted apparently authoritative secondary sources as definitive. Producing a historically accurate model demands extensive research and the careful evaluation of the raw data, this is the distinction between history and antiquarianism.
The second enemy of historical accuracy is the monster we in the ship modeling community are creating ourselves. We are dangerously close to elevating an arbitrary artificial convention, the inappropriately termed “Admiralty board” style model, to the position of being the standard of excellence for our craft. The plank on frame technique produces extraordinarily attractive models which look very difficult to build. It is, however, only a technique and its use does not automatically confer historical accuracy, which, in a framed model, will result solely from the use of the construction method employed by the prototype.
I have never seen a plank on frame model of a late 18th century schooner or British war ship whose intermediate frames were depicted as unattached futtocks or “chunks” yet maritime archaeology tells us that these vessels were so constructed. Similarly, there are far to many models of Santa Maria constructed with double sawn frames, a construction method that was not introduced until 350 years after she was wrecked.
Those in our community who tout the virtues of what they loosely describe as “admiralty board” style models are usually guilty of two grievous sins, they ignore the fact that models built for the board of admiralty radically changed between the mid 17th and 18th century, so there is no such animal, and they dare to aver that a model built with an incorrect framing pattern and treenailed so that it seems to have been sprinkled with pepper demonstrates anything more than that its builder has mastered a particular technique. Such models are not historically accurate and therefore are automatically debarred from being described as built “to museum standards”.
The consequence of the dominance of an artificial convention and a ready reliance on limited research is that we are in danger of misleading our audience, which will backfire on us, and diminish our chances of elevating our standing in the public esteem. We cant not knowing praise what we know to be in error and expect to be immune from the backlash when our audience discovers it was duped by models misleadingly labeled.

in reply to the above

In a crude way I got to say the person who wrote this is full of shit First of all he has really no idea of what’s in museums. There are many solid hulls built to very high standards of craftsmanship. But because they are not built correct they have to be barred as museum quality or historically correct they lack historical correctness in hull construction. It is stated very clear if the framing pattern is incorrect we have been duped in thinking the model is of a Museum and historical standards whatever that may be. In the above the writer in his narrow mindedness and focus on historical detail failed to take into consideration the aspect of “art” how to define it and how it fits into the overall scheme of things.
This writer is waging a campaign to denigrate the model work of 99.9 % of all ship modelers as well as that of the past 300 years. He faults us for building models to certain conventions rather than duplicating the actual construction methods used in the original ships. When he can present me with a model that he has built with his own hands of an 18th century ship for which he can document from contemporary sources that the exact construction of the prototype, I will take his claim under consideration.
Let’s have a show of hands out there. How many model builders are there who will give up model building if they cant duplicate the exact construction of a ship in their next project? It’s ridiculous that anyone should blame us for not doing something that can’t be done. Should we be ashamed for simply building a beautiful ship model and perhaps “peppering” the hull with treenails? The men who built the admiralty models were in the best position to duplicate the actual construction of the ship that they modeled. Show me a few examples of those contemporary models that weren’t built to certain conventions. Chop up the rest for kindling wood.

Why do people build ship models? There is only one that really suits me and, I suspect, the great majority of us. I like to create a thing of beauty with my own hands that I can view with satisfaction when it is finished. I’m not ashamed if it doesn’t duplicate the exact construction of the original ship. I’m not concerned about educating the general public who couldn’t care less, so it doesn’t matter whether or not it goes to a museum or is of absolute historical correctness. .

Harold Maxwell Hahn

 

[davidcsimon]

thoughts to consider
taken from the archives of Harold Hahn

Thanks for this, fascinating stuff! "Why we build" seems to be the key question here, and I can definitely see Hahn's point that absolute accuracy is practically impossible, so it might be better to have fun and focus on making something beautiful.

 

[Jack Jäger]

Dave Stevens is totally correct, it cannot be done, if we want to go down the road of accuracy we can only work with what we can research and you soon find out that when it comes to the 17th and 18th century that that is mostly someone else's best guess. As for Navy board models you will find very few, if any, of them constructed in the same manner as the ship they are depicting. I would suspect that when built for a boat yard they were presented to say 'look at what we can build you'. Or if they were built for the Admiralty the were saying 'build me a ship like this'. Mind you I suspect most were just given as a celebration of the finished ship . They are mostly all in museums so I guess they are 'museum quality' but accurate?
I try to build model boats that are hopefully a representation of the era they sailed, but are definitely pleasing to my eye. I doubt many museums will be queuing up for them. I admire the more skilled and suspect that it is the construction process rather than the finished boat that is the more important to them. Good on them if that's there thing. If you don't enjoy it and are not being payed for it, why do it?

JJ..

 

[Uwek]

I've been referring to Harold Hahn's depictions of HMS Halifax (1768) for my 3d reconstruction, but when it comes to recreating the interior I have some concerns about how he depicted the hold and stores:

View attachment 391158

He shows the hold as a large open space with plenty of headroom, no ballast, and no cabins or living quarters for the crew (aside from the officers at the stern). The video tour of the HMS Sultana replica says that this space would have been divided on Sultana by a deck, separating the crew's cabins from the stores below. Hahns also shows only a single ladder leading down from the weatherdeck, the one below the companionway, despite also showing other suitably sized hatches amidships and at the fore. This seems impractical to me:

View attachment 391159

Even more confusing to me is that he shows barrels stored under the stern cabins in what appear to be watertight compartments. How could these stores be accessed?

View attachment 391160

Given the absence of sails and ropes being stored below deck, and the paltry number of barrels, I'm assuming that Hahn wanted a clean, uncluttered model for his (undeniably gorgeous) display and took some liberties with the layout. However it's equally likely that I'm a total noob who knows nothing about how ships actually work.

Help? I'd like to make my model as authentic a depiction of an actual working schooner as possible.

Hallo @davidcsimon
we wish you all the BEST and a HAPPY BIRTHDAY