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WIP Centurion

Post Captain said:
Try looking at the above information in Seamanship in the Age of Sail in google books. If that doesn't work, I'll post the image from my own copy. My rigging thread shouldn't be used to reference specific vessels. Too much changed over the years. It's more for facilitating the discussion of rigging using the proper terms.
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I also tried the link again. It still works for me.
 
I tried that link again and it was not wshowing anything but an error message. I was idly scrolling up and down just to see if there was anything there when it suddenly started working.

I was working off of the pic in this post. http://www.piratesahoy.net/threads/centurion.18568/page-9#post-427770
This is the version that comes closest to reality IMO, done six days ago. Centurion-23.jpg

Anyway, here it is.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gpalg0tpyyfcivy/f6pRFSZbYY/repaired ships/after beta 2.3/Centurion.7z
 
The new information might be more accurate. Both are a few decades off. I'll look into which half of the period of development between the two resources Centurion was in tomorrow morning. Something about that version doesn't sit we'll with my rigging instincts at all. Can't explain it.
 
I'm working on drawing up a fore-ad-aft plan based on original sail plans. It's slightly different from the 1760 plan. I found some earlier trapezoidal forms, which this rig is much better suited for.
 
I must say that I am not a fan of those trapezoidal sails from a purely aesthetic point of view. I prefer the simple cleaner triangles of the 1719-39 establishment rig that she would have carried for the first part of her life. Because of my dislike of these, I did away with her staysails altogether for GOF Eras. I'm glad to see her with flags now though.

I found a really interesting anecdote about Centurion late last night while reading. This is from an old out of print book from 1924.

The book discusses how the British were somewhat late on the scene in India and the East Indies. Their presence there does not really expand until after 1700. However this expansion caused a "Chinese Influence" in their ship decorations between 1720 to 1760. The book shows numerous examples of little Chinese dragons at the heels of the English lion. Also many of the heads carved and painted on the interiors of gun port hatches have a very oriental style during these years. The British lion figurehead itself undergoes a noticeable change from "this Chinese fashion". The book cites specifically the figurehead of the Centurion as a prime example of this.

Here's the quote:

"Apparently this combination of lion and dragon must have had something of a vogue, for it is still found some 40 years later in a Spanish frigate, the Grana. ...He is just such a lion as graced Anson's Centurion: ...He still bears distinct traces of his Chinese relationship."

(after the Centurion was broken up) "The Lion of Anson's Centurion was set up in the yard of an inn near Goodwood Park, and on its base was carved --

"Stay traveller awhile and view
One who has travelled more than you.
Quite round the globe through each degree,
Anson and I have ploughed the sea,
Torrid and frigid zone have passed,
And, safe ashore arrived at last,
In ease and dignity appear,
He in the House of Lords, I here."

I LOVE that poem!!! :)

From Goodwood it was removed to Windsor Castle, and after to Greenwich Hospital. When the hospital was turned into a college, the figurehead was left outside and decayed away. One surviving leg was preserved and mounted at Shugborough, by the Earl of Lichfield. Very sad. MK :(

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I personally tend to prefer trapezoidal sails because they fill up gaps in the fore-and-aft sail plan and provide more surface area. I also find the brailing trapezoidals more fun to work with in real life.
 
I agree about the aesthetics, but due to the time period she should have something there, if only small hankies. Those huge walls of sail are butt ugly.
 
You think that they are ugly. I like them, better than triangular stays'ls, in fact. I've seen and worked with both in person, and both have their place. On this particular rig, the arrangement of the stays lends itself to a trapezoidal arrangement for the sake of efficiency. If a triangular stays'l rig were going to work better, the main topmast stay would have to be led under the foretop. As it stands, there's a very large gap between stays.

Now that I've said my part...

You already had a triangular version... Did you save it? There could maybe be two versions based on era.
 
They ARE ugly. Modern race cars have wings and air dams and such. Are they faster? Yes. Are they ugly? YES. The same goes for stay sails.
 
If two people insisted that all schooners were ugly, would that also make it universally and unarguably true? It's a matter of personal opinion, not fact. Have you seen those sails in person? There's no such thing as an ugly sail.
 
I personally think a cat boat has some of the ugliest masts and sails around. I also have seen some gaff rigged boats that were just sinfully ugly. I also hate yawls and anything whatsoever about them when many of my associates think they are the most beautiful things on the planet.

You're right! - it IS preference.

I say we stay as true as possible to her original rig. After all she has a lateen mizzen. You probably think spankers and booms are prettier than Lateens. I do not. If you're gonna do one version up with trapazoidal stays'ls - you might as well add spanker and boom to complete the later era look.

You say tomato - I say.....

MK
 
Sorry for taking so long to join in this conversation. I have been largely offline since my kids were off school.

Centurion was built during a transitional period during which there were many changes to British rigging. The 1760 plans are almost certainly out of place. They were standardized partially as a result of Anson's reforms, AFTER Centurion had already been rebuilt. That said, they're still based on earlier practices and are as close an anachronism as any we might find. I've looked through all my reference materials and none show stays'ls on ships this size and time period, though they were definitely set in one form or another.

Personally I'd omit the mizzen top stays'l altogether, or use a short one. I think either triangular or a nearly triangular trapezoid looks closest to reality for the period, but I'm an artist not a sailor, so I could be wrong. The closest reference I could find was this french woodcut of Centurion at the assault on Quebec in 1759 after she'd been rebuilt in 1745. It doesn't show the stays'ls but does give a general feeling of where they'd be given the rigging.
 

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The reason the plan I threw together looks the way it does is that the balance of the rig needs to be preserved. Adding too many fore-and aft sails forward of the center of the hull will actually reduce performance on most points of sail. Therefore the mizzen stays'l had to be made larger. It's pretty easy to calculate how balanced a sail plan is, so it won't be hard to make sure whichever one we use is balanced enough to be effective.

Edit: Our stay arrangement does not look to be most suitable for triangular stays'ls. I haven't been able to find anything concrete either.
 
When will this ship be in Age of Pirates 2? This is one of my favorite ships. I learned about it in an excellent book. Has anyone read THE PRIZE OF ALL THE OCEANS, by Glyn Williams. Super book!!! This book is all about Anson's voyages and the Centurion mostly set in the 1740ies. There aren't many pictures but the ones in the book dont show any of those stay sails yur talkig about.
 
kipper said:
When will this ship be in Age of Pirates 2? This is one of my favorite ships. I learned about it in an excellent book. Has anyone read THE PRIZE OF ALL THE OCEANS, by Glyn Williams. Super book!!! This book is all about Anson's voyages and the Centurion mostly set in the 1740ies. There aren't many pictures but the ones in the book dont show any of those stay sails yur talkig about.
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YES! Very good read. On land in continental Europe this is a wonderful era and I am a huge fan of Frederick the Great vs the Austrians and Russians - and the War of the Austrian Succession, However at sea (and in the New world especially) I consider this a very boring time - other than the War of Jenkins Ear. I call it the era of utter boredom.

I would venture to say that Anson's exploits were the most interesting thing to happen at sea during the 1740s, but so few have studied this chapter these days because they're all twitterpated with Aubrey-Maturin, Hornblower and POTC.

:readAs far as staysails are concerned I spent WAY more time than I should researching this - this evening. My family is mostly gone now and a sort of routine of retired nothingness is returning to my house. So I scoured over two dozen books tonight and I have found some interesting results.....

I not only looked at historical books including ALL the "Arming and Fitting" books, I also looked though my art book portfolios of paintings by all the notable maritime artists - including Geoff Hunt, who did all the illustrations for the Aubrey Maturin books. I have in my collection, copies of every print he has ever done.

So here's my observations: After looking though hundreds of illustrations - to include paintings, drawings, lithographs, and woodcuts, I have found only two badly proportioned renderings of British ships of the era of 1706 to 1760 with stays'ls displayed - all were triangular. ONLY TWO. All of the dozens of others CONSPICUOUSLY illustrate a complete LACK of stays'ls - in battles or under half or full sail - NO staysails are shown. Even ship portraits and harbor scenes of Deptford and Chatham show detailed very historically accurate renderings of Ships of the Line with sails airing or taken in and no stays'ls are shown.

I found two sets of contemporary Admiralty plans of rated MOW from the 1719 establishment. Both show all sails fully drawn on the side-views - there are no stays'ls shown.

Even the modern artists show no stays'ls for this era. Geoff Hunt's own painting of Centurion giving chase shows no stays'ls.

I am still in the process of scanning and compiling the 18th century British flickr sets, but they will be done soon and will show what I'm talking about.

A few things went through my head....

- maybe the artists were not being historically accurate? ALL OF THEM? Geoff Hunt is known for being a stickler for research.

- maybe the staysails are not artistically attractive, so artists leave them off the illustrations to create a contrasting aesthetic space to exist between masts???? I don't really think so.

- maybe the staysails were only quickly hanked on when needed and mostly left in the lockers? I don't know....

So I have a couple of half baked theories. The smaller craft from these same illustrations SHOW staysails on the ships sailing around and about the capital ships - to include brigs and frigates. So the artists put the staysails on the smaller craft, but left them off the larger ones. Hmmmm...That means that my idea of them being artistically deliberately omitted is not correct.

Hmmmm. Maybe during the first half of the 18th century, British naval convention was to go without stays'ls unless specifically ordered???

Last I will offer that the staysails start conspicuously making an appearance in maritime art of larger British ships AFTER 1780, but NOT before.

My final conclusion is that we should omit them from the model, because the historical illustrations show this type of ship with NO staysails. Our beloved video games are a form of art and should stay true to historical proof as much as possible. For COAS/GOF Era's the staysails are staying off the model unless someone can give me compelling proof otherwise.

So I throw down the gauntlet. Find me some good period illustrations of Rated British SOTL carrying staysails or with staysails set between 1715-1760. An extra taut of rum to the seadog that can show me.

Good Luck :D

Now back to skinning more ships. Excuse me. I love the quiet of the wee hours of the morning.

MK
 
Brilliant, MK! Your findings only back up what I found today when I went through my own reference materials for Centurion. Not one image of her with staysails. Likewise I have a few extremely detailed sailplans from the period between 1719 and 1745 (the majority of the Establishment Era) and none of them show staysails (including HMS Oxford 1727 and HMS Victory 1737, both by the same shipwright and shipyard as Centurion).

I'm curious if anyone has anything prior to 1760 showing stays'ls on a ship of the line....

As I understand it stays'ls at this time were set under the command of the captain of the ship and not dictated by the admiralty. I don't know under what conditions they would be set though. Perhaps none of the contemporary paintings show a stiff enough wind to necessitate their use, and none of the modern artists can find accurate sources so leave them out?
 
I have a few thoughts on the matter, but they'll have to wait until later today (and here I thought I was going to get to sleep before 12:00).
 
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