• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


    Visit our website www.piratehorizons.com to quickly find download links for the newest versions of our New Horizons mods Beyond New Horizons and Maelstrom New Horizons!

WIP Pride of Baltimore I

Post Captain

Post Captain

Seamanship Advisor
Coordinator
QC Advisor
Storm Modder
I have decided to put my packet sloop on hold in favor of this Baltimore Clipper for the GoF Eras module #3.

This is a medium-sized Baltimore Clipper that would have been seen during the War of 1812 or slightly earlier. The plans were taken from the replica vessel Pride of Baltimore I, completed in 1977 in Baltimore, MD. While the construction of replicas is unusual for this community, I have been able to determine through the vessel's plans, video of the vessel sailing, and several interviews that this is the real deal, built without modifications for the sake of safety such as higher freeboard and tonnage. This vessel did sink due to being blown over, but that accident was due to a white squall, with winds in excess of 80 knots, rather than poor design as is often believed.

Using a recent vessel brings the added benefit of having a very recent record of the vessel's sailing qualities, and the possibility of interviewing surviving crew members about her qualities. From my research, she was an extremely fast and weatherly vessel.

Any unusual shapes in the wireframe are due to Maya's automatic smoothing. They will be fixed before I move on to the keel.
Pride 1 prg 1.jpg

And two rare examples of what the vessel looked like, to give you an idea of where this is going:
chesapeake198410.jpg

launching.jpg
 
I had the very same impression...
"let go of the sails, you gonna roll over the ship...!"
fast, but on the edge... very much on the edge!
 
It isn't bad if you set the correct sails to begin with. When she sunk, she was under a reefed mains'l and fore stays'l, which were safe and appropriate for the conditions she was in. The only reason she sunk was that she was hit by a white squall, with winds almost instantly increasing to 80 knots (148 kph). They didn't have time to take in any sail or even cut any halyards before being blown over. Almost any other sailing vessel would have been blown over in those conditions as well, if taken by surprise like that. (A very large, heavy steel ship or barque, such as one of the later F. Laeisz barques, would have a very good chance of surviving if some rigging broke. But then again, they were designed to withstand the worst weather imaginable on Earth.)

The real danger started when you made the rigging extra heavy-duty, reinforced the bulwarks, and added a large battery of guns, resulting in a disproportionately heavy top load. This was common on the man-of-war schooners in the world's navies. Those vessels capsized pretty frequently, even while at anchor. (Capsizing at anchor happened when the wind pushed the broadside of the vessel in opposing directions to the tide.)

Overall, these were actually much safer than many of the privateer-rigged ships of the mid 18th century when loaded properly.
 
sure, there are not 17 cannon decks, and the part below water gives a low C.G. She does not look like a Wasa candidate by the Hull.
But the low Freeboard in combination with large sails on a high Mast makes for a loooong Lever.
maybe a failure Point, purposely designed, can save the vessel while sacrificing a Mast or so.
But that may not be an easy task by itself...
 
That's a beautifully shaped hull. :keith
 
Just for reference, did anything ever come of that "invisible boom" idea? My fores'l is going to be free-footed, and I'd prefer not to have the sheet stuck amidships. That always ruins a ship for me ingame.
 
I think we found a good solution for that, and it doesn't even require an invisible boom. Both the Rossiya and Aurora make use of this, if I recall correctly.
The only modelling requirement is for the "rey" model to have "opposite" ticked in "Render Stats", as with spankers. The rest is handled by locators.
 
That simplifies things, then. Hopefully we'll even be able to get the stays'l locators in CoAS working so that they'll fill properly depending on wind direction.

How difficult is the fix for already-existing lateen vessels? It might be worth someone's time to work on that in Eras, even though it isn't your department. The sheet kills lateens for me in the game, and the present iteration of eras is almost exclusively lateen.

As for progress on the model, I'm about halfway done modeling the gunnels, and I think I'll make two versions, gun port and rig-wise. The privateer version will be pierced for eight guns like the replica, which is underarmed but fast and stable, and carry the replica's rig, and a naval/heavier privateer version will be pierced for 14 with a "jackass brig"* rig, which was common among both naval vessels and privateers for its ability to heave to and backhaul without changing course.

*A jackass brig is a tops'l schooner carrying tops'ls on its main and foremast. Captain Armstrong is interested in doing a Baltimore Clipper as well before Eras 3 is released, and his model will probably be better suiteD for that rig. If he wishes to make a schooner carrying that rig as well as a classic tops'l rig, I'll forgo the jackass brig rig for a merchant version. This will have six guns, with the aft ports empty, and will have a slightly reduced rig. I might cut the bulwarks down to half height as well, but it might be too much work for the result. Pride 1's hull form was very common among fast merchants in the Caribbean and other regions.
 
one of the questions that comes to mind is , how was the living space divided on such small vessels? hardly any room for a separate Commander cabin or anything.
Did they sleep all together, merely divided by curtains?
 
The captain usually had a decked platform with an aft cabin. The hold was not normally decked and there was often a decked platform all the way forward in the hold. The captain would sleep in the aft cabin, and the crew would sleep in the hold.
 
Edit: Picture has for some reason been compressed horizontally. Corrected in second image.

Getting closer...
Pride1d.png
pride1e.png

Do we have the following stock parts?
Elm pumps
Small Carronades/Long Guns/Swivels
chain plates
Ship's Compass (Without the binnacle)
sliding hatch cover and doors
Small crank windlass (of the type found on fife rails)
Belaying pins​
 
Last edited:
Looks great!
Post Captain said:
Do we have the following stock parts?
Elm pumps
Small Carronades/Long Guns/Swivels
chain plates
Ship's Compass (Without the binnacle)
sliding hatch cover and doors
Small crank windlass (of the type found on fife rails)
Belaying pins​
Click to expand...
It all depends on the level of detail
Pumps-there might be something from the movie HMS surprise that's useable
carronades-the ones I made for my ships are the closest we have, and generally work pretty well-I just need to find the model file. definitely a standard long gun model out there, and swivils can be borrowed from other ships.
chain plates-wedori and i both have versions on the HoO ftp, but they might have too many polys for the storm engine
compass-check the HoO ftp
sliding hatch cover&doors-nope
windlass-doubt it
belaying pins-no but super easy to make with splines
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top