"MANY MAY PERUSE US": RIBBANDS, MOULDS

AND MODELS IN THE DOCKYARDS

Richard Barker
VI International Reunion for Nautical Science and
Hydrography, Sagres 1987.
Published in Revista da Universidade de Coimbra, Vol
XXXIV 1988, pp 539-559.
There have been very few studies of the technicalities of
ship design for the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. There
are however many important manuscripts that have been
neglected: in some cases even when they have been
published. One of the best known of all such documents is
the Pepysian Fragments of Ancient English Shipwrightry [1
- and hereafter Fragments]. No complete study of its
contents has ever been made. Much of it was written by
Mathew Baker, who was freely acknowledged to have been
the greatest Elizabethan shipwright [2], and was compared
with his most able contemporaries in other fields [3]. It
contains one delightful item which I propose to use as the
focus for this paper. It is a poem, part of which runs as
follows:
Many may peruse us but few that will us know
We are not so simple as we to them do show
Our author thought not good our uses to disclose
Within his head he keeps the same from all his filching foes
[4]
Fascinating: what did he mean ? Can we rediscover the
uses and the secrets he was concealing ? Many may
peruse us (quite so); but we are not so simple as we to
them do show. So much, in my view, for the illiterate
shipwright, building his ships by eye.
That is the basis of this paper: to survey the sources we
have that indicate quite clearly that the leading shipwrights
of the sixteenth century did not build their ships by eye,
but after a careful process of design. That we recognise no
surviving drawings as technical drawings in the modern
sense does not matter: the processes were then very
different. Nonetheless, the leading shipwrights led major
industrial enterprises. They were in a word designers, or
men who could translate an idea, a conception in the
mind's eye, into instructions for numerous craftsmen to cut
timbers that would then form a complex three-dimensional
structure, with the required characteristics of capacity and
seaworthiness.
We must recall periodically that the sixteenth century as a
whole was a period of profound changes in ship design and
usage. At the opening of the sixteenth century,
furthermore, large English-built ships were only recently
(and not invariably) constructed skeleton first. The
adoption of significant numbers of heavy battery guns was
still a few years ahead. I have shown elsewhere [5] that the
early drafts of midship sections of ships in Baker's
Fragments, which can be dated to about 1570, are
modelled quite explicitly on Venetian methods. It is equally
clear that by the l580's a radically different method was
being employed. Such was the pace of advance that by
1617 logarithmic calculations were being explored in the
process at Deptford, by John Wells. Wells' observation is
that logarithmic calculations were quicker and easier than
the similar manual calculations made by Baker while he
was still active (perhaps 25 to 30 years earlier),
demonstrating that however atypical such use would
remain, there had for long been a need for similar
calculations in one English process of ship design at the
end of the sixteenth century. This stricture concerning
change, and the parallel existence of many different
methods, should be remembered throughout, as also the
fact that our evidence is generally fragmentary, allowing us
only working hypotheses.
Portugal, too, can claim an impressive collection of
manuscript sources for sixteenth century ship design and
construction: in some respects more complete and
coherent than the English sources. (This is in itself curious,
and contrasts starkly with any theory of systematic secrecy
attached to the Portuguese establishment of an earlier
period [6].) In many details the methods described are very
different from anything recorded in English practice, but
certain parallel features stand out, and are highly pertinent
to my inquiry:
- geometry is central to the process of both ship and boat
design.
- full-scale geometrical devices - graminhos - are used to
regulate the change of shape of the hull along its length,
though only over some half the length of the keel. These
devices in one form or another occur in many records of
other European nations, apparently with an original focal
point in the Italian city states, as far as records go [7].
Design in diverse fields of construction
How did one design a large ship, up to the turn of the
seventeenth century? We do not actually know very much
about the processes followed in the sixteenth century itself,
let alone earlier periods. We may be sure that such a ship
did not just happen, any more than a masonry vault or a
large barn frame or timber roof just happen, without careful
planning as an intellectual exercise.
Apart from any other problems, construction of a large
vessel (thinking in terms of 25 metres keel length) is not a
single-handed enterprise. Someone had to direct the work
and workmen as an industrial and often commercial
venture. There is even some evidence that ships designed
by Mathew Baker were actually built in his absence [8]. The
methods had developed (and were understood by enough
shipwrights) to allow this to occur. This contrasts with the
situation in Northern Europe even fifty years earlier, when
Italian shipwrights (and a few Portuguese earlier still, in the
mid-fifteenth century [9]) had been recruited to introduce
the methods of skeleton-first construction, in the absence
of any Northern tradition of such work, and in particular to
overcome the conceptual problem of defining the shape of
a large hull prior to actual construction [10].
In each case mentioned above, some thought preceded the
cutting of any material - most graphically in the case of
masonry: we speak of the keystone. But that analogy in
itself reveals a more fundamental point, usually ignored: in
order to reach the stage of placing the keystone, there had
first to be false- and formwork, carefully planned, and now
forgotten. These temporary structures were often as
complex as the final result. They extend to shipbuilding,
too: Manuel Fernandes drew the launching cradles
(envezadura) for a large ship in 1616 [11].
Erection sequences for timber structures on land have been
studied in some detail [12]. Such structures required
meticulous planning of joints, measured and cut in
advance. Most certainly, such achievements were not
made solely by eye. Heavy timbers do not lend themselves
to trial and error to compensate for the inability of the eye
to assess lengths of the order of ten metres to within a few
millimetres. No practice makes that perfect, even where
most components are straight and at right angles, and
identical in a number of bays.
There is no reason to question the ability of craftsmen from
a very early period, in any massive material, to use string
lines, compasses, simple geometry, to square and mark out
stones and timbers. Highly detailed architectural drawings
[13], (and even tracing floors [14]), are extant for masonry
construction from at least the thirteenth century. Yet rarely
do we see any comparable recognition that there is
contemporary evidence for equally sophisticated
procedures in the sixteenth century shipyard: sufficient to
counter any idea that all ships were built almost, if not
literally, by eye.
The use of ribbands (armadouras; lisses)
The problem being addressed by the introduction of
ribbands is the exact parallel to that of fairing lines on
paper. Every slight adjustment to improve the fairness of
two or more ribbands at one section requires that the
adjacent sections be re-checked. In the shipyard a further
difficulty arises, that does not on paper. Changing the
position of a ribband changes the length of its arc: it can
only be adjusted to a very limited extent without also
removing its fastenings to allow its curve to become finer
or fuller overall.
In the building of a large ship skeleton-first, there is a
progressive loss of lines of sight: it is not possible to get the
same view as with a small boat. The number of frames and
their size, the inevitable proliferation of scaffolding and
staging, all affect clear lines of sight. The accidents of light
and shade, and variations in the surface texture and
markings of the timber must all detract from what on a
smaller scale might well use the uncanny ability of the
human eye to assess a fair curve. In the words of Hasslf's
shipwright: "...a bit tricky, carvel....can't see what sort of a
bottom she's going to get...." [15].
Ribbands were clearly used very extensively in all vessels.
But there are, at least in principle, problems that have not
been aired. Many accounts of ribbands and what their
function was are too glib by far. There is an example in the
modern boat from Samos [16], stated to have been built on
ribbands running from a central pair of control frames to
stem and stern. But even in this small boat, the actual
ribbands are mostly less than half the length of the hull,
occurring in three distinct groups (mirrored in the groups of
frames), with no single ribband extending from stem or
stern to the master frames. This contradicts the reporter's
description of what was going on. It suggests, too, that the
method did not actually require continuous ribbands from
end to end.
In large ships, a ribband is a substantial timber in its own
right. Lavanha speaks of some 125 x 75 mm, leading to a
single ribband weighing a quarter of a tonne or so, taken at
face value. They tend to be spoken of, erroneously, as
single pieces; though they were still structural timbers in a
large vessel, required as work progressed to hold the heavy
frames in position until permanent connections and
planking were put in.
One Dutch method, as described by Van Yk [17], includes
the use of ribbands to govern the shape more expressly,
not only tapering from the centre of the ship to the ends,
but changing section too. This presumably reflects long
experience of the ideal stiffness and thence curvature
required of the ribband for each vessel. It is less clear how
such a refinement was translated to a larger vessel, for
example, however well suited to repetitive construction.
The process of adjusting pairs of ribbands progressively
from midships to stem and stern takes on a whole new
aspect. Very heavy, very stiff timbers must be set up fair
and in symmetry, while every adjustment reflects back as a
ripple between every temporary support, and may even
require the whole ribband to be moved and re-fastened. We
are not in the realm of a one-man job with whippy laths,
bent by strength of hand alone and judged accurately by
eye by walking around the work. Heavy weights, large
forces, often some five to ten metres from the ground, and
no possibility of standing back to judge the truth of the
work at any stage from any vantage point that will confirm
symmetry or fairness, all combine to suggest a difficult
task. How exactly was it done ? The literature, ancient and
modern, is almost silent.
Setting up ribbands solves only part of our shipwright's
problems: they generate others. A first ribband can be
manipulated to represent, most obviously, the sheer, or the
maximum breadth, a very familiar and highly visible form
to copy. But a single ribband still leaves the shape of
successive frames completely unresolved.
By comparison a ribband at the turn of the bilge appears to
lack a clear purpose in the ends of the ship, though in
many methods of building it serves a crucial function
amidships, and in Lavanha and others [18] is arranged to
terminate at the tuck and gripe in a conventional manner.
A pair of ribbands or more on each side is progressively
more explicit. There remains the problem that they have to
be mutually fair in the cross-section as well as
longitudinally, and result in a satisfactory hull form.
It is difficult to imagine a greater incentive to the
development of a more systematic method of forming a
wooden skeleton than an attempt to build a large vessel on
a central frame and ribbands, alone. The problem would be
markedly eased by the introduction of a pair of pre-
determined pattern-frames (almogamas, couples de
balancement [19]) at the quarter points of the hull. But
that in turn requires that a method exist for relating those
two frames to the central frame, stem and sternpost,
compatible with a generically fair and serviceable hull
shape. The next stage, moulding progressively more
frames, further changes the balance, providing a more
extensive definition of the hull at the expense of more
rigorous control of the variation of shape between frames.
(Manifestly, there have always been different approaches in
different times and places, within each broad stage of
development of the techniques.)
We may compare the procedure in the late sixteenth
century English three-arc method, that was to be the basic
pattern for so long. The upper ribband may be defined as
the tangent point of the breadth sweep in the geometrically
defined cross-section. If the radius of the breadth sweep
was also specified, then the shape near the breadth was
fully described too. The lower ribband became the junction
of the flat of the floor (which rose and narrowed in
accordance with the behaviour of a natural spline, albeit
defined on paper), and the wronghead sweep, whose
centre was always vertically over the end of the floor. The
radius of this arc was defined, and usually constant. These
two lines were then sufficient to define the whole section
and its variation along the hull: the curves between the
breadth and wronghead sweeps and between the end of
the floor and the keel had relatively marginal effect, and
provided that their radii were constant or smoothly varied
then fairness of form was reasonably assured. There might
be problems of changes of curvature if the planking did not
follow the run of the surmarks, or notoriously at the
forefoot, but of minor effect.
The author of a manuscript of about 1600 [20] appears to
propose the construction of a rigid template in the bow of
the ship, where curvatures are sharpest, and changing fast,
to be erected at the specified height of the breadth. This
immediately reduces the degrees of freedom in the
problem: the upper ribband requires no further adjustment,
and simultaneously he ensures that the hull is formed as
intended at that level. But it is possibly a unique example
in the literature. The nearest equivalents may be Palacio's
description of three wales fixed as heavy permanent
ribbands near the breadth, prior to any planking [21]; or
Van Yk's scheerstrook, using a permanent record of the
developed profile of the strake at the maximum breadth.
It is no surprise that two ships given the same length,
breadth and depth, and intended as like vessels, could be
substantially different. It is interesting though, that such
had become an irritation. It was a problem that clearly
attracted a great deal of attention across Europe, of which
documentary traces survive in quantity from the middle
years of the sixteenth century onwards, providing some
evidence (if mostly for the early years of the seventeenth
century) for the different ways that different traditions in
Europe set about resolving the essential problem: the
combined requirement of marking out heavy timbers,
curved in one plane, and bevelled across it, in a pre-
determined way; and of setting those timbers in their
correct positions in advance of other permanent work; all to
produce a fair surface ready for planking.
The control of changing sections - risings and
narrowings
How many similar, large, ships did each master in the
middle years of the second millenium actually build ? There
could be no local corpus of experience and rule of thumb
directly and reliably applicable to the largest ships at any
time. Functions of ships, and the demands of clients, the
development of new technology - whether navigation, rig,
ordnance - were changing too fast in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries for last year's design to remain
unquestioned. Besides, even at the end of the sixteenth
century, there were no true sister ships, still less rules for
translating the design of successful ships to different
tonnages, despite the attention paid in that direction by
Mathew Baker, and the Portuguese [22].
The original development of the methods of forming
skeleton hulls was not of this period, of course. But for such
to have occurred at all suggests its own contemporary
imperatives, now unknown. Those of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries may have changed the actual solutions,
but not the essential problem. In both periods, large
skeleton-built ships would have been at the forefront of
their technologies: their builders had to create precedents;
to develop, rather than to rely upon what had gone before.
It is not, I believe, sufficient to say that the shipwright did
as he had always done, and had himself learned from his
father or Master. That is only wholly practicable in the
world of boats, and more stable conditions.
In purely pragmatic terms, besides, we now have to speak
in terms of the practices of major or Royal yards: implicitly
the larger and more advanced ships. No other evidence
survives to us in sufficient detail, in general.
My remarks will be devoted to carvel-skeleton construction.
Similar problems must however have arisen in the case of
an older Northern solution - lapstrake building - when
employed for the largest and atypical ships [23].
If for the purposes of this paper we take the shape of the
master section as already fixed, the shipwright must next
concern himself with the rising and narrowing of the frames
towards bow and stern.
A number of simple geometrically-based devices exist to
generate smooth curves suitable for the adjustment of
frames along a hull, provided only that the intervals
between stations is uniform for each curve. These have
names such as meia-lua, brusca, saltarelha, and are
widespread. Someone, somewhere, had hit upon a simple
method of regulating the curves of a hull in one, and
thence any number of longitudinal sections. The earliest of
such devices required no calculation whatsoever - merely
the simplest compasses. They are, moreover, full-scale
devices: no scaling errors occur; and they are reportedly
very accurate in use. They do suggest that some fairly able
geometers were involved at an early stage in the
development of skeleton boat and shipbuilding.
In the second half of the sixteenth century other purely
numerical devices were substituted. Mathew Baker is
preoccupied with calculating the offsets of a circle tangent
to the keel or line of maximum breadth, though he also
gives his own full scale geometrical substitute for those
unable to perform the necessary calculations [24].
All the devices mentioned are of the order of square laws,
some fuller than others, but basically similar while the
largest offset was a small proportion of the length over
which it was to be applied. In practice this does not seem
to extend even to the ends of the keel. English methods
used a separate sharper arc for the breadth from the
forefoot to the stem; the Iberian almogamas or the French
couples de balancement were even more restricted than
that, in their use of curves for adjustment of frames [25].
One of the drawings in Fragments [26] shows the basic
skeleton of a ship, including the master frame, stem and
sternframe, and two other frames at the quarter points.
This is an indication that methods were rather different in
England by about 1570: while the frames in the quarters
might appear to be almogamas from their positions, they
are not, since they are associated with risings and
narrowings that extend right to the stem and sternpost
(and are not derived from any graminho, even if the curves
that graminhos generated were also extrapolated to the
gripe and tuck by ribbands, and in manuscripts).
By the end of the sixteenth century much fuller-bodied
ships were being called for, to carry heavier broadside
armaments and victualling for much longer periods.
Greater buoyancy was required in the same length of hull,
and nearer the ends. The compound circular arcs for
narrowing of the breadth in particular became
unsatisfactory: essays with cubic curves appear, and even
up to the sixth power in the Scott MS, dated to about 1605.
Further than this I do not intend to explore those devices
here: they are secondary matters, all variations on a
theme, or at least with the same end in view. However, the
requirement for such devices to be developed is perhaps
one key difference between civil and naval architecture: in
masonry construction pure arcs of circles within squared
outlines seem to be the rule [27]. Its solution (or perhaps
only its early application from abstract theory) may be
specific to ship-building.
Moulds
The shipwright has in some way to transfer the derived
shapes of his frames to the slabs of timber,
accommodating the curvature and grain of the available
stock as best he may. A frame shape to be used repeatedly
could be made up as a permanent board, or in very broad
or heavily curved sections perhaps as a triangulated
framework of narrow boards. It thus retains its shape for re-
use in a way that a bent strip of pliable metal would not,
though a lead bar or similar might be a more appropriate
device for more transient shapes to be taken off ribbands,
perhaps for canted frames, at the ends of a vessel [28].
Any shipyard constructing ships skeleton-first must have a
range of moulds or templates available for different types
of ship. There would however be a strong argument in
favour of using the same template at different points along
any particular hull, for convenience and simplicity.
Using wholly identical frames would be inflexible and less
than satisfactory in the result: but is not so far removed
from English eighteenth century whole-moulding of small
boats, substituting a reverse template for the rising floors.
One might imagine then that the controls on form could at
an early stage be no more than a ribband at the sheerline,
with the tail of the frame resting on the keel. Perpetuating
the bilge throughout the hull, however, would be sure to
produce an unsatisfactory shape, and flare and
tumblehome would be out of control: it is immediately
obvious that some rotational adjustment between floor and
side is required at the bilge to produce a serviceable hull
shape. The template for a typical ship would not be made
in a single piece: too large, too inconvenient, too fragile to
use or to store. Since that rotation coincides with a likely
joint in any real template, it is easily accommodated.
Immediately we have a system: it is indeed the basis of
many a real present day method.
There is an immediate case for a second controlling
ribband near the bilge: the floor template may rest on that
and on the keel (strictly in the rabbet, if used), the side
template lies between the two ribbands, and the two are
adjusted until the transition is fair. If identical floor timbers
are then moved progressively further across the keel in
such a process, a very graphic development will be seen:
the overlap of the free end of the floor timber at the edge
of the keel will vary in a more or less regular way,
proffering the idea seen in most present-day whole-
moulding of actually marking the variation of position on
the original template, for re-use in another hull. From there
the idea could be adapted to suit the characteristics of
other points : the overlap of two or more templates from
the bilge upwards (at the surmarks); and the variation of
narrowings and risings of the ribbands themselves,
formalised in the graminhos [29]. The narrowings of the
top-timbers at the sheerline could be controlled easily by a
temporary batten laid across their heads, with centreline,
maximum breadth and narrowings marked on it. At the
bilge the convenient reference is the plane of the top of the
keel. Once these templates exist they remove, for similar
vesels, much of the guess-work and trial and error from the
very difficult iterative process of fairing a large collection of
heavy timbers temporarily supported in the air. Repetitive
use would establish the confidence for rule of thumb
variations for small changes in size or proportions,
commonly described in present-day boat-building.
Surmarks
As ships became larger and deeper the shape of the
transverse section changed too. Surmarks came into
prominence in the literature in the late sixteenth century,
in the developed profiles where tumblehome occurs,
enclosing the lighter upperworks, now an integral part of
the structure, and compounding the problem of fairing the
lines. There is now a secondary controlling arc to be
defined and faired at the breadth, the old sheerline. In this
case the graduated surmark at the bilge becomes more
necessary for the simple marking out and error-free
assembly of a larger number of more complex components
in each frame.
This perhaps lies behind the great significance that appears
to be attached to surmarks in English manuscripts from
around 1600. The matter arises in Wells' additions to
Fragments: one of the first uses to which logarithms are
put in ship-building is the precise calculation of the length
of the chord of each circular arc between its respective
surmarks [30]. This is required in part because of the sharp
changes in radius that occur in the English frame designs.
Since it would have been possible to mark out most
timbers with no more than one surmark in their length
(they are required to define the breaks in sharply curved
futtocks, for example) we may surmise that the
significance of the chord has more to do with the correct
assembly of the components of each frame, at a time when
the frames were not complete double frames, but
comprised overlapping timbers, presumably spiked or
treenailed into place against the lower member of their
respective frames.
We apparently do not know whether in this period the
frames were ever erected complete: the evidence is rather
to the contrary, in general. The floor timbers were first
crossed on the keel and then horned, in advance of any
other timbers, according to the Newton manuscript of
about 1600 [as 20]. Indeed in some Dutch methods
recorded for the later seventeenth century, skeleton
building did not even commence until the bilge was
reached; and as illustrated by Rlamb in 1691
Swedish/Dutch methods only erected frames progressively
as the lower timbers were planked. This latter was also the
case in some recent estuary craft in England, for the hulks
of some Severn trows will clearly demonstrate that their
top-timbers were not connected to any futtocks, but only to
planking. On the other hand, Lavanha assembled five
pieces of each frame on the ground, and related methods
still erect all moulded frames, complete, prior to any
ribbands or planking.
The three-arc method of frame design familiar in England
around 1600 is itself a simplification of earlier similar
methods, apparently of Venetian origin, in use about 1550.
The third arc in this simplified (and subsequently more or
less standardised) English adaptation is actually related to
the use of tumblehome in ships, distinguishing their section
from that of open boats, or methods that do not inherently
specify the angle of the side at the upper ribband, of which
a good convenient example might be the Sere Liman hull
[31]. (I do not count in the basic classification the optional,
largely aesthetic reverse curve of the topsides, nor the
reconciling sweep added below the floor.) While the local
shape of the breadth is pre-determined by its sweep radius,
it only marginally complicates the construction of the basic
section. But it does require an additional surmark, and
marks a clear departure from the methods of open boats.
The geometric construction of the Portuguese hull section
does not always require this refinement, coming as it does
from a different tradition, often with a uniform arc for the
mould throughout the side [32]. We might correspondingly
expect much less emphasis on surmarks, as regards the
template, but they nonetheless occur in Lavanha, called by
him acertos (acertar=to fit, adjust, make right). It is
apparently in part a matter of ensuring that the integral
corbels, or deck-beam teeth, marked on the templates,
occur at the correct heights, even though there is no
change in external curvature, and an error in the overlap
would not actually change the shape of the hull: they are
required for the correct assembly of the multiple parts of a
large frame; and some Portuguese frames were very large
for their period, to the astonishment of the English seamen
who saw the Madre de Deus.
Early ship plans
The draughts in Fragments or Livro de Traas de
Carpinteria [as 11] are scale drawings, mostly drawn with
great care and attention to detail [33], and considering the
paper and instruments available at that time,
immaculately. They are not plans as we know them for
ships today; but for the methods of ship-building then
employed they represent a complete specification of the
exterior form of the hull [34]. Individually they are often
incomplete, lacking vital details or whole views, but in
aggregate they are as complete a statement of method as
any paper plan without numerical data or structural details
to match. It is doubtful that more detailed plans were ever
routinely committed to paper in the period: Lavanha's
perspective detailing might indeed warrant his title First
Book of Naval Architecture [35]. Indeed the facilities for full
size setting out are unknown, other than for graminhos. I
am not aware of any reference to moulding floors in
shipbuilding in the sixteenth century, unless Lavanha's
undated reference falls just within it [36].
It is also true that the much cruder, schematic
representations of Palacio, from l587 [as 21] (remembering
that we have them as wood-cuts, not originals), were
effectively complete in their day. They are roughly
contemporary with Fragments, and presumably represent
Basque practice, actually published in Mexico but
describing discussion with a Biscayan. Granted that their
ships were built with geometry rather than arithmetic, with
yardsticks rather than plans, they are adequate to express
the designer's intentions for size and approximate shape, in
the hands of an experienced contemporary shipwright who
would know exactly what methods were assumed by the
designer.
Incidentally, Hasslf [37] speaks of Palacio's description of
building on ribs and ribbands - three ribs are drawn. This is
a curious deduction from a reasonably clear text ? Palacio
[as 21] repeatedly uses the term madera de quenta in
connection with the frame timbers. It is difficult to escape
the conclusion (especially in view of geographical proximity
and trading links between Biscay and Portugal [38]) that he
is describing an exact parallel for the Portuguese madeira
da conta: timbers of account. The whole central body of the
ship was geometrically varied between the two additional
frames drawn, the almogamas, or points where the curves
are gathered together. The link between Palacio and
Portuguese methods is further strengthened by his use of a
flat floor amidships, joined to a side formed with a single
circular arc.
During the course of the sixteenth century there does seem
to have been a widespread interest in Europe among the
better-educated to investigate the processes of ship
design: one may cite Ralegh or Bourne, Oliveira or
Lavanha, for examples. The methods are being refined, and
for the first time formally recorded. It may be that the great
interest shown by so many of the treatisers, in England
Baker, Wells, and others yet to be identified, in the
processes of creating the form of the hull (even Bourne or
Ralegh are interested in the characteristics that may be
attributed to the result) and in what we might now call
fairing the lines, stems from the very area that was
perceived to be the source of most difficulty in shipbuilding
of the time: a process that is still very difficult to formalise.
The techniques of draughting ships' hulls in the sixteenth
century were at a level not far removed from rudimentary
by modern standards - though anyone who has examined
the Fragments or similar documents such as Manuel
Fernandes' Livro de Traas de Carpinteria of l616 will
conclude that it was not for lack of innate ability. They still
served a limited practical purpose [39]. Practical limitations
such as the toughness, sizing, size and cost of paper may
have been a deterrent factor. Certainly paper purchased for
craftsmen's use featured separately in accounts.
A most notable effort was made by Fernando Oliveira in
1570, producing a full body-plan almost in the modern form
(and accompanying it with longitudinal views that provide
as many problems as answers [40]).
The use of declared scales on drawings in England is no
earlier than the l540's, although the use of arbitrary scales
and purely geometric construction (in effect dimensionless)
has to be a very old art indeed. Nevertheless no
engineering drawings of ships are known to exist in
England, with or without a scale, from before about l570,
for reasons that are now unclear.
Models for ship design
If plans were still relatively limited to our modern eyes,
there is some evidence that models were used in the
sixteenth century in English yards. Thus in l613 Mathew
Baker bequeathed to John Wells his choice from his,
Baker's, models of ships. (His moulds, instruments and
most of his books went to his assistants [41]; his ship-
draughts he habitually termed plattes.) We have no
knowledge at present of the form or function of such
models; except that by l607 Phineas Pett won the King's
approval for a model of a ship that became the Prince
Royal, in which context it would appear to have been
detailed and ornate, and a novelty. But it was certainly not
Pett's first model: he records making an unspecified model
for Burghley in l596, and of a ship for a courtier friend in
l599 [42]: also that, like Dudley (and perhaps Harriot)
before him, he learned all he knew from Baker, who as we
now know left a collection of models. Yet we also know from
Baker's depositions [43] that in the time of Elizabeth the
specification of new ships was a matter for discussion and
agreement between the Master Shipwrights and high
officials, up to the Council. In Baker's account of this, as in
Fragments, there is no mention of models, only of plattes.
Some light is thrown on the matter by William Bourne (who
was probably the target of Baker's ditty cited above, and a
thorn in Baker's side in the 1570's, if so [44]). He describes
at length [45] the use of models, to scale (1:48 as
example), to measure the displacement of the
corresponding ship. He describes waterplanes and load-
marks in the process. This may have been purely
theoretical on Bourne's part when drafted in 1572 (it was
published in 1578), but E G R Taylor credits Bourne with
practising what he preached in the field of surveying. The
text must have sparked ideas in the minds of the more
literate shipwrights, if it did not derive from their practices:
Baker's complaint of Bourne's plagiarism makes this latter
at least a possibility. There is no question but that
volumetric calculations were in hand in Baker's work; every
surviving element of Deane's l670 methods for
displacement occurs in Baker and Bourne.
Models were not unique to England; which appears as far
as records go to have lagged behind much of Europe. The
supreme example known must be the Catalan Matar
model [46], dated to the mid-fifteenth century, and fully
plank-on-frame, if of slightly surprising keel: breadth ratio.
It is difficult to believe that such an outstanding model was
built solely as a votive offering, in isolation. It suggests a
school of craftsmanship [47]. Indeed, Christensen has
recently reported [48] for the English-speaking world a
mediaeval German equivalent. Other models known to me
and dated to earlier than about 1600 in this context appear
to be of an inferior kind.
The most explicit source of information about models in
shipyards comes from a Portuguese document written
about 1598, or a little later (by inference), by Joo Baptista
Lavanha, who was a savant, Engineer, and Cosmographer
to two Kings, and in modern terms a consultant naval
architect [as 36]. He states that the Naval Architect - in
exactly those words, which may probably be traced directly
to the Italian fifteenth century architect Alberti [49], -
"must first of all form in his imagination the figure of the
ship which he wishes to build, and may thus amend with
understanding and with the rules of his Art the deficiencies
and inconveniences that are shown to him, and then
proceed to draw the five modes of architecture: plan,
elevation, section, perspective, and model. The last of
these is very important, and will be worked in wood, to
show better than in the imagination all the deficiencies,
before construction. Once perfected, this model will serve
as an exemplar for the construction of all ships of that kind
and size". He points out that the expenditure of time and
money in this fashion - one hundred cruzados is cited,
roughly the equivalent of one man-year in wages [50] - is
good value if it avoids errors in an India nau. The twenty
drawings accompanying this manuscript are an astonishing
record, and convincing evidence that he knew what he was
writing about: many are in perspective, of components of
ships, as for example the knee forming the junction of keel
and post, such as found in the Basque whaler wrecked in
1565 in Red Bay, Labrador, and also a complete
sternframe.
There is also evidence for the early copying of actual ships.
Hasslf [51] collects a number of examples, from the
Venetian Arsenal in l407, and from 1535 and 1550 from
Sweden, in the last case involving the seizure of two
Scottish ships known to have been good sailers. Bourne has
described one tool for the job - the lynck ginne referred to
above [as 28].
To return to models, I would suppose that the models
described by Lavanha were comparable to the Matar
model, not least on grounds of cost, but also of utility for
the purpose defined: furthermore that Baker's models
would have been similar, to be worth bequeathing (and
note the contrast with Hasslf's view that block models
were generally destroyed, for secrecy). This view at least
offers a link between the Matar model and the later
stylised framed Admiralty models. A cogent reason for
dismissing block models in this context is that all our
technical sources for Iberian and English methods point to
comparable procedures for defining frame shapes
geometrically. There is, simply, no way to deny the use of
these procedures over much of Europe over a couple of
centuries, whether we yet understand them in detail or not.
Models were made for Princes, as for example Pett's Dainty
[as 42]; and Sir Humphrey Gilbert gives a fascinating
account of the same idea about 1570, in Queen Elizabeth's
Academy [52], a proposal for the education of young
gentlemen including the teaching by a mathematician (also
versed in astronomy and navigation) of the names and
parts of a ship and galley, from models, and also the
perfect art of a shipwright, and the diversity of moulds
appertaining to it. Such remained a proposal, though ship
design had become a respectable interest by this time,
attested both by the self-portraits of Baker [53] and
Fernandes [54], and the circle of courtiers involved both in
England and in Portugal.
Similarities with civil architecture
It has become clear that there are influences from
Renaissance works on architecture in the work of treatisers
on ship design. Lavanha's section on architecture is
essentially Vitruvian, making extensive reference to works
on civil architecture. Baker too was consulted outside the
immediate field of shipbuilding, on a matter of civil
engineering [55].
The basic tools for geometry and setting out are common
to both shipwrightry and masonry. One may then note with
interest the survival of not only portraits and effigies
holding models of actual buildings [56], but the existence
of a surprising number of actual physical models [57], from
as early as the fifteenth century, some of them as detailed
as one would expect from Lavanha's description and price
for a ship model. Curiously, the first definite reference to a
comparable architectural model in England comes from
only 1624, rather later than those in the nautical sphere,
with actual models extant (Wren's) from 1663. The few
references to architectural models prior to l624 are, or
could be to drawings, given the same name at that time.
(Pett's model of 1599 was explicitly rigged, which removes
any real doubt about its form.)
It is clear that there is a lengthening history of the use of
models, about which we may yet hope to learn more. What
I would observe is that the models cited have nothing to do
with the later half-models, solid, sliced or otherwise. I say
this despite the apparent emphasis that Hasslf or
Chappelle place on the use of half-models in later periods,
and indeed into the present century for quite substantial
coasting craft.
Treatisers and developments
Hasslf [58] notes the appearance of a new kind of
technical source material from the fifteenth century
onwards, and then implicitly suggests that the authors
were not shipwrights, but educated men who could write -
explicitly so for the treatises on ship-building that came to
be published from the end of the sixteenth century. I
cannot accept this neat division: he finds no niche for the
literate shipwright. Some of the authors of the numerous
manuscripts known from the last quarter of the sixteenth
century on were without question practising ship-builders
who both knew their trade and could read, write and draw.
Baker had a little working Italian, apparently, and was
something of an artist; Lavanha was a deeply learned man,
accepted as a consultant in the field, even if there is no
direct evidence for his practising as a shipwright. (As a
surveyor, he mapped Aragon). Hasslf's comment may be
fully justified for the Jesuit Fournier, or Harriot, even Wells
and Oliveira, but the genre of early ship-building treatises
cannot be dismissed as pure theory or passive observation
while it includes the manuscripts of Baker or Fernandes.
There may have been two different worlds in the major
national yards and in general commercial ship-building
(though that is not clear, while the English Masters
maintained private yards in parallel with their formal
duties, and Baker at least built merchant vessels in the
same way as Royal ships), but it is the more advanced
yards that concern us here.
That restriction is unavoidable, while there is little evidence
for the humbler arts. Where the construction of ships had
been until so recently by lapstrake methods, and the
skeleton method was a recent import of a fundamentally
different kind, as Hornell would observe, it may well be that
all skeleton construction used the same methods initially,
and that the techniques lapsed over time for simpler craft.
There is a plausible case for supposing that the system of
impressing common shipwrights from around the country
to work on Royal building programmes throughout the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was itself responsible for
the initial spread of skills of skeleton building at a manual
level. One may note that the essence of the elusive
eighteenth century English whole-moulding is after all that
it originally required drawings to determine the surmarks,
but was ideally suited to repeated orders and to small
variations, based upon moulds that could be re-used and
replaced and modified indefinitely. David Taylor has shown
how the method can be used today [59], despite the loss of
the original skill in designing the moulds and surmarks. The
very name whole-moulding, albeit only known from the
eighteenth century when it was obsolescent even for boats,
suggests that it shared the aspiration, and by implication
the reality, of defining the form of a vessel in its entirety
before framing began, that is so universally described in
the early treatises.
There are even, in my view, strong grounds for supposing
that the earliest known skeleton-first hull, the Sere Liman
wreck, was built by very similar methods. Being a relatively
small and simple boat it employs only one arc in its mould;
the preliminary reconstruction of her lines being very
suggestive of Mediterranean whole-moulding of today [as
31].
One might observe that Fournier's Old Method (so called
because he recorded it rather than used it [60]) shares that
single arc characteristic; and that the archetypal English
whole-moulded section is hardly different, in principle. I
now wonder whether the tables of proportions and
dimensions of ships given in an English manuscript [as 20]
of about 1600 for the whole range from 44 feet to only 3
feet breadth might be less non-sensical (as I first supposed)
and more a statement that ships and boats were indeed
designed by exactly the same methods. More particularly
since the unique collection of small boat plans given by
Manuel Fernandes in 1616 [as 11] accords them the same
treatment as the India naus.
Conclusion
Shipbuilding and design were subject to a continuous
process of change throughout our period, first to achieve
and then to exploit the Discoveries, with ever larger and
improved ships.
What preceded the methods for which we have
documentary sources simply is not known, but it seems to
me that we may look with interest on a parallel from the
work of Jacques Heyman, on the development of Gothic
masonry structures, so much better documented than
ships as they are:
"Most development took place during the High Gothic
period (1140-1284), the rules were then codified and the
reasons behind them forgotten."
"If you don't keep your learning alive, someone else will
come along and sweep it aside, as Gothic was overtaken by
the Renaissance" [61].
I propose a speculative hypothesis for the case of skeleton
shipbuilding. Initially there would have been a relatively
simple set of rules, built up around a form of single-arc
whole-moulded skeleton construction, which might have
been the Gothic achievement (as currently exemplified by
the Sere Liman wreck); and which was swept away during
the Renaissance by far more formalised geometric methods
of creating complex hull forms, such as described by Baker,
or Oliveira. A further, knowledge-based revolution seems to
have been spawned towards the end of the sixteenth
century, which drastically altered the attitudes and
capabilities of shipbuilders again (but only came to full
fruition a century later). The many surviving local methods
for boat construction may have origins at different times in
this sequence. That known as whole-moulding in the
English-speaking world may be a degradation of the second
stage, from the sixteenth century, since it had no clear
precursor in the essentially lapstrake English traditions for
sea-going vessels. The Mediterranean methods as
exemplified by the Gabarit de St Joseph may be far older,
and indeed the precursors of the Renaissance methods.
In view of the extensive use of Greek geometry by
treatisers and shipwrights alike; of the preliminary
reconstructed lines for the 7th century pre-skeleton Yassi
Ada wreck [62]; and of records such as the mass
production of classical galleys in time of war, we may even
wonder whether the basic design techniques for forming
skeleton hull shapes derive directly from the classical
world.