I am restarting construction of this kit after laying it up for a couple of years. One question has always bugged me _
Would a late 18th century frigate really have had open gunports and no port lids? I have seen reviews of the kit in books and the professional modellers who built them didn't comment on it, so maybe not, but it just doesn't seem right to me
Ian
"Would a late 18th century frigate really have had open gunports and no
port lids? I have seen reviews of the kit in books and the professional
modellers who built them didn't comment on it, so maybe not, but it just doesn't seem right to me"
Most had outboard portlids, but some were built with ports that opened inwardly--some like window shutters. Was the Unicorn a Chapman design for Sweden? Many of his designs were innovative.
Did it have guns on two decks? Upper deck may not have had port lids.
It may have had a gundeck with port lids, and guns on quarter deck without port lids.
Yes the ship was allegedly Chapman designed, but that's the first time I've heard Sweden mentioned.
The main deck mounts 28 guns all behind open ports, and there are 8 more on the poop - a later modification I believe.
Ian
"Yes the ship was allegedly Chapman designed, but that's the first time
I've heard Sweden mentioned."
Chapman designed an archipelago flotilla for Sweden, which included a lot of unique designs.
"The main deck mounts 28 guns all behind open ports, and there are 8 more on the poop - a later modification I believe."
Looking at the pictures of the model itself, the open bow indicates that it was designed some time before 1790. I don't think this is the same Unicorn that served in the Royal Navy at that time. It may be a design of Chapman's that appeared in his book on ship design but was never built. It's a common occurance in wooden models. The famous "Fair American" that's been sold for years is based on a model at Annapolis in the Rogers Collection--no real life ship has been found, although the name itself was very popular and shows up often on lists.
I'm not familiar with that particular vessel, but it's not uncommon for frigates to have no port lids since the ports are high enough above the waterline that there's little risk of them being submerged when the ship heels. If there are living spaces such as the captain's cabin shared with the guns, the ports there would have lids to be closed in inclement weather.
Regards, Ralph
The Corel "Unicorn" is a slightly anachronistic reproduction of one of the very first pair of British frigates (the other one was the "Lyme", a half-sister), built around 1760 as partial copies of a captured French frigate. A plan of the Unicorn was reproduced in Chapman's book "Architectura Navalis Mercatoria" a few years later, but he did not have anything to do with her design.
Un-lidded gunports on the upper gun deck of ships of the line and the single gun deck of single-deckers (like frigates) was a perfectly standard way of doing things, this practice was introduced around 1705 as a money-saving venture. Gunports here were not necessary as the deck in question was so far above the waterline. The lower decks of two-deckers, and the middle deck of three-deckers, always had normal port-lids.
Half-ports, a pair of wooden shutters divided horizontally, inserted from within the ship and with the gun-barrel poking out through a hole in the middle, were sometimes used instead however, especially under the forecastle and quarterdeck and especially on ships of the line where these areas were the officers' quarters with their cabins surrounding the guns - the cabins would be a little too light and airy otherwise :) Occasionally some half-lids were in the form of glazed windows, to let the light in, but functionally these were identical to the wooden ones. The gunports in the waist, the open middle section of the ship, were invariably left open.
Staale Sannerud
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