Shipbucket

Beautiful! All the rigging and shading on the sails would drive me insane!

The cup's been cleaned up in the USA, America 1851 image.
Thanks for the complements and suggestions!
CraigH

Next up is the Ann McKim. One of the late Baltimore Clippers that is one of the handful of key ships that influence the later "True Clippers" of the 1850's that everyone is so fond of.

I'm contemplating a series of drawings tracing the development of the the Baltimore Clippers which had a huge impact on hull-forms and the search for speed under sail from about the 1770's and into the 1900's.

I say go for it!

The racing yacht America served in the Federal (Union) Navy
during the American Civil War. She was armed with two large
cannons on pivot mounts.

The small 51-ton class revenue cutters (built at New York) never carried a pivot gun. This has been reported and drawn for many years. However, the pivot gun was too large and expensive for the cutter service. The Treasury Department was frugal (down right cheap) and did not expend any funds other than those necessary. Guns were not considered overly necessary but if they were free that was another story. In the late 1830s, the captain of the cutter Vigilant complained the guns he had came from the privateer Dart captured in 1813.

Two other cutters of a similar size were built at New York in 1819 (Alabama and Louisiana) and they carried two 3-pounders. However, both are normally given the pivot gun. The pivot gun comes from a 1815 description of the designer but, as noted, they were never installed.

Another mention on this thread shows Alabama and Louisiana capturing a pirate in 1819. This is true but the name of the captured schooner was Le Brave instead of Bravo. The latter name came from the English corruption of the not so literate captain of Louisiana, Jarius Loomis. The fun thing about the capture was both cutters stumbled upon the pirate. They had been sent to find another pirate said to be in the area. The result of the capture was the largest mass execution of pirates in U. S. history. Twenty-one were hanged in one day at New Orleans, Jean DesFarges the pirate captain and his first officer were hanged aboard Louisiana. The hangings took place in what is known as Jackson Square today. I wonder if any of the pirate ghosts are still there?

Just keep drawing, just keep drawing

Looks very promising Looking forward to the continuing

Thanks Kim!

Redondo:
Stunning progress! Really looking forward to how the rig develops!!!

Bill:
Interesting info regarding the revenue cutters, I hadn't dug into the history of activities on them...my interest is primarily hull form, masting, rigging, and performance (re-reading my Howard Chapelle library and drawing vessels that strike me).

Right now I've been digging into the Baltimore Clipper evolution starting with some of the ship types they probably stemmed from in the early 1700's. That cutter and the America share the hull form characteristics allowing for speed under sail.

Slowly working up a series of drawings (abandoning a couple too as a lot of the early ones are too bloody small to render at 96dpi). That's one of the interesting challenges of SB scale and and offshoot of MS Paint; the damned low dpi! It's easy to draw tiny ships in a vector based program at high dpi (400 and up) but they pixelate and turn to mud at 96dpi.

CraigH

That Preussen is a true stunner! I spotted it yesterday already, but had to await till today to comment, since it took that long for my eyes to recoup from the shock of sooooo much delicate and wonderfully executed detail!
Rodondo, Good Sir - Thou art a true Artist!