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#1 Brian Weathersby

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Posted 22 October 2015 - 03:46 PM

I'm just wondering if there is some sort of formula for how many cargo boxes merchant ships get?  For example, a merchant cutter of 200 tons/4 hull boxes has 6 cargo boxes, and a merchant schooner of 300 tons/5 hull boxes has 8 cargo boxes.  However, a 400 ton/6 hull box ship has 14 cargo boxes while a 400 ton/5 hull box brig has either 16 or 18 cargo boxes.  Is there a consideration as to hull type?  That is, the schooner and cutter have finer lines than the larger ships so they can't carry as much as a brig or other merchant.

 

The reason for this woolgathering is that I have several merchantmen models, and would like to include them in games with a little more granularity than just, "there are your targets."  Certainly in a campaign game, the carrying capacity of merchants can wind up being quite important when there's an army to keep supplied.  I'd also like to use some of my more exotic hulls (xebecs, polacres, ketches, etc.) in games as merchants, particularly for scenarios in the Med. 

BWW



#2 Cpt M

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Posted 25 October 2015 - 04:14 PM

"I'm just wondering if there is some sort of formula for how many cargo boxes merchant ships get?  For example, a merchant cutter of 200 tons/4 hull boxes has 6 cargo boxes, and a merchant schooner of 300 tons/5 hull boxes has 8 cargo boxes.  However, a 400 ton/6 hull box ship has 14 cargo boxes while a 400 ton/5 hull box brig has either 16 or 18 cargo boxes.  Is there a consideration as to hull type?  That is, the schooner and cutter have finer lines than the larger ships so they can't carry as much as a brig or other merchant."

 

Each cargo box represents 10 tons of cargo.  And, yes, there is a loose co-relation between the shape of the ship (ship with fine lines vs ships with full lines).  Unfortunately, we were not able to define a fixed formula for calculating the carrying capacity due to the very wide variance in the data (all the examples in the game have been derived from actual ships).       



#3 Brian Weathersby

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Posted 26 October 2015 - 11:47 AM

I did see in the rules that each cargo box represents 10 tons; in fact, that was what got me started on this line of thinking.  Before posting the original message, I consulted my sources here (MacGregor, Merchant Sailing Ships 1775-1815, and Gardiner/Bosscher (eds.), The Heyday of Sail: The Merchant Sailing Ship 1650-1830) only to find out that they had no hard information in this area either.  They do give some information of representative types (Heyday has a pretty good chart of representative Mediterranean vessels over time) but not the data I was looking for.

 

I did find some interesting documents while doing online research.  One was a listing of vessels in Port au Prince harbor on June 4, 1794 broken down by rig, name, tonnage and cargo.  Then, I found a list of ships taken at Port Napoleon, Isle de France in December of 1810.  These were broken down by rig, name, tonnage and nationality.  Together they make a nice little data set of merchants from the beginning and end of the period.  I have them in a spreadsheet if anyone is interested.  It's true that they are not a random sample, but sometimes you have to work with what you can get.  I'm still looking through old documents online to see if there are any other seizures like this listed.

 

I did find another online book entitled The Shipmaster's Assistant, and Owner's Manual: containing General Information Necessary for Merchants, Owners and Masters of Ships... published in 1826, so almost a primary document.  Needless to say, they talk about loading and tonnage a good bit.  I found this on page 111 of the book (pg. 106 online) about how to measure tonnage. 

 

"The tonnage of goods and stores is taken sometimes by weight and sometimes by measurement ; and that method is allowed to the vessel which yields the most tonnage. — In tonnage by weight 20 cwt. make one ton. — In tonnage by measurement 40 cubic feet equal one ton. All carriages or other stores, to be measured for tonnage, are taken to pieces, and packed in the manner which will occupy the least room on board ship. — All ordnance, whether brass or iron, is taken in tonnage by its actual weight. — Musket cartridges in barrels or boxes ; all ammunition in boxes ; and other articles of great weight, are taken in tonnage according to their actual weight."

 

However, on the same page they say this about tonnage:  "The term ton, as generally applied in the freighting of ships, signifies 2000 lb. weight. When it is said that a ship of so many tons burthen, it is to be understood, that it carries so many times 2000 lb. weight ; these tons, however, are different, according to the nature of the goods."  So it appears that there is a formula, but it's different for every cargo.  That's too granular even for a campaign game, I suspect.

BWW



#4 Brian Weathersby

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Posted 05 November 2015 - 02:39 PM

I've had a chance to do some playing around with the numbers that I mentioned in the earlier posts, and I do think there are some useful things to be gleaned from them.  With all the usual caveats (not truly random samples, reported tonnages may not be correct, the two lists are from 16 years apart, etc.) here's what I found.

 

Let's start with brigs.  Between the two lists there are 27 brigs and 1 snow, which I am listing as a brig for this.  The tonnages range from 60 to 350, with the average tonnage being 210.71.  While averages can be misleading sometimes, the median and mode for the tonnage numbers are both 200, which would suggest that the distribution here is pretty close to normal.  As an interesting aside, the two smallest brigs (60 and 70 tons) were both captured at Isle de France in 1810.  Also, two of the larger brigs (300 tons) are probably privateers, since they have the number of guns carried listed and the others do not.  They were also both captured at Isle de France in 1810.  No information on crew sizes is available, but with merchantmen, going with the absolute minimum needed is a good rule of thumb.

 

Full rigged ships are a little more complicated.  There are 45 ships total on the two lists, or 39 if you don't count the Indiamen (for this, anything of 900+ tons is considered as an East Indiaman).  Tonnages here range from 150 to 1,000 or 150 to 800 without the Indiamen.  The average tonnage for these is 478.2/405.6 (with/without Indiamen).  Because of the larger sample size, the other numbers tend to not be as well definied as the ones for brigs were.  The median tonnage here is 400/350, but the mode is 300 both with and without the Indiamen.

 

So, what do all these numbers mean?  It means that for generic merchantmen in these samples, a brig is anywhere between 60 and 350 tons, with an "average" version running about 200 tons.  For ship rigged merchantmen (not counting East Indiamen), they can run anywhere between 150 and 800 tons.  However, a 300-400 tonner would be the closest to being "average."  As for how many cargo boxes they should have, this is still a sort  of 'how long is a piece of string' type question.  In theory, they should be capable of carrying cargo equal to their tonnage, but that doesn't work in practice.

 

As mentioned in the earlier message, period documents indicate that cargo weight is determined by tonnage in some cases, and by cubic feet in others.  The Shipmaster's Assistant, that I quoted earlier also says (pg. 131) that it is possible for vessels to sometimes carry MORE than their registered tonnage, even after 14 percent was deducted for casks.  Just below this, it points out that a vessel will only carry 900 to 1000 pounds of Brazil cotton per registered ton (or, 45-50% of registered tonnage).  This seems to be in line with a comment in Sutton's Lords of the East (pg. 39) that says the Nottingham of 1152 tons "brought home almost twice the 712,000 lbs customarily brought home in an 800 ton ship."  712,000 pounds is 356 tons at 2,000 pounds/ton, or 44.5% of 800 tons.  The Nottingham  brought home almost twice that number, which is 712 tons or 61.8% of tonnage.  While this isn't a lot of data to work with, it might be reasonable to let smaller ships with sharp lines (cutters and schooners) carry about 30% of their tonnage as cargo, with brigs and non-Indiamen carrying about 45% and Indiamen carrying about 60%.  Admittedly though, the Nottingham got in trouble for violating Company procedures about cargo storage, so a smaller number might be in order as well.

 

I'd be interested in hearing any comments or other data people might have on this.  It seems like much ado about nothing, but when you start looking at the idea of campaigns, then all of this becomes important for a number of reasons.

BWW


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#5 Lonnie Gill

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Posted 08 August 2016 - 04:16 PM

G' Day Brian,

 

I share your frustration, having reviewed many of the same and other sources and not found solid answers.  Most all the data for merchant ships in the AoS is readily available, but the key question of cargo capacity - arguably the most important question for them - remains elusive for this period.  That being said, we tried to provide representative examples of merchant ships in the Ship Cards.  Certainly, this is an area we would like to tie down better as it can become quite important in a campaign or linked scenarios..

 

It is my hope that someone will be able to provide the data needed.  I can then update the merchant Ship Cards and post the revisions on the ODGW website for all to download.

 

I remain, your obt. &c. humble servant,

 

LL Gill



#6 Brian Weathersby

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Posted 09 August 2016 - 03:31 PM

Mr. Gill,

First, thank you for responding to my post.  I really didn't expect to get the designer himself commenting.

 

After looking around though, I'm pretty well convinced that there is no "standard answer" to this.  Given the lack of standardization at the time, I suspect that we will never be able to do an Age of Sail scenario the way we would a WWII one; i.e., just put down 20 merchant ships,all of the Liberty type. My theory is that a useful way to proceed might be to divide merchant ships by tonnage range, lines (fine vs. full, for instance) and then carrying capacity percentage.  To use my example from the earlier post, a 100 ton schooner with fine lines would carry 30% of its tonnage as cargo, so 30 tons or 3 boxes.  A 200 ton brig with fuller lines could carry 45%, or 90 tons/9 boxes.


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#7 HalC

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Posted 03 December 2016 - 09:12 PM

Hello Brian,

  I took the liberty of posting a post of yours in part, regarding the Tun's weight/volume value where you indicated that you had found it in an online book.  By chance, would you be able to give the URL for that online book you alluded to in post #4 of this thread.

 

The reason I asked is because not only am I a Age of Sail gamer, I'm also a role playing enthusiast who likes to sometimes be able to find information on the ships and be able to use GURPS VEHICLES 2nd edition to sort of give "stats" to ships etc.  I was really happy when I came across the guidelines for determining height of masts that was dependent upon the length and beam of ship, along with formulas for calculating Tuns Burthen for various ships.

 

Recently, having purchased a copy of A TREATISE ON NAVAL GUNNERY 1855 by Sir Howard, I came across formulas for shot velocity based upon shot weight and charge weight.  In conjunction with that information, using NELSON'S SHIPS by Peter Goodwin information on cannons themselves (weights, bore diameters, shot diameters (and thus be able to calculate windage values for the cannons) along with cannon weights and carriage weights etc (for velocity of recoil from cannons firing) - I found myself smiling a fair bit thinking "hey, some of this stuff is coming together!".  Then I saw your post and thought "COOL!".  My wife works at a logicstics company (they find loads for truckers to carry on their return trip back from where they went out initially - truckers hate coming back empty) and it was mentioned that Trucking uses both max volume and max weight for determining how to charge for any given item being transported.  My guess is that if a given cargo weights more than a given amount per volume (density) or has a given volume in excess of what the weight would normally be for that volume - that there is a reason why it was either of 40 cubic feet (max volume per tun) or 2,000 lbs (max weight for a given volume).  So the two aren't necessarily going to be "fighting against each other".  Carrying a cargo of feathered pillows is going to take up the 40 cubic feet before it hits 2,000 lbs (presumably), while carrying GOLD in trunks for payroll might weight more than 2000 lbs stowed in 40 cubic feet outright...

 

In any event, I'm hoping to find more information as I try to understand the vestiges of history from the age of sail.  For instance, I've never been really able to determine what a Topgallant Gale is.  If I could find some means of correlating that to real world information (such as a Gale strength wind is X miles per hour or knots per hour or what have you), I could start putting together some other information for use with Role playing games and various historical ships.  Also?  If anyone is interested, I once emailed an curator (officer?) aboard the HMS VICTORY regarding the cost of powder and shot, and if anyone is interested in that, let me know.  It all started when I spotted a line that read something along the lines of a single volley of a 74's entire broadside was equal to a month's pay for a Ship's captain.  :)



#8 Broadsword56

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Posted 04 December 2016 - 10:48 AM

In my gaming I encounter an analogous challenge in deciding how to represent ship loads...

In the War of 1812 on the Great Lakes, the US and British squadrons didn't have dedicated transport ships and depended largely on their warships to ferry infantry units wherever they needed to go. These were unrated ships -- corvettes, brigs, schooners, and converted merchant schooners. And they had super-shallow draughts because they were all built for the lakes rather than ocean travel. So the troops, horses, munitions, etc., all rode primarily on the open deck. That probably interfered quite a bit with the crew's abilities to sail and work the guns, too. It also meant horrendous casualties if a ship with such a crowded deck engaged enemy ships.

I have no idea how many men, horses, or cargo these ships would have been able to carry this way. I suspect it would be a far lower percentage of tons burthen -- maybe as low as 10 percent?

And on top of that, I'm wondering how in Post Captain one should change any sailing/fighting abilities of a ship encumbered this way with troops. While the ship might suffer in various tactical ways, I think it would have an advantage at point-blank range when all those infantrymen would be able to add the volume of their small-arms fire to that of the ship's own marines.

Any thoughts or ideas?

#9 Brian Weathersby

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Posted 05 December 2016 - 01:24 AM

HalC,

Sorry to take so long getting back to you,but I spent a couple of days seeing if I had a copy of the book, or a longer citation in my notes.  While I didn't download it, the title is one of those typically long ones.  It is:

The Shipmaster's Assistant, and Owner's Manual: containing General Information Necessary for Merchants, Owners, and Masters of Ships, Officers, and all other persons concerned or employed in the Merchant Service, relative to the Mercantile And Maritime Laws and Customs.  The author is David Steel, and I found it on Google Books.  The link below should get you to it:

https://books.google...id=hJk7AAAAcAAJ

Here's a link to the 1795 version:

https://books.google...id=Go09AAAAYAAJ

 

I don't know how helpful the 1795 version will be, as my citation was from the 1826 edition.

 

Broadsword56:

I don't know that having the extra troops on board would be an advantage or not.  Given how small most of the Great Lakes combatants were, I think that there might not be enough room to work the ship and fight those extra troops on board.  By the way, is this Gina Williams?  I preordered A Glorious Chance over at Legion Wargames, but it looks like things have stalled.  I hope you get the needed orders soon.



#10 Broadsword56

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Posted 05 December 2016 - 05:22 PM

Broadsword56:

I don't know that having the extra troops on board would be an advantage or not.  Given how small most of the Great Lakes combatants were, I think that there might not be enough room to work the ship and fight those extra troops on board.  By the way, is this Gina Williams?  I preordered A Glorious Chance over at Legion Wargames, but it looks like things have stalled.  I hope you get the needed orders soon.

 

 

 

Hi Brian -- Yes, it's me. Thanks, for preordering A Glorious Chance and for your encouragement!

The preorders for it are actually happening at a faster pace than most other titles at Legion, considering that AGC started taking preorders only last March.

Still, that's not fast enough for me... or for you and all the other players so eager to get it on the table.

So I keep trying to do what I can (with YouTube videos, posts on gaming boards, etc.) to keep the momentum going and drive the preorders toward the "magic 250."

Please help spread the word so we can get more gamers on board.

 

You probably have realized that AGC will make an excellent operational companion to your tactical miniatures gaming with Post Captain.

I've also been working on some add-ons and aids that may be of specific interest to Post Captain players:

 

Maneuver charts -- Lake Ontario is full of coastlines, islands, shallows, shoals, narrows, and channels that were significant factors in the naval War of 1812. I plan to take each of the 6 Lake Zones in A Glorious Chance, and make 6 separate "maneuver charts" with 1,000-meter grids to use when using the operational game and tactical miniatures together. As you play a tactical battle with your minis, you will mark the track of it on the Maneuver Map every time the action moves 1,000 yards in any direction. If you see that the battle has moved into a maneuver chart box containing a land feature, shoal, coastal fort, etc., you'll place that feature on the table to put it into tactical play. What's especially good is that you'll start to have to worry about approaching shoals, shallows, etc., before you see them on the table. You'll have to worry about the danger of being "blown onto a lee shore" just like the real commanders did.

 

Lake-specific wind model -- I love Post Captain's charts for generating your own wind speeds and directions for a custom scenario. But Lake Ontario is a specific and distinct maritime arena; it has a prevailing SW-NE summer wind pattern, a tendency toward long stretches of light airs and calms, violent thunderstorms and squalls, and land gusts (such as the one that turned the tide for Perry at the Battle of Lake Erie). Also, the shape of coastlines and islands funnels the winds into different directions in different parts of the lake. So I've studies the Canadian maritime weather guides and developed a system of "wind zones" for the maneuver charts that represents those real-life wind patterns in specific parts of the lake and allows conditions to shift during play.  

 

Lake Ontario 1813 ship cards for Post Captain -- I'm having to make these for my own gaming, so I plan to share them here once I do.

 

 

 

 



#11 Cpt M

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Posted 05 December 2016 - 11:17 PM

It may be of interest to some that the Post Captain authors are slowly working on a variant for the lakes battles.  Given the differences in ships and armament, some major changes have been made in how ship logs are generated (this is due to the smaller ships and vastly different armament).  It also is apparent that a new CRT will be needed as well.  Still early days on this, however....



#12 Cpt M

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Posted 05 December 2016 - 11:54 PM

"For instance, I've never been really able to determine what a Topgallant Gale is.  If I could find some means of correlating that to real world information (such as a Gale strength wind is X miles per hour or knots per hour or what have you),"

 

To answer your question, a Topgallant Gale roughly straddles the top end of Force 4 and the bottom of Force 5 (using the Beaufort scale) or roughly 15-20 knots of wind.  This would be the strongest breeze in which a average ship would safely be able to ship her topgallant sails (generally speaking; some ships may do better, some worse).  A Topmast Gale would be roughly Force 7 (or 28-33 knots of wind).


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#13 Broadsword56

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Posted 06 December 2016 - 12:49 AM

It may be of interest to some that the Post Captain authors are slowly working on a variant for the lakes battles.  Given the differences in ships and armament, some major changes have been made in how ship logs are generated (this is due to the smaller ships and vastly different armament).  It also is apparent that a new CRT will be needed as well.  Still early days on this, however....

 

I'd be super-interested in this, of course. Hope it happens, and please keep us posted!



#14 Broadsword56

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Posted 06 December 2016 - 12:54 AM

It may be of interest to some that the Post Captain authors are slowly working on a variant for the lakes battles.  Given the differences in ships and armament, some major changes have been made in how ship logs are generated (this is due to the smaller ships and vastly different armament).  It also is apparent that a new CRT will be needed as well.  Still early days on this, however....

 

Are you saying Post Captain really doesn't work for this? Huge disappointment if so, since I bought Post Captain over Sea Eagles, Heart of Oak, or Sail & Steam Navies minis rulesets because people said it seemed to be so much better suited to small engagements, smaller ships, and more diverse ship types of the Lakes campaigns. What ruleset would you recommend as the best available for this right now (until Post Captain completes its Lakes variant)?



#15 Cpt M

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Posted 07 December 2016 - 09:03 PM

Are you saying Post Captain really doesn't work for this? Huge disappointment if so, since I bought Post Captain over Sea Eagles, Heart of Oak, or Sail & Steam Navies minis rulesets because people said it seemed to be so much better suited to small engagements, smaller ships, and more diverse ship types of the Lakes campaigns. What ruleset would you recommend as the best available for this right now (until Post Captain completes its Lakes variant)?

The development group has played some of the lake battles using Post Captain as is (with, of course, the necessary ad hoc ship logs) and it plays very well.  The idea (which may or may not pan out, depending on how the idea develops) of a new approach is based on the different nature of the ships involved.  Post Captain is geared towards the deep ocean actions and covers everything from a 200 ton (or slightly less) small ship up to a 5000 ton triple decker as single, stand alone ships (with their own ship logs).  Smaller vessels (ie, gunboats) are handled as units of boats (usually three to a unit).  For most of the lakes battles, the largest ship might be a sloop or brig (excepting, of course, the thoroughly ridiculous, white elephant triple deckers that both sides became enamoured with at the very end of the conflict).  Consequently, there has been some discussion of tweaking the formulas (such as the '3 guns equals 1 gun box' and the hull point formula) to give more granularity for these smaller ships.  This would allow the gunboats to be represented as single boats (instead as '3 to a counter).  The experiment is definitely in its early days (and may well not really be worth the extra effort).  

 

As I stated earlier, we have played some of the lakes battles using the rules 'as is' and the results (and, importantly, the feel) of the games have been very satisfactory.  So I wouldn't be too concerned about using Post Captain for these battles.

 

As for alternative rules:  I'm loathe to comment too much on these (and, yes, I have played all the ones mentioned and more), but I really can't recommend any them.  My experience has been that they all fall short in the all important area of sailing mechanics; none of them, IMHO, come remotely close to accurately portraying this very important feature.  (I'll add that the two Post Captain authors have a combined total of 90+ years in sail boats, from small boats to topsail schooners and one with several years as a volunteer on one the few square rigged ships still sailing.  So that experience was brought to bear in designing the movement system.)

 

As for posting your ships logs for the lakes:  Please do!  We welcome all and any such efforts!  If you wish to coordinate your efforts with the Post Captain authors, feel free to post a message via this website!   

 

And, finally, good luck on your game!  It definitely looks a winner!  (And is sorely needed!)    



#16 HalC

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Posted 29 October 2018 - 10:49 PM

yes, back after a long while away.  Even had to get my password recovered just so I could come back.  :)

 

Just wanted to say "thank you" for the information on the Topgallant wind speed Cpt M.  Much appreciated.

 

Brian?  By chance, do you still have that database in excel for your merchant ships?  I've  a guy who is interested in running a campaign over Fantasy Grounds for his crew of gamers (sorry for the crew comment!).  He's setting his era in 1725 for some reason, and I've been trying to help with some research into what ships were prevalent as merchant ships in that time period.  I've been trying to get values for "drafts" of various ships and having a hard go of it.  The one good thing about all this research is that I found a set of pdf's that discuss turning ship plans for age of sail plans from the 1700's - into actual ship models and how it is done.  Made my day to find them to be sure!

 

But, if your offer still stands on the merchant ship data, I would love to have it. 

 

         Hal



#17 Brian Weathersby

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Posted 29 October 2018 - 11:37 PM

HalC,

I'm sure I have it somewhere.  Give me a few days and let me look around.  I just culled it from some readily available sources, so there's nothing particularly special or secret about it.



#18 HalC

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Posted 30 October 2018 - 07:13 AM

HalC,

I'm sure I have it somewhere.  Give me a few days and let me look around.  I just culled it from some readily available sources, so there's nothing particularly special or secret about it.

Will do.

 

By the by, In looking at the Merchant ships in POST CAPTAIN's ship cards, I noted that one of the ships has a hull value of 2.  When I look at the file explaining hull boxes (PC HULL BOXES R5B) - it states that for merchants, the smallest hull size is 3 boxes for 100 tons.  Yet, there is a fore and aft rigged merchant ship with only 2 hull boxes.  Since it has but one mast, I presume it is sloop rigged.  Since it has six 10 tun cargo boxes, I have to presume that the hull is at least 60 tons, and if it has a crew of 24 - that there has to be some space dedicated to the supplies the crew need over the span of their journey.  At a guess, this craft has to be at least 80 to 90 tuns in volume just to accommodate the supplies required and the cargo capacity implied.  That's VERY close to the 100 ton value given in the PDF document.

 

I guess my question is - shouldn't this hull have 3 hull boxes instead of 2 hull boxes?

 

I guess I'm putting the "How to" pdf's to the test so as to be able to translate real world ships to PC ships, and vice versa.  You have no idea how disappointed I was at the fact that when I couldn't find "draft" values for French or Spanish ships at the 3Deck web site, that I couldn't turn to here and find the draft values for ships in the ship data cards.  Granted, it is easier to simply roll against a "grounding chart" when within 1,000 yds of the shore line, but if you can use the same approach to maps as Heart of Oak did with their Decision at Djerba scenarios, one would hope you could do it with any miniatures style game out there.



#19 Cpt M

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Posted 30 October 2018 - 07:38 PM

Will do.

 

By the by, In looking at the Merchant ships in POST CAPTAIN's ship cards, I noted that one of the ships has a hull value of 2.  When I look at the file explaining hull boxes (PC HULL BOXES R5B) - it states that for merchants, the smallest hull size is 3 boxes for 100 tons.  Yet, there is a fore and aft rigged merchant ship with only 2 hull boxes.  Since it has but one mast, I presume it is sloop rigged.  Since it has six 10 tun cargo boxes, I have to presume that the hull is at least 60 tons, and if it has a crew of 24 - that there has to be some space dedicated to the supplies the crew need over the span of their journey.  At a guess, this craft has to be at least 80 to 90 tuns in volume just to accommodate the supplies required and the cargo capacity implied.  That's VERY close to the 100 ton value given in the PDF document.

 

I guess my question is - shouldn't this hull have 3 hull boxes instead of 2 hull boxes?

 

I guess I'm putting the "How to" pdf's to the test so as to be able to translate real world ships to PC ships, and vice versa.  You have no idea how disappointed I was at the fact that when I couldn't find "draft" values for French or Spanish ships at the 3Deck web site, that I couldn't turn to here and find the draft values for ships in the ship data cards.  Granted, it is easier to simply roll against a "grounding chart" when within 1,000 yds of the shore line, but if you can use the same approach to maps as Heart of Oak did with their Decision at Djerba scenarios, one would hope you could do it with any miniatures style game out there.

 

I just checked the Ship Logs and the only merchant that fits your description (6 cargo boxes and a single mast) is the merchant cutter which has 4 hull boxes (2 black and 2 blue). 

 

As for the draft values, in many cases, that information is just not available (even for well known warships).  This is especially true so for the more obscure types such as merchants.  Unfortunately, draft was not something that was routinely recorded in the contemporary documents.



#20 Brian Weathersby

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Posted 30 October 2018 - 07:49 PM

I think he is looking at the unofficial Lake Ontario ship cards that Gina Willis did.

 

Hal:

I did find both both the spreadsheets.  How can I get them to you?






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