Davco Indefatigable & Anson Razeed 44 Gun Ships

One of my favorite built ships is the Davco 64 gun Agamemnon.  The Agamemnon was an Ardent class 64 and so was her sister ship the Indefatigable. When Indefatigable was razeed to a 44 gun ship in 1794, they only removed a deck, they did not shorten her at all. The Langton Indefatigable is shorter than the Langton Agamemnon by quite a bit and of course the Navwar Agamemnon and Indefatigable aren't even close. The Davco models match perfectly with Indefatigable being identical to the Agamemnon minus a deck. I am very happy I chose to model the Davco version of Agamemnon rather than the Langton back when I built it. I still haven' built the Langton ship and will probably build it as the Africa or another class of 64.

So back to the subject of this post. I had two of the Davco Indefatigable hulls so I built the second one as HMS Anson. Anson was a different 64 class, Intrepid, but close enough to the Ardent class with a difference of only 7-1/4 inches in length. .She was also razeed in 1794

Indefatigable:
Length of gun deck = 160'1-1/4"; Beam = 44'5"
Armament: Broadside weight = 480 lbs; Upper gun deck 26 x 24 pdrs; Quarterdeck 4 x 32 pdr carronades & 8 x 12 pdr long guns; Forecastle 4 x 12 pdr long guns & 2 x 32 pdr carronades

Anson
Length of gun deck = 159'6"; Beam = 44'4"
Armament: Broadside weight = 480 lbs; Upper gun deck 26 x 24 pdrs; Quarterdeck 4 x 32 pdr carronades & 8 x 12 pdr long guns; Forecastle 4 x 12 pdr long guns & 2 x 32 pdr carronades

Both ships had long and distinguished careers.

Anson:

As a 64: 1782 Battle of the Saintes

As a frigate: 10/19/1797 took privateer Le Zephyr; 11/17/1797 privateer sloop Le Pailleur; 12/28/97 6th rate corvette La Daphne; 2/8/98 privateer Le Jason; 6/31/98 privateer Mercure; 10/12/98 Battle of Tory Island & took 5th rte frigate La Bellone; 10/16/98 5th rte frigate Loire; 2/2/99 privateer cutter Le Boulonnois; 4/29/1800 privateer ship sloop Hardi; 6/29/00 unrated Le Gibraltar; 10/15/03 privateer La Marguerite; 8/26/06 5th rate Pamona; 1/1/07 Capture of Curacoa; 12/29/1807 wrecked

Indefatigable:

4/22/1796 Took 5th rate frigate Virginie; 6/11/96 privateer brigs Trois Couleurs & Blonde; 10/2/96 privateer schooner Revanche; 1/13/97 drave Les Droits de L'Homme ashore; 4/30/97 privateer Les Basque; 5/11/97 privateer brig Les Nouvelle Eugenie; 10/14/97 unrated cutter ranger & privateer ship L'Hyene; 1/4/98 privateer Le Vengeur; 1/16/98 privateer ship L'Inconceivable; 1/28/98 privateer ship Heureuse Nouvelle; 8/5/98 privateer ship L'Heureux; 8/7/98 6th rate corvette Danae; 12/31/98 privateer ship La Minerva; 5/31/99 privateer ship Venus; 6/99 privateer Le Vengeur; 8/25/1800 Attack on Ferrol; 10/22/00 6th rate corvette Venus; 10/5/04 Battle of Cape St. Maria; 7/31/08 privateer ship Diane; 1/14/09 privateer Clarisse; 1816 broken up

Diligencia 22 Gun Spanish Corvette

The third and last of my Navwar corvettes is the 22-gun Spanish ship Diligencia. She (He) was launched in 1796 from Real Astillero de Esteiro ship yard. Again there is not much information on this ship other than ThreeDecks.org. Diligencia was captured by HMS Pique (36) and Diana (38) on December 7, 1804 and became the 22 gun 6th rate post ship HMS Ligaera.

Length of gun deck = 106'
Beam = 28'9"
Depth of Hold = 7'7"
Tons Burthen (BM) = 439

British Armament: 20 x 9 pdr long guns; QD - 10 x 12 pdr corronades; FC - 6 x 12 pdr carronades and 2 x 6 pdr long guns

Le Mars 22 Gun French Corvette

The next corvette I finished is the 22 gun Le Mars 1798. Again, the only information I could find on her was at ThreeDecks.org. From 1798 to 1800 she took the ships Elisabeth, Apollo, Chesterfield, Nostra Senior Lashagas, Lady Harriet, Fly, and Rosabria. On the night of March 31 to April 1, 1800 she was taken by the 36 gun frigate HMS Amethyst. Her corsair captain from 1798 until capture was Alexandre Etienne. She was taken into the Royal Navy as the sixth rate post ship Garland.

Length of gun deck = 124'4"; Beam = 31'5-3/4"; Depth of Hold = 14'1"; Tons Burthen = 529; Compliment = 180 men & boys
Armament: 20 French 12 pounders and 2 French 36 pound Carronades
Broadside Weight of 168 pounds

Le Republicaine 24 Gun French Corvette

Here is the finished Navwar corvette Le Republicaine. I couldn't find much information on this ship other than that she is listed with the attached frigates and support ships in the Order of Battle for the actions around the Glorious 1st of June battle spanning from May 28 to June 1, 1794. ThreeDecks.org  supplied the following information for this corvette:

Armament: Upper gun deck 24 French 8 pounder long guns, Quarterdeck & Forcastle 8 French 36 pound carronades with a broadside weight of 259 pounds.

Navwar 22-gun Mars Corvettes

A few years back I received a package of Navwar ships from my friend Gunner in Arizona (see Post http://volsminiatures.blogspot.com/2013/02/navwars-11200-dutch-64-gun-revolutie.html)

I really enjoy building Navwar ships, not because they are great detailed molds, but because they are not. I enjoy trying to fix them up so they can take the table with the Langtons and GHQs and Davcos. Among the package Gunner sent me were three Mars 22 gun corvettes. I didn't have any corvettes built so I decided to work on these. Unfortunately I did not take any photos of them right out of the package. Like most of the Navwar models the first thing I do is throw all of the sail/mast sets in the scrap lead pile for melting down. In this case I kept the bow sprit and sprit sails as they appeared to be fairly sturdy. I raised the hulls using my normal method (see http://volsminiatures.blogspot.com/2015/01/my-method-for-raising-navwar-hulls.html) and scratchbuilt the masts (see http://volsminiatures.blogspot.com/2013/04/scratch-building-11200-ship-masts.html) and the sails.

The next few posts will be the individual finished corvettes.

Long Over Due Post

I have not posted since Christmas. I have had some medical issues that have kept me away from the shipyard. I just can't sit at the desk for long without a lot of pain. My good friend Rory is also struggling with medical issues so between us we have not been producing much for the last few months.

Rory has expressed a desire to develop a tutorial on building and rigging 1/2400 Napoleonic ships and asked if I would post it on this blog like his other tutorials on the 1/1200 ships. I look forward to it with anticipation. His 1/1200 tutorials are the popular posts on my blog site.

So with all of that said, I have not been totally unproductive. But I haven't been posting any of it. So following this post will be a few catch-up posts about the little bit I have been working on.

Cheers to all!