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44-473: The archaeological evidence, including the small number of guns, the position of the galley, wooden sheathing , ornate carvings and that only one row of knees is present on the wreck, suggest that the vessel was a high-status merchantman bound for the tropics. Dendrochronology dates the ship's timbers to 1628 from the Dutch/German Border. Approximately 40% of the port side of the wreck remains from above

88-582: A low, one-deck-high forecastle. Sailors stationed on the forecastle, or "forecastle men", were responsible for handling the headsails and the anchors. In the Royal Navy of the 17th and 18th centuries, these roles were reserved for older seamen who lacked the agility to go aloft or take other more strenuous duties aboard. By the end of the 19th century, a raised forecastle had become a typical feature on warships again, in an attempt to keep forward gun positions from getting unacceptably wet on heavy seas. In addition

132-550: A model of HMS  Bellona showing a coppered bottom to illustrate the method. The King backed him for what was an expensive process for an untested technology. Each ship on average required 15 tonnes of copper applied on average as 300 plates. All the copper was supplied by British mines (the only country in the world at that time that could do so), the largest mine being Parys Mountain in Anglesey , north Wales. The Parys mine had recently begun large-scale production and had glutted

176-507: A student-training project. The purpose of the 2006 season was to set up a long-term "strategy for the future management of the SCW ;... [for the] ... 2006–2011" season. The archaeological investigation discovered that the protective hessian sandbags placed in 2005 had degraded exposing the wreck. The site was larger than thought; covering a 50 m by 40 m area with structural remains over 40 m by 20 m. More work than

220-461: A thin outer layer of wooden planking. The use of copper sheathing was first suggested by Charles Perry in 1708, though it was rejected by the Navy Board on grounds of high cost and perceived maintenance difficulties. The first experiments with copper sheathing were made in the late 1750s: the bottoms and sides of several ships' keels and false keels were sheathed with copper plates. In 1761,

264-472: Is obliquely referred to in other official correspondence held by the National Maritime Museum; it may have contained or been coincidental with a critical new technical breakthrough of protecting the iron bolting by applying thick paper between the copper plates and the hull. This had recently been trialled successfully (probably) on HMS  Jupiter . This breakthrough was to be what would win over

308-406: Is used similarly, though with the nuance of "secured, unambiguous", rather than "trustworthy, reliable". Forecastle The forecastle ( / ˈ f oʊ k s əl / FOHK -səl ; contracted as fo'c'sle or fo'c's'le ) is the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast , or, historically, the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to

352-411: The aftcastle , was at the aft end of the ship, often stretching all the way from the main mast to the stern . Having such tall upper works on the ship was detrimental to sailing performance. As cannons were introduced and gunfire replaced boarding as the primary means of naval combat during the 16th century, the medieval forecastle was no longer needed, and later ships such as the galleon had only

396-442: The iron bolts of the ships. Even older than the sheathing methods were the various graving and paying techniques. There were three main substances used: white stuff, which was a mixture of whale oil , rosin and brimstone ; black stuff, a mixture of tar and pitch ; and brown stuff, which was simply brimstone added to black stuff. It was common practice to coat the hull with the selected substance, then cover that with

440-505: The war with America took the focus off the bolting issue necessary to allow a full-scale coppering programme. By the 1780s the technology had spread to India. The ruler of Mysore , Tipu Sultan , ordered that all his navy vessels receive copper sheathing after observing the benefits in French and East India Company ships. With the American war in full swing, the Royal Navy set about coppering

484-563: The Admiralty. Fisher's letter was seen by the new Navy Board Controller Charles Middleton , who had the major problem at the time with supplying over 100 ships for the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), which was compounded that same year (1778) by French opportunism in declaring war on Britain to support the American rebels. This effectively turned what was a local civil war into a global conflict. Spain followed in 1779 and

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528-536: The American colonies, however; meanwhile the French were threatening the lucrative sugar trade in the Caribbean, reckoned at the time as being of more importance to British interests than the 13 colonies . The sugar trade was paying for the costs of the American Revolutionary War and the Anglo-French War (1778–1783) . The Royal Navy's newly coppered ships, as yet untested, were used successfully by Rodney in defeating

572-591: The British market with cheap copper; however, the 14 tons of metal required to copper a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line still cost £ 1,500, compared to £262 for wood. The benefits of increased speed and time at sea were deemed to justify the costs involved. Middleton, in May 1779, placed orders at the Portsmouth Docks for coppering all ships up to and including 32 guns when next they entered dry dock. In July, this order

616-578: The French at the Battle of the Saintes off Dominica in 1782. By the time the war ended in 1783, problems with the hull bolting were once more becoming apparent. Finally, a suitable alloy for the hull bolts was found, that of copper and zinc. At great cost the Admiralty decided in 1786 to go ahead with the re-bolting of every ship in the navy, thus finally eliminating the bolt corrosion problem. This process lasted several years, after which no significant changes to

660-447: The Navy but there was no time to add to the fleet, and limited resources available. It could take five years and 2000 trees to build a warship. However he could refurbish the existing fleet, he grasped Fisher's solution and on 21 January 1779 wrote to the Admiralty. He also petitioned King George III directly on this "matter of the gravest importance" for the necessary funding. He took with him

704-486: The Netherlands in 1780, and so Britain had to face its three greatest rivals. Middleton took the view that Britain was "outnumbered at every station", and the Navy was required to "extricate us from present danger". He understood that coppering allowed the navy to stay at sea for much longer without the need for cleaning and repairs to the underwater hull, making it a very attractive, if expensive, proposition. He had to expand

748-541: The Royal Navy, some shipping owners employed the method on their merchant vessels. A single coppered vessel was recorded on the register of Lloyd's of London in 1777, a slaver sloop Hawke , 140 tons. This particular vessel impressed the Admiralty when it was inspected by Sandwich in 1775 at Sheerness after a 5-year voyage to India. By 1786, 275 vessels (around 3% of the merchant fleet) were coppered. By 1816, this had risen to 18% of British merchant ships. Copper sheets were exported to India for use on ships built there. In

792-500: The bottoms of the entire fleet in 1778. This would not have happened but for war. This also came about because in 1778 a Mr. Fisher, a Liverpool shipbuilder (who did a brisk trade with West Africa) sent a letter to the Navy Board. In it he recommended "copper sheathing" as a solution to the problems of ship worm in warm tropical waters, and the effect on speed of tendrils of seaweed latching onto hulls. The letter itself does not survive and

836-401: The copper plates were applied, the hull was covered with "soft stuff", which was simply hair, yarn and brown paper. The copper performed very well, both in protecting the hull from worm invasion and in preventing weed growth for, when in contact with water, the copper produced a poisonous film, composed mainly of copper oxychloride , that deterred these marine organisms. Furthermore, as this film

880-401: The coppering system were required and metal plating remained a standard method of protecting a ship's underwater hull until the advent of modern anti-fouling paint . In the 19th century, pure copper was partially superseded by Muntz metal , an alloy of 60% copper, 40% zinc and a trace of iron. Muntz metal had the advantage of being somewhat cheaper than copper. With its widespread adoption by

924-470: The experiment was expanded, and the 32-gun frigate HMS  Alarm was ordered to have her entire bottom coppered, in response to the terrible condition in which she had returned from service in the West Indies . HMS Alarm was chosen because, in 1761, a letter had been sent regarding the ship's condition, saying that the worms from the waters had taken a significant toll on the ship’s wooden hull. Before

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968-419: The forecastle may provide additional crew's quarters as in the past, and may contain essential machinery such as the anchor windlass . A disadvantage of such a design is the structural weakness at the forecastle 'break' (the rear end of the forecastle with the main deck behind and below) relative to a flush deck structure. Some sailing ships and many modern non-sail ships have no forecastle as such at all, but

1012-462: The keel line to the stern and bow castles . The site was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973 ; it was designated on 10 December 2004, when heritage minister Andrew McIntosh said: "This is an important wreck ... it is likely to be well preserved and rare in terms of its quality and the quantity of the surviving structure ... This order is particularly timely as the location of

1056-451: The late 18th and early 19th century, around 30% of Indian ships were coppered. Merchant ship owners were attracted by the savings made possible by copper sheathing, despite the initial outlay. As the coppering was expensive, only the better owners tended to invest in the method, and as a result the use of copper sheathing tended to indicate a well-found and maintained ship, which led to Lloyd's of London charging lower insurance premiums, as

1100-449: The latter meaning is the phrase " before the mast " which denotes anything related to ordinary sailors, as opposed to a ship's officers. In medieval shipbuilding, a ship of war was usually equipped with a tall, multi-deck castle -like structure in the bow of the ship. It served as a platform for archers to shoot down on enemy ships, or as a defensive stronghold if the ship were boarded. A similar but usually much larger structure, called

1144-415: The metal, the copper sheets that were connected to cast iron or zinc parts were free of any attached life forms or discoloration. Unprotected copper would quickly go from a reddish color to a greenish color of corrosion. When the other metals were mixed with copper in ratios from 1:40 to 1:150, there was no visible sign of corrosion and minimal weight loss. When the ratio was changed to 1:200 and 1:400, there

1188-411: The rudder. These carvings are being conserved by York Archaeological Trust with funding from BU and MAST . Historic England . "Details from listed building database (1000082)" . National Heritage List for England . Copper sheathing Copper sheathing is a method for protecting the hull of a wooden vessel from attack by shipworm , barnacles and other marine growth through

1232-414: The ship's forecastle, complete with galley and gunports, which is extremely rare as ships’ upper works are usually destroyed during the wrecking. Importantly the structure showed signs of being recently exposed, and after a short time it was seen to be degrading. Bournemouth University was approached by English Heritage in 2006 to investigate the possibility of undertaking a monitoring project as part of

1276-543: The ship, be it structurally, in the case of the worm, or affecting speed and handling in the case of the weeds. The most common methods of dealing with these problems were through the use of wood, and sometimes lead , sheathing. Expendable wood sheathing effectively provided a non-structural skin to the hull for the worm to attack, and could be easily replaced in dry dock at regular intervals. However, weed grew rapidly and slowed ships. Lead sheathing, while more effective than wood in mitigating these problems, reacted badly with

1320-424: The shore and then measured how much the sea water had degraded each one. Sheets of different metals remained in the seawater for four months and then were examined. Two harbour ships were also used in this test, one with an additional zinc band, the other with an iron one. Davy observed, that while the zinc and iron themselves became covered in carbonate that allowed weeds, plant life and insects to attach themselves to

1364-605: The site by a BU led team of marine archaeologists undertook the largest underwater excavation in the UK since the Mary Rose . The site was divided into 6m grids where two teams began excavating the sediment and recovering the small finds, once a grid was excavated the areas were photographed to create a photomosaic of the site. A third team worked on the recording and dismantling of the Bow Castle ready for raising and preserving. The Bow Castle

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1408-604: The use of copper plates affixed to the surface of the hull, below the waterline . It was pioneered and developed by the Royal Navy during the 18th century. In antiquity, ancient Chinese used copper plates while ancient Greeks used lead plates to protect the underwater hull. Deterioration of the hull of a wooden ship was a significant problem during the Age of Sail . Ships' hulls were under continuous attack by shipworm, barnacles and other marine growth, all of which had some adverse effect on

1452-475: The vessels were better risks. From this stems the phrase "copper-bottomed" as an indication of quality. Coppering was more commonly used on merchant ships sailing in warm waters. Ships sailing in colder, northern waters often continued to use replaceable, wooden sheathing planks. Wood-boring organisms were less of a problem for these vessels and they were often routinely careened – an operation that could cause considerable damage to expensive coppering. Coppering

1496-596: The work including trials for establishing the most cost-effective method of in situ stabilisation , and creating photomosaics of the site showing the site a whole for the first time. BU continued to monitor the site noting that sediment was being lost lowering sand levels across the site, by up to 350 mm in some areas. The gradual exposure of new material has reached the point where extensive archaeological deposits that contain extremely vulnerable organic material are being exposed, rapidly degraded and eventually lost. In 2010 English Heritage agreed to fund an excavation of

1540-728: The wreck has been publicised and we need to protect it from potential damage by divers visiting the site." The wreck is a Protected Wreck managed by Historic England . The site was first located in March 1990 when the Dutch dredger Scaldis hit an obstruction whilst dredging close to Buoy No 3 in the Swash Channel. Substantial timbers and a single iron cannon were brought to the surface. The cannon ended up in Poole Museum store but maritime archaeology in Poole

1584-402: Was expanded to include ships of 44 guns and fewer, in total 51 ships within a year. It was then decided that the entire fleet should be coppered, due to the difficulties in maintaining a mixed fleet of coppered and non-coppered ships. By 1781, 82 ships of the line had been coppered, along with fourteen 50-gun ships, 115 frigates, and 182 unrated vessels. All this was too late to avert the loss of

1628-576: Was focused on the Studland Bay Wreck and no further investigation took place. In 2004 Wessex Archaeology on behalf of Poole Harbour Commissioners and Poole Borough Council conducted a geophysical survey, and the site was re-discovered as a sidescan sonar anomaly Wessex Archaeology undertook a designated site assessment for English Heritage in 2005, recording a zone of structure approximately 20 m in length and reporting that further remains were known to exist. The structure included parts of

1672-453: Was inspected in 1768 after the ship had twice circumnavigated the world; there was significant corrosion of the hull's iron components, which had to be replaced. In 1769 another attempt was made at coppering a ship's hull, this time on a new ship that had been constructed using bolts made from a copper alloy. The results were far more favourable this time, but still the problems with the bolting remained. The onset and intensification from 1773 of

1716-407: Was originally predicted was required, and with no further funding available, Bournemouth University negotiated sponsorship with a number of local organisations, including Jenkins Marine [1] , Poole Museum and Dorset Workboats [2] to cover this extra work. Since 2006 Bournemouth University continued to work on the wreck as a student training project allowing students to undertake the majority of

1760-475: Was raised in May 2011, and the 8-metre-long carved rudder was raised in 2013. In March 2017, the ship was named as the Fame . Over 1000 artifacts have been brought up as of 2010 these include various rigging blocks, barrels, pottery and personal items such as shoes, wooden bowls and tankards. The ship has also yielded 5 carvings of baroque style including two mermen, cherubim, and a classical style head carved on top of

1804-460: Was removed. After this experiment, and deterred by the unanticipated and not understood galvanic reaction between the copper and iron, lead sheathing was tried again, though it was found to be unsuitable to the task, as the plates tended to fall from the hull alarmingly quickly. By 1764, a second vessel, HMS  Dolphin , had been sheathed in copper, specifically to prepare her for a voyage of discovery in tropical waters. Dolphin ' s hull

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1848-424: Was significant corrosion and weight loss. Davy therefore advocated cast iron for protecting copper, since it was the cheapest to manufacture, and in his observations malleable iron and zinc seemed to wear down faster. The term copper-bottomed continues to be used to describe a venture, plan or investment that is safe and is certain to be successful. The related copper-fastened (and verb form copperfasten )

1892-464: Was slightly soluble, it gradually washed away, leaving no way in which marine life could attach itself to the ship. However, it was soon discovered by the Admiralty that the copper bolts used to hold the plates to the hull had reacted with the iron bolts used in the construction of the ship, rendering many bolts nearly useless. In 1766, because of the poor condition of the iron bolts, Alarm ' s copper

1936-612: Was widely used on slave ships . After the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act became British law in 1807, the slave trade became illegal so slavers valued fast ships that were more likely to evade patrolling Royal Navy vessels intent on capturing them. In the late 18th to early 19th century, Sir Humphry Davy performed many experiments to determine how to lessen the corrosion that the seawater caused on unprotected copper sheathing. To this end he had various thicknesses of copper submerged on

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