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Local / Australia / Richie Dulin / rd / canoemyth

Warning: The below may well include a little more analysis than is really needed...

The Canoe Myth of .pirates

Background

I’ve just completed an enjoyable few hours building my 10021 USS Constellation. For a 1978 set, the original set contained quite a few relatively new pieces - 1x6, 1x4 and 1x3 plates for instance. I mounted the window replacement headlight bricks backward, which seems to give a better effect than the ‘correct’ way - and truer to the look of the original 1x1x1 windows. I’m a big fan of headlight bricks, so the replacement doesn’t concern me particularly.

The Constellation is a great model. The gun deck guns enjoy the same spacing as the guns on my minifig scale ships (two studs), although my ships use minifig scale cannons. Clearly a four stud spacing would truer to scale, as well as being more ergonomic for the crews.

So I thought about scaling the Constellation up. I knew - or at least I thought I knew - I couldn’t go longer with standard wide hull sections than the Misérable (6 sections) without getting the dread canoe effect, so a scaled up Constellation hull would give me the size, but without the hassle of building a compound curved SNOT hull. Easy.

But then I took some measurements...

The Accepted Canoe Warning .pirates.

The casual reader of .pirates has probably seen warnings about canoe building:

From Bruce Schlickbernd on the Armada Flagship: “You can add another center section, but beyond that it starts to look like a canoe.”
From Richard Parsons on big hulls: “At 16 studs, going beyond 4 midsections makes the ship seem too narrow (more like a canoe than a ship).”
From Matt Morgan on the benefits of cutting hull parts (which was strangely never backed up with pics...): “I have made a few ships with 6 mid-sections they always looked like a canoe”
From Steve Bliss on the building of a two decker: “It looks too much like a big canoe currently.”
And from me in .loc.au about extending the Armada Flagship: “Beware building a canoe!”

And I’ve had several conversations as well as email correspondence with ship builders about the canoeishness of long ships. When ships go beyond four hull centre sections, they look like canoes. Accepted wisdom. My Misérable is six centre sections and avoids the canoeish appearance because it extends beyond the standard width with double rows of inverse 45° slopes on both sides. Accepted wisdom, too. Of course I’d never checked the dimensions of a real frigate...

Getting the measure on the problem

As I was contemplating building a scaled up Constellation hull, doubling all dimensions length would bring the hull to 100 studs, and the beam to 20 studs. Sounds pretty good.

But then I glanced up at the Misérable sitting jealously with it’s topmasts lowered on top of a nearby bookcase. A quick count confirmed my recollection that the Mis hull was 77 studs long... So the scaled up Constellation would be bigger.

All well so far. But the beam of the Misérable (theoretically running dangerously close to the canoelike) is 20 studs: the same as a double sized Constellation.

Surely, the USS Constellation is not canoelike? Well...

Vessel	Length	Beam	Length:Beam

LEGO USS Constellation (Excl bow dec)	56 studs 50 studs	10 studs	5.6:1 5:1

Real USS Constellation	164 feet	41 feet	4:1

Real USS Constitution	175 feet	43.5 feet	4.02:1

HMBrig Supply	78 feet	22 feet	3.5:1

HMS Sirius	110 feet	32 feet	3.4:1

HMS Victory	226’6”	52’6”	4.3: 1

HMS Indefatiguable	160 feet	44 feet	3.6:1

LEGO Black Seas Barracuda (excl bow dec)	65 studs 56 studs	16 studs	4.06:1 3.5:1

Misérable (excl bow dec)	85 studs 77 studs	20 studs	4.25:1 3.85:1

HMLS Intractable (excl bow dec)	55 studs 50 studs	16 studs	3.43:1 3.13:1

I’ve given alternate numbers which exclude bow decoration (that part of the stem which extends beyond the hull proper). The BSB has a lot of aft overhang to, but I didn’t exclude that... perhaps I should have.

I tried to track down some measurements for the HMS Agamemnon too, but without success.

So the LEGO Constellation is the most canoelike of the above vessels - real or LEGO, and yet it doesn’t look canoelike to me.... nor have I heard it described as canoelike.

Conclusion

Looking at the ratio’s above, if you accept the LEGO Constellation is not too canoelike, and use a 5:1 length to beam ratio, you could safely go to 6 (and maybe even 7) sections using standard wide hull pieces.

Hull Type	Centres at 3.5:1	Centres at 4.0:1	Centres at 4.25:1	Centres at 4.5:1	Centres at 5.0:1

Narrow	2	2.8	3.1	3.5	4.3

Narrow w/row of inv slopes	2.9	3.8	4.2	4.6	5.5

Wide	3.8	4.8	5.3	5.8	6.8

Wide w/row of inv slopes	4.6	5.8	6.3	6.9	8

Wide w/2 rows of inv slopes	5.5	6.8	7.4	8	9.3

Note that these numbers make no allowance for overhangs fore or aft. Nevertheless, these are scary numbers compared to what is normally used.

Maybe the canoe myth arose when ship builders where laying out the hull sections, and constructing the middle layers of the hull. Maybe it arose because traditional LEGO Black Seas Barracuda designs were used (with no deck) and the ‘see through to the keel’ effect reminded people of canoes. I know I got nervous when I laid out the six centres for the Misérable and saw how long it looked ... and seriously considered revising the design to five.

A dimension I haven’t explored here is the vertical, either the hull or the rigging. Looking at the Misérable now, it looks a bit too tall in the hull for it’s length, and maybe now I now the ratios, I’ll be brave and take the next Misérable out to eight centre sections. ;-)

I do remain convinced though that the biggest obstacle to ship building is the rigging. Masts aren’t too much of a problem, but keeping them stable is. The existing long ratlines aren’t tall enough for the Misérable, so they’re not going to be tall enough for anything bigger. I think the solution may be either joining ratlines or coming up with strong enough tops which can be used on mast pieces in lieu of the 6x6 with clips top plate.

I think the key to building bigger vessels is to experiment a bit instead of following the accepted wisdom. A bare six section hull may look a bit canoelike, but once the hull is properly completed (and a deck added!) it’s likely to look properly ship shape!

So, let’s see some bigger ships!

Adieu

Richie Dulin

Port Brique
Somewhere in the South Pacifique

Misérable
Building a safer South Pacifique

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