All at Sea, Battle of Camperdown - Project Build, Part Thirteen, The Small Ships (3) 'Let's Build a Lugger'.

As regular followers of the blog will know, I love an opportunity to scratch build and create something new and unique from the readily available, and when it comes to age of sail 1:700 ships you will have seen examples of 3rd rate 64-gunners to 20-gun ship-rigged sloops created here on JJ's from other models in the early days of the Warlord range, when those types weren't available.

To this day there are important gaps in the model ranges from not just Warlord but now supplemented by the 3D offerings from talented designers like Henry Turner and sometimes the models that are available don't quite match the vision of the vessels pictured in the mind and the images and thus in such circumstances I fall back on skills developed in the days when we wargamers weren't as blessed with the choice and availability that we have today and am want to dig out the reference books, modelling tools and materials and create what I need.

Good reference sources are important for any kind of model making,
especially when working with age of sail ships.

One of the models required to complete my Camperdown collection is His Majesty's Hired Armed Lugger Speculator of 8-guns, possibly 12-guns, that was one of the vessels that comprised the light division of ships in the British fleet.

So what is a lugger?

A typical French lugger of the 18th century

'A lugger is a sailing vessel defined by its rig, using the lug sail on all of its one or more masts. Luggers were widely used as working craft, particularly off the coasts of France, England, Ireland and Scotland.'

The key words in the above being 'lug sail', so what's that?

'The lug sail, or lugsail, is a fore-and-aft, four-cornered sail that is suspended from a spar, called a yard. When raised, the sail area overlaps the mast. For "standing lug" rigs, the sail may remain on the same side of the mast on both the port and starboard tacks. For "dipping lug" rigs, the sail is lowered partially or totally to be brought around to the leeward side of the mast in order to optimize the efficiency of the sail on both tacks.

The French privateer lugger, Coureur, launched in 1776, captured on the 17th June 1778 by the British cutter Alert.

The lug sail is evolved from the square sail to improve how close the vessel can sail into the wind. Square sails, on the other hand, are symmetrically mounted in front of the mast and are manually angled to catch the wind on opposite tacks. Since it is difficult to orient square sails fore and aft or to tension their leading edges (luffs), they are not as efficient upwind, compared with lug sails. The lug rig differs from the gaff rig, also fore-and-aft, whose sail is instead attached at the luff to the mast and is suspended from a spar (gaff), which is attached to, and raised at an angle from, the mast.'

A contemporary 1:24 scale full hull model of a French 8-gun lugger (circa 1800), National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.
At this scale the model represents a vessel measuring 76 feet overall by 20 feet in the beam and an approximate tonnage of 110 burden. This model closely represents the type of three-masted lugger used by French privateers during the Napoleonic Wars. The clinker-built hull has fine lines, and, with the tall masts, proved to be very fast and able to sail close to the wind.

So that's clear then, but I don't know about you, but I am very much a visual kind of being and if I can see it then I know what it is, hence the picture above illustrating a typical, in this example French lugger, often referred to as a Chasse Marie, in civilian life used for fishing and smuggling and during wartime as fast privateers, the equivalent of the schooner in American and Caribbean waters, able to sail close to the wind and with a shallow draught to be able to sail close to shore or in the shallows where grounding would be a constant threat.

The Jersey privateer armed lugger Pitt flying the distress signal with her colours upside down. Pitt was captured by the French frigate L'Amazone in 1781.

These vessels were a common site in British waters and I knew at some time I would need to create a lugger for Camperdown and indeed for my scenarios featuring French privateers, and so this project provided the impetus to proceed with a set of ideas long in the gestation.

One of my trusted reference sources at times such as these is my Conway 'The Line of Battle - The Sailing Warship 1650-1840' from which this illustration comes and that informed the look of my models.

I couldn't find a definite representation of HMAL Speculator and so I turned to reference books and other period illustrations of similar vessels to come up with my own interpretation; this led to a plan formed around using the hull of the Warlord schooner and to add my own masts and sprits using plastic rod and plasticard married with a set of card sails based on the sail plan above.

The schooner in the background served as a reference for the height of my new masts and length required on the new bow sprit.

I find I can often get away with plastic rod because of the rigidity to the model given by the standing and running rigging and the plastic card drilled with the pin-vice makes setting up the upper and lower masts relatively simple, plus the tips of the plastic rod are easily filed down to a tapering point as required.

The mast set at the required angle of rake, and the bow and aft sprits fixed off the centre line as they would be on a lugger, and the sail sets seen alongside, topped with their yards of lighter plastic rod.

Once the mast were constructed the sail plan was used to fix them to the hull at the required angle of rake, before turning my attention to a set of sails cut from light card and shaped accordingly, topped by a lighter piece of plastic rod to act as a yard, with the sail providing the rigidity to the rod before affixing them to the masts.

Final check to make sure everything fits according to the plan. So far, so good!

Once the scratch build was completed I lined up the model complete with its new set of masts against its new set of sails to see how the final look would be against the plan, with the object of not producing an historically accurate model of a three masted lugger, but one that would be good enough to fool the eye once painted, rigged, and on the table.

Two luggers ready for the rigging yard, one to represent HMAL Speculator and the other a sleek raiding French privateer

My method of painting my models and rigging them normally sees my painting the hull and masts separately before bringing them together and then rigging them, however in this case I opted to have the masts set up on the hull and painting them complete, still with adequate access to the deck to paint bulwarks and guns, before fixing the yards and sails at the required angle before painting them to complete the job before rigging.

No longer schooners and I think we might have a couple of luggers!

The two photos above show the finished paint jobs on the hull and masts and with both sets of sails fixed with just the jib sails to be fixed in the rigging yard.

An engraving by Robert Havell (1769-1832) of a painting by Joseph Cartwright (1789-1829). The lugger is shown on the starboard tack making ground to windward with all sail set and her reefs out. In the background is an East Indiaman, preparing to weigh.
I love this illustration, showing as it does how the lugger rig was designed to be swung around the mast according to the preferred tack and that this is a picture by Joseph Cartwright who was born in Dawlish in Devon, just across from my home town of Exmouth at the mouth of the Exe estuary and who worked for the navy as an administrator.

So returning to the project in hand, below is the end product of all the cutting, sticking and painting that sees a reasonable take on a lugger or French Chasse Marie.

Introducing my interpretation of HM Armed Lugger Speculator 12-guns and the sea-wolf of its day a French privateer 'Chasse Marie'.

The addition to the Camperdown collection of Speculator sees the project just leaving the addition of the little ship-sloop Martin to complete the British fleet before turning back to the Batavian-Dutch and their four 16-gun brigs and the little 6-gun Aviso, Het Hassje to finish the project ready to do battle later in the year.

Not much seems to be known about HMAL Speculator, and I have only been able to gather the following, sometimes contradictory data, using the illustration of her from the eyewitness illustration below to inform the look of the model.

My sources include 'British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817' by Rif Winfield, good old Wikipedia, and Three Decks together with the Naval Database.

Speculator was one of five armed luggers hired in 1794, with her contract starting on the 8th of November, and possibly armed with 12 x 3-pdr guns, the others being Argus 8-guns, Duke of York 6-guns, Aristocrat 22-guns (seen below), and Daphne 22-guns. 

A British armed lugger in French waters, c 1815

Winfield gives her a tonnage of 92 54/94 bm, and other than that I find that she was commanded by Lieutenant H. Hales at Camperdown, having departed from Great Yarmouth on the 9th of October arriving there six days earlier to rewater and provision after patrolling the Texel.

 

HM Armed Lugger Aristocrat in action against a French flotilla consisting of nine sail.
The Aristocrat a privateer of twelve guns beat off The French Vessels near St. Malo, France, on the 15th of July 1795. The print shows The British lugger, having disabled the 18-gun ship Societ Populaire, standing on to engage The brigs Diligence and Ronell. Engraving by Hall after a drawing by Serres. Published in The Naval Chronicle, Vol 15, by J. Gold, London, 1806

The look of Speculator is based very much on the contemporary prints and modern pictures I have posted here that informed her paint job.

The hull of the Warlord schooner works very well when compared with the illustrations and required minimal adapting to facilitate the look I was after.

The British armed lugger Defender c 1810.

When modelling the set of the sails with a lugger, you have to decide which tack she is on, with my two vessels set up on the larboard tack, with a good wind indicated by the curvature of the sails and curl of the colours to capture the movement caught in the illustration of the Aristocrat and the British lugger in French waters.

As always some compromises have been made but overall I'm really pleased with the look achieved.

Whilst putting these Camperdown small ships together I'm also taking the opportunity to mix in some additions to my 'mosquito-fleets' by including other models to fill gaps as I work and so it would be remiss not to take a quick look at the French equivalent to Speculator, that would have kept the Royal Navy busy protecting incoming and outgoing merchant traffic.

Oil painting by Thomas Buttersworth, c1795-1825, titled British brig attacking a French lugger

My French privateer is designed with some scenarios planned from Mr William James Naval History of Great Britain and I though it might be interesting to illustrate this post with games I have in mind to feature my new addition.

The first action takes place at 07.00 forty-eight miles NE of Cromer on the Norfolk coast on the 25th February 1798, between the 12-gun Hired Armed Cutter, Marquis of Cobourg and the 16-gun lugger Revanche, out of Calais.

Marquis of Cobourg vs Revanche, 25^th February 1798, 07.00, 48 miles NE of Cromer.

To quote James:

'On the 25th of February, at 7 a.m., Cromer, bearing west-south-west, distant 16 leagues, the British hired armed cutter Marquis-Cobourg, of twelve 4-pounders and 66 men and boys, Lieutenant Charles Webb, after a nine hours' chase and a run of 100 miles during half the time before a hard gale of wind at west-north-west, came up with the French lugger-privateer Revanche, of 16 guns and 62 men; and to a smart fire from whose musketry and stern-chasers, the Cobourg had been exposed for the last two hours of the nine. 

The ship record card for the French privateer lugger Revanche using To Covet Glory, the under the rate rule addition to Kiss Me, Hardy from Chris Stoesen.

A spirited action now ensued, during which the lugger made two attempts to board the cutter but was repulsed. After a two hours' running fight, close alongside, a well-directed broadside from the Cobourg shot away the Revanche's main and mizen masts by the board, and also her fore yard; whereupon the privateer's men called for quarter.

No sooner was the Revanche taken possession of; than she was found to be sinking, the effects of more than 40 shots which the lugger had received between wind and water. The utmost promptitude was used in shifting the prisoners, and getting back the Cobourg's people, who had been placed in possession; nor was it without the utmost difficulty that the whole were saved from going to the bottom in the prize. The Cobourg had sustained considerable damage in her spars, sails, and rigging; but was fortunate enough to escape with only two men wounded. Her fire, on the other hand, had killed seven, and wounded eight men belonging to the lugger, described as the largest that sailed out of Calais.'

A Smuggling Lugger Chased by a Naval Brig - Thomas Butterworth, Royal Museums Greenwich

The second action takes place on the 26th December 1799 at 10.15, south of the Dodman, a point near Falmouth, Cornwall, between the 14-gun cutter Viper and the 14-gun lugger Furet.

Viper v Furet, 26th December 1799, 10.15, 20 miles South of Dodman

To quote James:

'On the 26th of December, at 10 h. 15 m. a.m., the Dodman bearing north distant seven or eight leagues, the British cutter Viper, of fourteen 4-pounders and 48 men and boys, Lieutenant John Pengelly, perceiving a suspicious-looking vessel to windward, tacked and stood after her. 

At 10 h. 45 m. a.m. the Viper brought the stranger to close action, which continued for three quarters of an hour, when the latter sheered off. The Viper immediately gave chase; and, after a running fight of an hour and a half, had the good fortune to lay her opponent on board. Two well-directed broadsides then compelled the French lugger-privateer Furet, of fourteen 4-pounders, and 57 out of a complement of 64 men (seven having been sent away in a prize on that morning), commanded by Citizen Louis Bouvet, to strike her colours.

Captain Pierre François Étienne Bouvet de Maisonneuve

The Viper had her mainmast rendered unserviceable by the privateer's shot, and her rigging and sails very much cut; but the cutter escaped with only her commander (slightly) and one seaman wounded. The Furet's rigging and sails were in as bad a condition as the Viper's, and her loss much greater; amounting to four seamen killed, her first and second captains, and six seamen wounded, four of them dangerously. 

This was a very spirited little affair and ranks with the Courier and Guerrier as to the near equality of the match. Moreover, it was, as will be recollected, the second occasion where the Viper cutter, under the same commander, had captured a French privateer of equal force, (Viper vs Piadosa Virgen Maria, 13^th March 1797, near Gibraltar)' .

These two actions are illustrative of some of the interesting single ship and small squadron actions that can be mined from James' History and allow for some of these more interesting vessels to be portrayed and provides the impetus for some of the models to be featured here on JJ's.

The next set of models, primed and ready on the stocks in JJ's dockyard

Next up the focus turns back to 3D prints, and I have some more offerings from Henry Turner and Only Games to look at to complete the Camperdown collection as well as plugging a few more gaps in the collection of small ships.

On the stocks in JJ's Shipyard, two 40-gun French frigates Coquille and Virginie, the American 38-gun frigate Constellation in readiness for some Quasi-War scenarios, the ship-sloop Swan that will be standing in for the 16-gun Martin in the Camperdown collection, the mighty HMS Glatton and her formidable array of carronades and finally the diminutive cutter Entreprenante, a much better representation of this famous little warship to be added to my Trafalgar collection. 

All the new models are from Henry Turner and Only Games and fitted out with Warlord masts or in the Entreprenante's case a combined Warlord and scratch built affair, and I look forward to showcasing them in the next All at Sea post - more anon.

JJ