A sculptor in the UK spent 17 years and 5,000 hours carving out a replica of HMS Victory – Lord Nelson’s flagship at Trafalgar – out of a block of lower deck wood from the original ship.
Beauty bordering on madness.
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ObsessionBy lex, on October 17th, 2010
43 comments to Obsession |
Targets of Opportunityblog advertising is good for you Credo"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones "Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra" "And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche "A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier "Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas "Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex Amazon AssociateFor the Effort!Winnar! Subscribe CategoriesPagesTagsacademy
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WOAH!!! That article is amazing and the replica is gorgeous. One of my big disappointments when I went to the UK was missing out on seeing the Victory. Nelson is a hugely fascinating character to me.
That looks incredible!
Lemmee pick a nit. The article sez …and flags spelling out Nelson’s stirring signal: ‘England expects every man to do his duty.’
I don’t see how that is even remotely possible, given that’s 33 separate signaling flags. Or am I all wet? The pics of the model didn’t seem to show signaling flags, either.
Belay my last. Further googling reveals the actual Popham code used at Trafalgar. It was 20-something flags, which is still a lot.
Signal Flags are just barely visible on the right side of the picture – The dude does carving for the ROYALS….that speak volumes on the type of work he does….
From the article –
‘I only had one chance at this – there will never be another piece of timber from Victory that I could use.’
Mr Brennan, who hopes to ultimately sell the replica only became a full-time sculptor at 34. Within five years he was working for the Royal Household.
He sculpts in wood and bronze and makes a living by doing commissions
I guess as long as you are good at what you do….
The wood grain on the sails is beautiful!
Incredible. Obsession. Beautiful.
One question: what was his wife doing?
Perhaps best not to ask……
Obviously she was stropping his tool. He did go through four sets.
Snort!
Heh!
Buck, in 1799, the RN codified the most common words used in signalling into a numbered sequence, using the alphabetic code flags representing numbers. By using different letter flags, you could have 3000 words available in 3 flag hoists, as was the case with Admiral Popham’s 1803 revision of the Signals Book.
In 1805, a Signals Book was captured by the French, causing another revision, relesed in 1808. This is believed to be the one used at Trafalger.
During the approach to the French/Spanish fleet, Nelson announced, ” I shall now amuse the Fleet with a signal”. He wanted to send, Nelson confides that every man will do his duty, but as niether Nelson, nor confide were in the Signals Book, and would have to be spelled out with individual flags, but England and expects were in the book, the signal was changed to the famous one. Oddly enough, duty had to be spelled out, you would have thought that would have been in there. The Famous Signal: ( You will have to enlarge to 400%)
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/g/gb%5Eeetem.gif
Of course, the signal was repeated, using the black and white steam radio TBS sets of the day.
YOU, a Steam-punk, Scott!! Why am I not surprised? I suppose your keyboard is the old Underwood portable-style white lettering on black, silver-rimmed flat circular keys model, eh? “)
I can’t even make a smiley correctly anymore!
The old Underwood keyboards are the only reliable ones in burrows. There is a website called Instructables
http://www.instructables.com/ that has a lot of steampunk stuff, some of which I am determined to make me one of, like this pedal couch http://www.instructables.com/id/The-SteamRoller/ , or the steampunk Segway http://www.instructables.com/id/Steampunk-Segway-Legway-/ . A fascinating site.
It has also occurred to me that SteamPunk-wise the Badger must also be a devotee of “Warehouse 13″ on the Sy-Fy Channel, n’cest-ce pas?
Here’s an excellent steampunk keyboard built from an IBM Model M. Instructables seems to have the same article, but they require registration to read the whole thing.
Oddly enough, virgil’s description fits this keyboard fairly well, except the modder used keys from a Royal typewriter…
There’s a graphic of the signal and the explanation of the “confides vs. duty” thing at that Wiki link I posted. But thanks for additional info, Scott. MOST appreciated!
Dang. I meant “expects vs. confides.” My bad.
“I mean, obviously it wasn’t “Love Potion #9″–he finished it, didn’t he? And couldn’t have been yea old Brompton Cocktail, either–he’s still alive. Hmmm……
Obsession, perhaps…..but VERY cool.
Peter Gunn … What was his wife doing? For 5,000 hours? Not just sitting in the living room looking at her watch, I’ll bet. Probably what non-golfing wives do when their husbands spend 5,000 hours on the links. Err… something else fascinating.
Marianne
The wood-carved HMS Victory is craftsmanship carried into high art. This is Ian Brennan’s skills talking to future generations. Beautiful.
Downwind or very very broad reach with a pennant going one direction and flags going the opposite direction. I’ve had that problem with the damned jibs, spinnakers and mains but that is just ridiculous.
The pennant has to go.
I would like to know more of the sculpting technique. The article mentions “200 feet of ‘rope’..” but it looks like the rigging could be carved from wood also. I am wondering how much was carved directly from the wood block and how much was cut off, sculpted, then reattached. Were the sails carved individually, or was a whole yard of sails carved in one piece, or an entire mast? And how did he carve the ratlines? Fascinating stuff…
George V.
I believe that our host coined the correct term for this a few days ago:
obsessive/compulsive tenacity.
A work of Genius, mad genius, but genius none the less.
Mad as a hatter, a glorious piece.
Speaking of tools, I don’t know how Mr. Brennan did it, but my dad used to carve sailing ships. For the sails he would score a piece of window-pane glass with a diamond wheel along a curve, break the pieces apart, and use the curved glass edge as a scraper that would impart both smoothness and uniformity of curve. He would do the concave side first, then the convex side. As he got close to the final thickness, he would hold the wood up to the light to check uniformity of thickness by light transmittance.
Magnificent!
I wish we had similar admiration and dedication to preserving our few historic ships. USS Constitution and Constellation seem to be doing okay, but USS Olympia is about to be sunk as a reef. It’s only history, and no one cares about that olde stuff anymore, and it is seldom even taught in schools these days.
Years ago, at either the Hart Gallery on the MIT campus. I viewed an exhibit of Napoleonic era ships carved from beef and soup bones carved by the prisoners of the various combatants. (I do mean years ago. I visited the Hart this summer and the current curator of twenty-five years has no recollection of the exhibit. I recall the accompanying plaque stating that the well finished and intricately detailed models) were fashioned by prisoners of war while they were interred on ship hulks or at the Royal Naval prison at Dartmoor.
Has anyone seen a similar collection, other than the few at the Peabody Museum in Salem or the Mariners Museum in Newport News? Imagine having so much time to carve detailed models from bone. I’m sure the curve of the leg skeleton helped with the curve of the sail, but the detail and perfection of appearance took my jaw to the floor. Oh for time to pass slowly enough for such a project as carving from the actual wood. Maybe, not five thousand hours worth though.
The New York Yacht Club has an excellent example of a full ship model carved from sheep bone by British POWs in Napoleon’s prisons. Apparently, urine was used to help bleach the bones – it looks like ivory. Beautiful piece of work, with some really neat history – and apparently fairly unique, as it is significantly larger and more detailed than most other examples. They’ve got a ton of really neat models in the 44th St. Clubhouse if any of y’all get the chance to take a look.
ENS B
Mark:
I think USNI or USNA has a collection, maybe same one.
Somebody stuck fiber optics thru the gunports and the ladders and gundecks are as carefully modeled (down to the red paint to hide the blood) as the spar deck.
Sorry to devolve the topic, but that’s a *whole* lot of sail on what doesn’t appear to be a very sleek hull. I’m estimating that about 1/3rd of the ship was below the waterline. Was the ship kept from keeling over (heh!) by weight distribution, the cannonballs and such heavy stuff stored on the bottom, or was there a centerboard like on a sailboat to allow her to operate with less drift and heeling?
As for the sculpture, I think the bar has been raised to an insurmountable level. I’m also fairly certain that you or I are never going to see this without 3′ of glass between us and it.
There is an old sea story floating around about some poor ensign getting his interview with Rickover (1). Rickover, being his usual unpredictable self, starts with questions about the family, how’s the chow, and other small talk, then suddenly declares, “You have exactly five seconds to piss me off.” The ensign slips his mental clutch for a few seconds and then spots the model of the USS Enterprise CVN-65 on the Admiral’s desk. He leaps to his feet and smashes the plastic model with one swift blow. Thus, as the story goes, securing himself a place in Rickover’s nuclear program with the words, “Very well. Now fix it. Dismissed.”
– Max
(1) Rickover stories abound, and he’s been been dead since about the time Lex started at the Boat School. I submit that experiences with him among the assembled masses would make for a very entertaining read over at The Flight Deck, or perhaps Our Gracious Host has a story to tell that might pave the way.
Rickover? No personal recollections, not as a poly sci major. Did hear some tales. Kid gets locked in the closet for four hours, is one. Another asked if he had a fiancee, then ordered to call her up and break it off.
Was a nuke draft for the class of 1980 as I recall. Buncha kids got called up if they were in technical majors with a GPA of 3.0 or better, not all of whom wanted to be there. Heard that one kid – Bianchi, I think it was, and a lacrosse player – was asked what “Bianchi” meant in Italian.
“Aviator,” he told the admiral. Or so the story went.
The way I heard your story it was a model submarine, Max.
Reagan retired Rickover in 1982. He had been almost routinely allowed to remain on active duty until Regan put him out to pasture. He only lasted another 4 years after that. So he went about the time Lex left Canoe U.
One of the Chiefs at my ‘A’ School was a nuke Submariner. he called Rickover, “Uncle Hymie.” It wasn’t affectionate either.
As a child I remember reading an article that claimed that the good Admiral had the front legs of the interview chair across from his desk cut shorter than the rear legs so as to make the interviewee constantly uncomfortable as he would always be in danger of sliding off the slick wooden seat of the straight-backed chair.
Yup, that guy is what Uncle Al Schwartz would call Profoundly and Severely Gifted.
My favorite Rickover quote: “Anti-Semitism is the LEAST of the reasons why so many people dislike me.”
I posted the article in several other places. One of the responses was this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYYFNff5e20&feature=player_embedded
That might be even more impressive. Lots of moving parts.
WOW!
Max Damage:
The Heavy Stuff in the bottom is called “ballast”. Some was rock. Then the powder, shot, barrels of (sort of) preserved beef, flour, drinking water, paymaster’s coin bags and what have you were stored in the hold, at the bottom of the ship. Over time it evolved into quite a science, generally referred to as stability and bouyancy calculation (no “ology” I ever heard of, sailors use it, you see). Look up “Plimsoll”.
Once the idea of double bottoms came in, ballast tanks became all the rage, since sea water is easier to pump from tank to tank, or tank to sea, to adjust ballast for stores (and fuel) consumed than lugging rock. Rock is hard to come by in the middle of the ocean, so salt water kept in tanks built into the structure of the ship has that as an advantage, too.
Part of that stuff called “naval science” and part of the reason Midshipmen study Physics.
No center board.
Max Damage,
My guess (per my demonstrated ability to capsize small sailboats
) is that all of that sail was only put up while going downwind in a light breeze. The crew would “trim sail” as required based on weather and course sailed.
Both models are amazing and inspiring.
Stan
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