New here. Sharing my current project.

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by UVSaturated, Mar 6, 2026.

  1. UVSaturated
    Joined: Mar 2026
    Posts: 1
    Likes: 0, Points: 1
    Location: Troy, OH

    UVSaturated New Member

    I am designing or rather, reverse engineering the pirate ship from the Pirates of the Carribean movie franchise. I originally was going to draw all the shop drawings by hand (although still using illustration software), but after about 3 months of effort I started to realize than some of my dimensioning was incorrect on some drawings due to transcribing the numerals incorrectly and this resulted in cumulative errors across all the drawings I had began, which at that time was every piece of the keel, the rudder, transom, and bow. Taking a step back I realized I should just revert to using 2D CAD to do the drawings and work on the whole ship as it relates to each part, which accelerated the design process. Fast forward to joining this forum I have completed almost 80% of the structural members of the watercraft. After this point I will then go into doing detail drawings of each structure and its subordinate pieces. This endeavor has now consumed about 2-1/2 years of my free time. With that, I will share some of the illustrations, and some screenshots of the CAD work I am doing and explain anything you wish to know about some of my ideas about modernizing this late 1700's pirate ship.
     

    Attached Files:

  2. jehardiman
    Joined: Aug 2004
    Posts: 4,144
    Likes: 1,510, Points: 113, Legacy Rep: 2040
    Location: Port Orchard, Washington, USA

    jehardiman Senior Member

    Welcome to the forums UVSaturated.

    The work you show is very admirable, however there are several things that jump out when compared to a study of original 17th century wooden ship.

    1) If the constructed "modernized" vessel is to be made out of wood in the classical method, then you are missing major structural components. These are the knees (lodging and hanging) as well as the stem and sternpost knees. Additionally the frame and space is way too light. The double sawn "frames" should be close to twice the width of the "space" between them. And I see no provision for whales to carry the rigging load into the hull proper.

    2) Speaking of rigging, you show no rig, but the lines forward appear too fine for the typical three-masted square rig of the period. Ships of the period were designed with the "cod's head, mackerel tail" to prevent the head from being forced under when running or scudding under bare poles.

    3) The floors of the midships section appear too flat. There is a need on the cable tier to keep the ballast cobbles in place as well as keep the bilge pump sump drawing. Having floors that are too flat hampers both of these. However, flat floors are typical of vessels from the Baltic/Scandinavia.

    4) In the stern and bow there should be cant frames, i.e. frames not perpendicular to the mid-line. These solve a lot of connection and shipfitting problems.

    As I said before this is a good start, but if you are going to make this vessel out of wood, it would be helpful to understand how they are constructed. (Don't fret, in my time I've had to teach a lot of engineers that ships (wood, steel, or composite) are not constructed like houses...you'll soon pick it up after seeing it.)

    Study these references
    Deane's Doctrine of Naval Architecture, (1670) (Amazon.com https://www.amazon.com/Deanes-Doctrine-Naval-Architecture-1670/dp/0851771807)
    Architectura Navalis Mercatoria by Chapman (1768) (Architectura navalis mercatoria : Chapman, Fredrik Henrik af : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/architecturanava0000fred/mode/2up)
    An Universal Dictionary of the Marine: or, ....by William Falconer (1780) (An universal dictionary of the marine: or, A copious explanation of the technical terms and phrases employed in the construction, equipment, furniture, machinery, movements, and military operations of a ship : Falconer, William, 1732-1769 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/universaldiction00falc/mode/2up)
    Wooden Ship-Building by Charles Desmond (1919) (Wooden ship-building : Desmond, Charles : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/woodenshipbuildi00desmrich/mode/2up)
    The Evolution of the Wooden Ship by Basil Greenhill (1988) (The evolution of the wooden ship : Greenhill, Basil : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/evolutionofwoode0000gree)
     
  3. Rumars
    Joined: Mar 2013
    Posts: 2,132
    Likes: 1,367, Points: 113, Legacy Rep: 39
    Location: Germany

    Rumars Senior Member

    I admire your dedication altough I can't understand the purpose. Back in the day the use of compas timber (natural bends) was prevalent, so the arrangement of the individual framing timber pieces was entirely dictated by what the shipwrights had access to. The available grown shapes dictated where the joints/scarfs were placed, the goal beeing to have as few as possible. Take your keel and keelson for example, it's pieced together from seven or eight individual pieces, some very short. I don't know where you got the idea for that, but it's wrong. Two-three scarfs it's all that would be required for a lenght of keel up to 150ft when using oak (less for tropical timber).

    For a modern interpretation in wood the entire backbone would be laminated, the exact sequence depending on builder preference.
    The other "modern" option would be traditional composite, and in this case the joints placement would be dictated by the size of the forge the shipyard has and its handling equipment. If welding is used all bets are off, nesting for the cnc cutter is probably as important as lifting equipment.
     
    bajansailor and jehardiman like this.
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