The Fact That
She Is Always Called A "Ship" - To Which Name, As Indicating A Class,
Three Masts Technically Attach - Is Also Somewhat Significant, Though The
Term Is Often Generically Used.
Mrs. Jane G. Austin calls the
MAY-FLOWER a "brig," but there does not appear anywhere any warrant
for so doing.
At the Smithsonian Institution (National Museum) at Washington, D. C.,
there is exhibited a model of the MAY-FLOWER, constructed from the ratio
of measurements given in connection with the sketch and working plans of
a British ship of the merchant MAY-FLOWER class of the seventeenth
century, as laid down by Admiral Francois Edmond Paris, of France, in his
"Souvenirs de Marine." The hull and rigging of this model were carefully
worked out by, and under the supervision of Captain Joseph W. Collins
(long in the service of the Smithsonian Institution, in nautical and
kindred matters, and now a member of the Massachusetts Commission of
Inland Fisheries and Game), but were calculated on the erroneous basis of
a ship of 120 instead of 180 tons measurement. This model, which is upon
a scale of 1/2 inch to 1 foot, bears a label designating it as "The
'MAYFLOWER' of the Puritans" [sic], and giving the following description
(written by Captain Collins) of such a vessel as the Pilgrim ship, if of
120 tons burthen, as figured from such data as that given by Admiral
Paris, must, approximately, have been. (See photographs of the model
presented herewith.) "A wooden, carvel-built, keel vessel, with full
bluff bow, strongly raking below water line; raking curved stem; large
open head; long round (nearly log-shaped) bottom; tumble in top side;
short run; very large and high square stern; quarter galleries; high
forecastle, square on forward end, with open rails on each side; open
bulwarks to main [spar] and quarter-decks; a succession of three
quarter-decks or poops, the after one being nearly 9 feet above main
[spar] deck; two boats stowed on deck; ship-rigged, with pole masts
[i.e. masts in one piece]; without jibs; square sprit sail (or water
sail under bowsprit); two square sails on fore and main masts, and
lateen sail on mizzenmast."
Dimensions of Vessel.
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