of Ships of the Line. 337 



weight of the hull without making alterations in the design, 

 proper to meet the excess, granting it to be necessary. In 

 fact, it cannot be too strongly impressed on the minds of those 

 who make any material innovation in the practical carpentry of 

 an excellent ship, that without a proper reference to the theore- 

 tical design, they will certainly neutralize all its former good 

 qualities*. To make this more plainly appear, we may notice, 

 that this class of ships, when constructed in the French dock- 

 yards, will carry the lower port 6.46 feet above the water with 

 an English armament and equipment, amounting to 1891 tons, 

 whilst the same dimensioned and modelled ship, when built in 

 our own dock-yards, can only carry the lower port 5.3 feet 

 above the surface of the water, with the same real tonnage. 



The Swedish 74 shews the good results of a light hull on 

 a ship of nearly the same dimensions as those of the English 

 74, whose hull weighs 322 tons more than that of the Swedish 

 ship. 



We have said, that no ship of the line should have the port- 

 sills of the lower battery a less height above water than 5.75 or 

 6 feet, we shall now state our reasons for such an opinion. — If 

 a ship of the line be supposed to incline no more than 7''f with 

 a wind whose force is two pounds avoirdupois on the square 

 foot, and carrying top-sails, top-gallant-sails, driver, fore-top- 

 mast stay-sail, and jib, we shall find that, in a first rate, whose 

 breadth is 54 feet from out to out, the portion of the lee side 

 submerged by the inclination will be about 3.25 feet. In the 

 84-gun ship, whose breadth is 52.5 feet, the part of the side 

 submerged by the same degree of heeling will be about 3,15 

 feet ; and in the 74-gun ship, with a breadth of 49.5 feet, the 

 side will be submerged about 3 feet. Hence, by referring to 

 the second table, the heights of the lee midship port of the 

 lower battery will be nearly as follows, in the different con- 



♦ The French naval architects have been so cafefully observant in this partiailar, 

 that thd ships of the French navy built at Toulon are allowed somewhat greater 

 dimensions than those of the same force built in the other dock-yards, in order to 

 meet the circumstances attending the use of the timber of Provence and Italy, 

 which weighs eighteen or nineteen pounds more in the cubic foot than that used at 

 Brest, &c. — Vide " Instruction E16mentaire et Raisonnee sur la Construction 

 Pratique des Vaisseaux, par M. De Duranti de Lerincourt: a Paris, 1771." 



t We say, " no more," because, if a ship heels over more than 7°, she cannot 

 make use of the windward guns with facility, and indeed cannot depress them to 

 point blank. 



