I'll post a thread for it once I've fully finished the basic Plymouth drawing, but I got a lot of work done on it today so I thought I'd post it here for now. Just need to get the sail plan done. I drew out the full interior to help with cutting it down and I intend to draw it along a shrunken CSS Virginia's lines, since they likely would have been built next to each other.
Talos, that's a great drawing, I use Canney's " Sailing Warships of the US Navy" when I need the lines, but I like that interpretation.
Charlie Robbins and I have just started discussing the might have been conversions at Norfolk.
May I suggest something? I think John L .Porter was astute enough to realise that his Virginia would not be the answer to the South's need for a seagoing ,or even coastal fleet. I feel that future conversions would have been based on either or both of two plans he had.
The first is the origin of the 150ft class gunboat, a much larger vessel, and the second was a seagoing ram gunboat.
John L. Porter produced a plan for a seagoing ironclad whose beam would have been limited by the width of the biggest dry dock at Gosport Navy Yard to 58ft. No copies of the plan have survived and this version is by the author, based on the proportions of the 150ft gunboat plan. .
Dimensions : 222ft OA x 56ft EX x 18ft draught, 3,197 tons displacement.
190ft PP x 46ft B x 21ft DPH
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However, as the emphasis of CSN ironclad design changed from offensive operations to coast and harbour defence, the design was reduced in size to produce the 150 ft gunboat plan which became known as the “Richmond”Type.
The second plan is this:
The January 1862 plan by John L Porter & William P Williamson
Type: Ironclad Casemate ship Screw(s): one. Speed: 9 knots
Dimensions:200ft (OA) x 42ft (EX) x 11ft(D), 1,320 tons
Guns: 8 guns, 6 in the casemate, 2 large guns fore and aft on pivot mountings.
Armour: 4 – 4.5 “ iron backing unknown.
Design: J.L. Porter & W.P.Williamson
History:
Sent by Mallory to Cdr Bullock in January 1862 to England. The plan above , by Bob Holcombe has been modified to correspond to the description given by John L Porter.
This plan seems, to me, to lend itself to a deep draught sailing ship hull.
I will leave it to you to decide which option to go for. I await the results with considerable interest.