HMS Havick Model

HMS Havick model project After 18-months and 1,000 hours of work, Neil Mahrer has completed a detailed model of HMS Havick, the 18th century vessel that was shipwrecked in St Aubin’s bay. It has been painstakingly recreated for a new permanent exhibition at the Maritime Museum. (Jersey Evening Post) Havick Neil Mahrer pictured here with the model he built of 18 THE HERITAGE MAGAZINE THE HMS HAVICK MODEL In 2003 a decision was taken to covered gun deck, an impressively project really dates back to 1987 when update the Maritime Museum’s Havick decorated stern with a Captain’s great Henry Connolly, a local metal detector exhibition to include new items and, as cabin and elaborate figurehead and enthusiast, discovered artefacts from an this would be a permanent feature, a head rails. 18th century warship on the beach at model of the vessel to illustrate the type The whole model project was made First Tower. With commendable of ship involved. Funding was not possible by the wonderfully detailed foresight and selflessness, Henry and available to commission a scale replica 1:48 scale plans of the ship drawn up by his colleagues in the Jersey Detecting from professional model makers so I the admiralty during its 1797 refit at Club did not attempt a dig on the site decided to offer a somewhat less Plymouth. I used the plans to produce a but waited till the Jersey Heritage Trust expensive solution: I had been toying series of cross sections of the hull, which was planning to open the Maritime with the idea of building a wooden ship when cut in thin wood and attached at Museum almost a decade later. The model for some time and had noticed the right points along the wooden keel local detectorists then worked with us that one model firm produced a 1:64 gave a skeleton of the ship’s full three for three summers from 1997 to record scale kit of HMS Snake, a Royal Navy dimensional shape. I then laid two the site and safely recover material from sloop of the same size and date as the layers of 1mm by 4mm planking over it. By this time the wreck had been identified as HMS Havick, a three masted quarterdeck sloop dating from the late 18th century. She was listed as an 18 gunner of 365 tons, 101 feet in length with a crew of 121. Sloops such as the Havick lacked the speed and heavy armament of larger frigates and so were employed as convoy escorts and often fought independently against raiders. HMS Havick was originally a Dutch warship, built in Amsterdam as the Havik (Hawk) in 1784. She was captured along with the rest of her squadron when they surrendered to a superior British force off South Africa in 1794. Sailed back to England as a prize, she was refitted in Plymouth and View of the bow illustrating the intricate ornamentation and figure-head. entered Royal Navy service in 1797 as the HMS Havick, there already being an Havick. The JHT bought the kit in the this framework and used a thin sheet of HMS Hawk. summer of 2003 and I started work. plywood for the gun deck, not planking Her career was a brief but busy one. It was only on close examination of this, as it would be invisible in the She patrolled the Channel and saw the plans of the model Snake and those finished model. action against the French on several of the Havick that the scale of the The next stage was to build the top occasions. She was finally defeated not project became apparent. Far from half of the hull, comprising the gun by foreign enemies but by the weather. being a modest conversion, as I had deck, top (weather) deck and ship’s On the evening of 8th November 1800 hoped, the hull designs of the two ships walls. Once again this was built as on she was lying at anchor in St Aubin’s were so different that I would have to the original ship with planking over Bay when a vicious southwesterly gale start from scratch, merely using the wooden frame timbers. Following the blew up. She began to drift towards the Snake kit to provide planks and fittings. 1797 plans at this point became shore and despite her crew’s best efforts In essence the Snake was (for the time) something of an act of faith as the bows finally foundered at around midnight. a very simple and functional design above the waterline appeared a bizarre She was too severely damaged to be known as a flush deck sloop, with little shape with both convex and concave refloated but the entire crew survived ornament and all the great guns on the areas that were not only hard to despite winds so strong that they had to exposed top deck. The Havick, as a reproduce but appeared to make no crawl to safety, unable to stand up on quarterdeck sloop, was by contrast sense. My reliance on the 18th century the beach. almost a small frigate, with a full draftsman was duly rewarded and when HERITAGE MAGAZINE 19 all the complex fittings for the carrying two pieces of good luck. One was the green and opted for what was the most of the bowsprit and anchors were later arrival in Jersey in the summer of 2004 basic and common colour scheme used added, the reasons for the shape of the replica Endeavour, Captain by the Royal Navy at the time, a black became perfectly clear. Cook’s barque. Although a slightly hull with a yellow line along the cannon Before the weather deck went earlier design than the Havick, its ports and yellow detailing elsewhere. I down, the 18 six pounder cannon were rigging was very similar and, when did this in the knowledge that the fitted in place underneath, pointing out captured in hundreds of photos, Havick’s commander was a young man of the cannon ports cut in the ships became an invaluable resource. The at the start of a career and we could not walls. Fortunately I was able to buy kits other piece of good fortune is our presume he had a private fortune of these guns in the correct scale. This proximity to HMS Victory in sufficient to decorate the ship further. done, it was possible to put down the Portsmouth, which I was able to visit The final stage of the hull was the top deck. Once again this was done on completing some business at a coppering of its bottom. Warships of with 4mm planking but to replicate the nearby museum. The Victory is a true this period were covered below the black caulking that separated each contemporary of Havick and almost waterline with sheets of copper nailed plank on the original ship I used thin every aspect of its design and to the hull to prevent attack from the wood boring worms of the warmer Southern seas. We had recovered large amounts of these sheets from the wreck site, each complete with stamped maker’s name and date. The Snake kit had thoughtfully provided 900 tiny copper plates each about 4mm by 10mm to glue onto the hull. Having spent many hours knee-deep in freezing mud pulling the originals up from the wreck, I was perhaps unusually familiar with the originals and decided to improve upon those the kit provided. As is often the way with models, the makers had exaggerated what should be almost invisible details, in this case the thirty or so nail heads in each sheet. To hide these outsized dimples I struck each sheet flat between two smooth Detailed view of masts and rigging. steel discs and, after carefully cutting each to size, then glued them upside strips of black paper. decoration were applicable to the down to the wooden hull before Now that the basic hull was model. smoothing the whole surface down roughed out it was time to attend to the This information garnered, I began again with fine wet and dry sandpaper more complex details of its design. At to build the ornamental detailing on followed by wire wool. this point I began a steep learning curve bow and stern out of a mixture of wood The deck fittings were then added, in late 18th century naval architecture. scraps, solder, pins, plastic card and each individually made to the 1797 Much could be learnt from the modelling clay. The design was clear plans. One puzzle remaining from the literature on the subject. Colleagues at from the plans but they of course gave wreck excavation had been the size of the Trust and local authorities such as no clue to the colour and this became cannon balls found, ranging in size up Mike Berry also helped with my the next puzzle. No records survive of to 24 pounders. We knew that as with research. David Woodall, a local the Havick’s appearance at the time of the paint scheme, a ship’s armament student who had worked with me on her destruction. But after more depended upon the personal wealth of the conservation of the original Havick research, including through Simon the captain, who was permitted to add artefacts, somehow found time to take Stephens, the curator specializing in his own weapons to those provided by breaks from his history degree and ship models at the National Maritime the Navy. It was therefore possible that compile a very useful dossier on ship Museum in Greenwich, I concluded weapons as big as twenty-four decoration of this period.

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