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L'Ambitieux, Le Trois-Ponts du Chevalier de Tourville
Model by Kerry Jang
In 1680 the Chevalier de Tourville pressed the French Navy to construct a ship of 80guns to a design by the naval architect Blaise Panglano. The idea was rejected by the Minister of the Marine M. de Colbert, who thought the ship was too large for 80 guns. Colbert’s papers and letters noted that existing 80 guns ships were smaller and more economical to build than Panglano’s design. The advantage of Paglano’s design was stability, but this was ignored by M. de Colbert, who was seen very much as a conservative. M. Panglano was to be vindicated later, as shipwrights soon adopted his ideas and incorporated theminto their designs a decade later. These ships landed up being longer and larger thatn M. Panglano’s design and they carried fewer guns! Paglano’s original design was never built, but his draughts still exist and became the basis of Jean Boudriot’s recent monograph entitled "Le trois-ponts du chevalier de Tourville". M. Boudriot has given M. Paglano’s ship the appropriate name "L'Ambitieux" (The Ambitious).
On these pages so kindly supplied by Daniel, I will over time chronicle the building of a miniature model of "L'Ambitieux". The Boudriot plans are to 1:48 and I have reduced them to 1:192 for the model, giving a hull about 11.5" long. I shall up date these pages from time to time as I work on the model.
My methods of construction follow the techniques given in Philip Reed’s book, “Modelling Sailing Men-of-War”, published by Conway Maritime Press. This is an excellent fully illustrated book showing the step-by-step building of a British 74 gun ship Majestic to a slightly larger 1:144 scale.
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If you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to contact me at: kjang@unixg.ubc.ca