AHPCX Anglo-Dutch Wars Yachts

I have a variety of naval projects on the go, and this is the first post from a new 1/2400 Anglo-Dutch Wars project.  I have 4 yachts which I am entering in my own Challenge Location Douglas' Shallows under the theme "Messing About in Boats".

https://thepaintingchallenge.blogspot.com/

These are 4 yachts from the Tumbling Dice 1/2400 Anglo-Dutch Wars range.  I have a couple of squadrons of these ships which I am aiming to complete over the challenge.  So far I have been very happy with the quality of these castings.

Leading the race we have two English Royal Yachts the Katherine and Henrietta skippered by two gentlemen who knew a lot about boars, and a lot about messing about too!.  Charles II and his brother James (Duke of York and Lord High Admiral at this point) were keen and skilled yachtsmen and Charles commissioned a series of yachts.  Charles yachts were used for pleasure and actively sailed and raced by the Stuart bros.  They were also armed and used as scouts and dispatch vessels in wartime and took Admiralty officials to inspect the port of Tangier.

I’ve selected two that served in the Second Dutch War as that’s my chosen niche in time.
By the third war Charles had two yachts some named for his mistresses (Cleveland and Portsmouth) one named for his mistress's anatomy (Fubbs being Restoration English for pleasantly plump) and one named Kitchen to provide victuals while cruising.

A Van de Velde painting of Charles arriving by yacht to inspect the fleet in 1672.

His Majesty’s yacht Katherine launched 1660, captured by the Dutch 1673.  Returned to the English but not  as part of the Royal Navy.  Armed with 8 guns.  49 feet long on the keel.

His majesty’s yacht Henrietta launched 1663 and sunk at the Battle of the Texel  in 1673.  52 feet long on the keel and armed with 8 guns.

On the Dutch side we the Windhund and Schiedam, both of which were attached to De Ruyter’s fleet for the Four Days Battle of 1666.  No royal connections here, but another good story.  The maritime artist Willem Van de Velde (sr) was given a galjoot and accompanied De Ruyter in battle.  He sketched from the decks of his small craft in the heat of battle, like an earlier Robert Capa  on  Omaha Beach.  His sketches are used to reconstruct battles given the inconsistencies in memories.  

The two dutch galjoots.  Not being royal yachts there is not a lot available on these vessels.

Two of Charles first yachts were gifts from the Dutch and design of these influenced later royal yachts.  The basic design had a single mast with square topsail and fore and aft sails elsewhere.  There would be leeboards instead of a keel.  I have seen similar craft used as pleasure boats sailing with my dad in the UK and French waters.

A Van de Velde sketch from the first day of the Four Days Battle.  I was tempted to use an umber wash over cream bases on my ships to replicate the two tone effect  in these wonderful works.

Detail of another sketch from the same action showing Van de Velde  on his galjoot.

As these were the first models for a new project I did some experimenting.  I wanted to replicate the greenish hue that Dutch maritime artists give the water in almost every oil painting.  It took several layers, but I am reasonably happy with my results.  I also wanted to use mdf bases ( these ones are 30mm square from Sarissa), but wanted to use the moulded bases supplied b6 Tumbling Dice on top of these.  This means using acrylic gel to bulk up my paint to smooth over the rough base edges, and it looks ok on these ships but I think that I’ve left myself room for improvement 

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Canadian loonie and UK pound to show the size of these ships.

Points wise there’s 30 points for Douglas’ Shallows but I’ll leave the ships to the Snowlord to tot up.  1/2400 ships are typically scored 3 points a pop but these are very small. I’ll also point out that each of the four yachts has a flag added which I whipped up in photoshop.