User talk:Rif Winfield/Archive 1

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Dear Rif Winfield:

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You might want to look at Wikipedia's policies and guidelines for more details, or ask a question here. You can also leave a message on my talk page. JHMM13 08:31, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for the changes. Can you tell me what the source of the information was? Thanks SpookyMulder 08:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Dear SpookyMulder, I'm not certain about using the usertalk facility on Wikipedia, so would appreciate - and indeed welcome - any exchange to be via email (you can reach me through [email protected]). I'm a naval historian, specialist in naval vessels of the Age of Sail and the author of several books on British (and other) warships on the pre-1900 era - perhaps you're familiar with my books on "The 50-gun ship" or "British Warships in the Age of Sail" (the latter is being published as a series in several volumes). I've undertaken a large amount of research over the years, both in Britain (I'm a reader at the NMM,PRO, etc), France and elsewhere, from which most of my information is taken (I have also benefitted from the original research of others who have generously passed their findings on to me). I have what I believe is a complete record of French Naval vessels from 1700 onwards (I will tackle the 17th century later). I have made a start on the articles on French ships of the Line and French sail frigates, but have an awful lot more work to do (frankly, the MAJORITY of ships are missing from the Wikipedia lists) which will doubtless occur piecemeal over coming months. I'd certainly welcome any help you care to give. Regards, Rif Winfield

Greetings! I noticed the changes you recently made to this article. It's really nice for amateurs like me to see professionals making this sort of detailed contributions to Wikipedia. I have a few links you may find helpful, but please don't feel like you have to digest them all minutely before doing anything — I don't want you to feel like I'm putting roadblocks in the way of what is a very generous activity on your part. I noticed you put <br>s in your lists; you don't actually need to do this, that formatting is taken care of automatically on lists. There's a little

Have done with all due speediness. Kind regards,

Benea

18:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. You will note that I have considerably expanded the biography of the 1st Baronet, so you may wish to add further links. There are errors in the link page for [Richard Bickerton], which implies that the 1st Baronet ended as Vice-Admiral and the 2nd Baronet ended at Rear-Admiral. In fact the first Richard Bickerton only reached the rank of Rear-Admiral, while his son ended his career as a full Admiral (of the Red). Can you correct this on the [Richard Bickerton] joint page, and alter the links acordingly? Incidentally, whoever wrote the original entry should note the difference between a barony and a baronetcy (I have corrected the error). Should you have any queries, you would be most welcome to email me direct on [email protected]. Rif Winfield 21:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I've corrected the disambiguation page for the names, and have added links where appropriate for the first baronet. You're right, he should. I still remember my table of ranks, knowing how high a duke was above a marquess and so on! Any more suggestions, always happy to help. Kind regards,

Benea

22:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks! Rif Winfield 23:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC).

Benea, I do have another item where your help would be appreciated, in connection with the Williams design 64s of the Intrepid Class. There were fifteen ships to this design, but three of them were incorrectly separated out on WP pages as a spurious Magnanime class. There was no separate Magnanime design - the Magnanime, Diadem and Sampson were all units of the Intrepid Class. I have added them to [Intrepid class ship of the line] but the existing references to [Magnanime class ship of the line] needs deletion. The original error appears to have come about through copying from Brian Lavery's The Ship of the Line; but careful studying of the original draughts for these vessels reveals no distinctive feature, and I have discussed this with Brian who can not recall any reason why he separated the three ships out in his book when written in the 1980s - he indicated it was probably a mistake that needs correction (his superb and oft-quoted book has been reprinted but never corrected). Can you kindly correct the disambiguation and links accordingly? Thanks. Rif Winfield 13:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Rif, yep I've taken a look and had some discussions with

Benea

18:07, 7 September 2007 (UTC).

As mentioned, I discussed this with Brian Lavery a few years ago, and he cannot now identify any reason to show a separate Magnanime class, so I guess that takes care of the "original reference". I've put in a reference to David Lyon's Sailing Navy List as a source which quotes the 15-member class as built to one design (I haven't put in a reference to my own books, for fear of being accused on breaking WP rules, but if you DO happen to take a look at my books, you'll see that it confirms the same material, taken of course from official Navy Board docs in NMM and Kew records). It does of course demonstrate the problem of relying on secondary sources - however well-written (we can all make a few errors in reference tables of this complexity) - and ignoring research based directly on official documents! Thanks for the work. Rif Winfield 20:15, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Spot on! My own background is in history, so I know the value of Primary over Secondary. Still it's often going to be the way. Whilst using Colledge a while back I came across a ship from the 1730s or so, listed until the 1950s! I assumed he meant the 1750s and altered the WP entry accordingly, but still, howlers can be made! Not a problem, again happy to help with anything else you come across.

Benea

00:04, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Again, my thanks. Incidentally, I'm just re-ordered the list of V-class submarines into chronological (i.e. programme) order, and indicated which of them were never completed. Rif Winfield 15:50, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I've taken out the links to an 'Inconstant class' category, and I think that clears up any suggestion of a seperate class, unless you can see something I've missed? Kind regards,

Benea

17:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

And again, thanks! I think we're making progress. Rif Winfield 22:51, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, slowly but steadily! Incidentally, I've posted something I had a few questions on the

Benea

22:56, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, I've just e-mailed "toddy" (off-WP) about this particular point as follows: "Maralia should remember that we are dealing with an era of transition, and that transition affected the terminology as much as the design and construction itself. I think it is a mistake to try and use the term 'battleship' for any of the wooden-hulled warships; the term was simply not used officially (yes, there are references to the term in some contemporary literature, but these were essentially shorthand ways of writing "line-of-battle ship" and had no official status). Just to add confusion, remember that the official classification of the 'Warrior' and her immediate descendents was "frigate", and this remained the case for a number of years after 1860; in fact, the screw-driven line-of-battle ship (or ship-of-the-line, which I think should remain the term for the wooden-hulled two-deckers and three-deckers) did not evolve into the iron or steel battleship; the battleship evolved instead out of the frigate, because it carried its main battery on one deck." I'll add this into the discussion on the

Curiously enough, I was just about to do so. Please see the list of battleships page. Rif Winfield 16:27, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi Rif, it's been a while in coming, but we've finally hived off some of the earlier sections to

Ben, it's an excellent start. My only suggestion would be to delete references that cast doubt on the existence of most of the smaller vessels, as these certainly existed, albeit that they were not mentioned in works which concentrated on the larger warships; if provenance in published works in required, pending my next book, I suggest you could cite Michael Oppenheim's 1896 classic "History of the Administration of the Royal Navy ..." (the full title actually continues "... and of Merchant Shipping in Relation to the Navy from 1509 to 1660 with an introduction treating of the Preceding Period", but that's a bit long to put into Sources lists; it was republished in 1988 by Temple Smith,

Ah thank you for this. I think the original editors had a copy of Lavery to one side, and looked a bit askance at the ships they couldn't find listed there. I've added the Oppenheim reference, as well as Colledge, so I'd agree the article is certainly well sourced enough to remove the 'provenance uncertain' caveat. I look forward to the new book, it will be a great addition to bolster this rather sketchy outline of the early navy. Kind regards,

Benea (talk

) 09:42, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Ben, Many thanks. Incidentally I've just completed the lists of Cruizer and Cherokee brig-sloops; if you'd like to add links at some stage to pages for the individual vessels, I'm quite happy to expand the individual articles as and when time allows. I'll put launch dates into the Cherokee list in due course, or do you think this list should be tabulated first, in which case shoulkd there be any additional column(s) added (e.g. for builder, fate, etc)? Rif Winfield (talk) 13:22, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi Rif, sounds like a good idea, it'd be good to work in an article/list somewhere as that's been an area largely overlooked in the past, the smaller naval vessels. As to the order, it'd probably be a good idea to do it the other way around, to set up a list and fix the links and then work up the articles from there. Since I don't have handy access to this sort of information, would you be happy to email me the list and I'll work up a wikipedia list/article from that? Something similar to

Right, happy to email you data for this purpose. Please supply an email address. Rif Winfield 06:57, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a friendly note on formatting. There is no need to reverse the day and month when they are already wikilinked, user preferences (see "my preferences") take care of the display of these dates. Conversely single months and single years or month year combinations should not be wikilinked. Hope this saves you some extra typing. GraemeLeggett 09:32, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, Graeme. I have not been wikilinking single months or month-year combinations, but I have been linking single years and day-month combinations as this linking now appears to be common practice in Wiki. The format for any dates for British (or other non-American) vessels should always by the British / European format of day-month-year, as I agree that when American readers want dates displayed in the strange (and illogical) non-standard format of month-day-year they can alter their user preference accordingly.

Can I make an extra point as regards the format of ship names? The standard way of titling articles on individual RN warships is [HMS name (date)], where the date is the year of launch (or the year of that vessel's acquisition if the vessel was not built for the RN but acquired later). This enables us to separate out the many cases where the same name can over the centuries by used a dozen times or more. A few articles on individual ships have inserted the pendant number into the title instead of the date. Since the pendant numbers are subject to change, and are allocated in a non-sequential way (unlike the USN hull numbers, for example), and particularly since their use in the article title prevents dating the vessel in the article on that particular vessel, please discourage contributors from using the pendant numbers within the title of an article (clearly, if wanted, it can be included in the text of that article). Rif Winfield 06:47, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Rif, hope you are well? As to the use of pennant numbers, the reason they tend to be used is because they are part of our manual of style for naming ships, see

Benea

14:07, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Rif, yes you are quite right that the articles should cover their entire histories. It wasn't me that originally quoted those figures though, I just updated the infoboxes and corrected an earlier mistake over the number of guns the ships mounted after their refits. As to how to cover this in the infoboxes, that often comes down to a matter of personal preference on the part of the original editor. The most complete solution is to list them all, with original configuration, then after refit, then after second refit, etc. For example -

I hope you have noticed this edit and this one. They are very basic, simple matters of Wikipedia style which you should be doing yourself almost automatically. -- RHaworth (Talk contribs) 03:01, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

As you say, a matter of style. I have accepted your amendments, but have since made some further additions to these articles. Rif Winfield (talk) 13:19, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

That was a bit short tempered of him, but keep up the good work anyway!

Benea (talk

) 13:31, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks! I shall do so (note improvements to 20th century RN warship lists, as well as sailing ones). Meantime, Ben, have a Happy Christmas and Prosperous New Year. Rif Winfield (talk) 15:00, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

And the same to you and yours!

Benea (talk

) 20:04, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I see that you have listed screw-sloops in List of corvette and sloop classes of the Royal Navy. Are paddle-sloops listed anywhere on wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Toddy1 (talk • contribs) 22:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Toddy. My intention (when I have time) is to insert the paddle-sloops into List of corvette and sloop classes of the Royal Navy, probably between the last sailing sloops and the early screw sloops. Rif Winfield (talk) 09:37, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

[[

Thanks Rif for completing the list of

Dear Geronimo, while I appreciate that it is not strictly appropriate for me to list my own published works among the Sources myself, I can advise you that in the paragraph I inserted on design I was quoting my own words from p.282 of "British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1793-1817" (2nd edition 2008, Seaforth Publishing,

Good work indeed Rif. I've popped a couple of generic categories on them. As time goes on they'll probably end up with their own specific ship categories where all the ships that made up that class can appear together. I've also tagged them for the project. It was only this morning that HMS Oberon appeared by the way, which I thought was quite a coincidence.

Benea (talk

) 20:59, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Well caught Rif, I've tweaked the formatting and it should display correctly now. Any other problems, give me a bell. pip pip.

Benea (talk

) 09:55, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

In fact, Colledge has the date correct (Brian's book has mis-printed 1768 instead of 1758). The vessel launched in 1682 as the Duke was indeed renamed Prince George in 1701, shortly after being rebuilt at Chatham. This vessel was again rebuilt at Deptford between 1719 and 1723, and was accidentally burnt at sea on 13 April 1758 (about 485 men drowned in the Bay of Biscay). The Ship of the Line is a superb summary of the development of the capital ship, but inevitably there are a few factual inaccuracies in the Ship List at the back (for example, on page 177 he omits entirely the 74-gun Marlborough of 1767, and unfortunately ascribes her details to the similar Magnificent). Remember this book is now 25 years old, and has not been re-edited for later reprintings, while there has been later reseach as well as a few printing errors spotted. I shall email you later today a copy of the text (without the illustrations and their captions) of Chapter 2 of my 1714-1792 volume, which covers all the Second Rates of that period, including survivors from earlier years. I hope you will find this helpful, and that it will explain several issues which otherwise might be unclear. Regards Rif Winfield (talk) 14:37, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Rif
I wonder if you could help; I'm currently working on class pages for 19th century sloops (

Dear Shem, all the Dolphin Class and Mariner Class vessels were actually built as composite gunvessels. The two Dolphin Class vessels were reclassified as sloops while building, and the six Mariner class vessels were reclassified as sloops on

26 November 1884. The normal practice is to list them under the type of vessels they were originally, so I suggest that you include both classes with the List of gunboat and gunvessel classes of the Royal Navy. I also suggest that the articles on the eight individual vessels (some of these may not yet have been written!) should be amended accordingly. Rif Winfield (talk

) 12:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

It occurs to me that we do not yet have a section for List of gunboat and gunvessel classes of the Royal Navy. This is an obvious oversight, and it would be very useful if you could start it (and index it into the list of ship types of the Royal Navy). It you would do that, I could start to list the numerous vessels involved. Rif Winfield (talk) 13:22, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Dear Rif
I understand now - and what you're suggesting makes perfect sense. It's a fair sized project, and one that I will progress in slow time, keeping you informed. I would, however, suggest that we use List of gunboats of the Royal Navy, as this is already red wikilinked from List of ship names of the Royal Navy (and therefore possibly elsewhere). Until later, Shem (talk) 16:59, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

PS. Reading up your talk page, I see that you've offered to e-mail details to

Benea in the past. Is it possible for you to send me an appropriate list of Gunboats? It will make a daunting project a whole lot easier to start!Shem (talk

) 17:02, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Shem, Yes, I am happy to email you a list, if you give me an email address to send it to (mine is [email protected]). What I can email you is the appropriate sections of the text from "The Sail and Steam Navy List" (by David Lyon and Rif Winfield, 2004, Chatham Publishing.

I also agree it's sensible to use the existing reference to List of gunboats of the Royal Navy, although I think it would be sensible to amend this list title to include "and gunvessels", and change the link within List of ship names of the Royal Navy to reflect the expanded title. Rif Winfield (talk) 17:52, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Rif,

Very happy - I'll amend the link, and use a redirect to make sure we wrap up any other wikilinks. No snags there. I'll e-mail my address to you so that you can send on the list - for which I am very grateful. Shem (talk) 10:10, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

OK - thanks. Rif Winfield (talk) 10:50, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Rif

I imagine my Hotmail address has gone straight in your Junk Mail, but I'll e-mail again (doing it now), yours Shem (talk) 18:27, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Rif

All received and understood. I've made some changes to

Alert class sloop as an experiment based on your data - could you have a look at the page and confirm that the attribution suits? I'll then use the "cite book" as a template for other pages. Thanks for all your help - I'm sure I'll be asking for more as the project progresses, but until then, best wishes. Yours Shem (talk

) 17:21, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Shem, it looks OK to me, so please proceed. I'm happy to deal with any queries (but suggest you ask me by email, rather than through user-page). Rif Winfield (talk) 17:46, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah thanks for that. That book is one of the ones on my now stupidly long list of books on the subject to buy... I'm sadly lacking in information on anything much below 50-guns, with the exception of what is in Gardener's book on Napoleonic frigates. I find that website to be a good source of information to help get articles started, but yes you do come across errors occasionally (but of course that applies to everything else!) One thing about that article still seems slightly odd, where it says the French 20-gun corvette was commissioned as a 28-gun 6th rate - I know we tended to over-gun our ships compared to the French but that sounds like a rather large increase... Martocticvs (talk) 16:22, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

When captured, she was carrying 20 (French) 8-pounder guns, all on the upper deck. As the French 8-pounders didn't take British shot, she was re-armed with 18 9-pounders and 6 6-pounders on the upper deck (a rare example of a mixed battery on one deck, but she was refitted/re-armed at Gibraltar after capture, and given what ordnance was available), plus 4 3-pounders on the quarter deck.

I might mention that my above-mentioned book is currently on sale through eBay today for a comparatively low price.

Incidentally, can you kindly look at my revisions to the Lively of 1804? The information is now correct, but I think I've not correctly formatted the data box.

Rif Winfield (talk) 16:52, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Dealt with that one as well - there was a }} missing from one part of the infobox template which left it hanging. I've added in citations and done a quick wikify in places. Martocticvs (talk) 20:50, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks! Rif Winfield (talk) 20:54, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

No, nothing to do with me, that one. Don't think I've even edited it actually. (Incidentally, you can see who has edited/created an article by clicking on the history link at the top of each page). Martocticvs (talk) 14:04, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks. The reason I thought it might be you is that I accessed it via the 1706 Establishment page, which I gather you did write/contribute to. I note with thanks your tip about clicking on the history link - I was unaware of this.

I've made some changes to the 1706 Establishment and the 1745 Establishment pages - putting in references to the Establishment details for 40-gun and (1745) 24-gun ships. I've had to put in references to one of my own published volume as the appropriate source. The actual references need to be corrected to operate properly (can you ensure these are linked properly for me, please?), but you'll notice the details including page number sources. I shall at some time similarly expand the 1719 Establishment page. You might make clear that the 1706 Establishment was only partial in that it included only details of the principal dimensions (length, breadth and depth), unlike the later ones which included much more detailed specifications for the scantlings.

In spite of the Admiralty request in 1706, the Navy Board did not come up with dimensions for 30-gun ships in the 1706 Establishment; like the First and Sixth Rates, these were not covered until 1719 (and no further 30/32/36-gun ships were built until the 1750s, anyway). I've put in a sentence to the 1706 Establishment page to make clear that the smaller Fifth rates were not covered. Rif Winfield (talk) 17:05, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Dear Rif
Please take a look at List of gunboat and gunvessel classes of the Royal Navy when you get a chance. No need to do any serious error checking just yet! Is this what you had in mind (bearing in mind I've barely started, or so it feels)? Should I be putting in all the Indian Navy and Steam Packets here? Grateful for any feedback, slowtime. Yours, Shem (talk) 19:17, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Dear Shem, I think this is a good start, although I have a couple of suggestions to make.

(1) At some date this table will need to be expanded to include the purely sailing gunboats - I would suggest that you will need to look at the RN's gunbrigs and gunboats of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars - 150 of the former were designed and built for the RN, to a half-dozen distinct classes, apart from vessels added by purchase or capture. You may not wish to add all these in yourself - I just suggest that you should allow for these to be inserted into the list at some stage, to appear before the steam-powered vessels.

(2) Looking at the way in which other RN vessels have been entered in List of frigate classes of the Royal Navy and List of corvette and sloop classes of the Royal Navy, it seems preferable to me that your new article should follow the same or a similar layout, i.e. listing under each class name the total number of vessels built to that design, and then giving for each vessel simply basic details of name, launch date, and final disposal. You can then quote other (fuller) details of each vessel's builder, full construction dates, etc, in one specific article for each class. This is the way if has been done for the other types of RN warships, and I suggest it would be sensible to follow that precedent. Otherwise you will be repeating information which it seems to me should be better placed into the articles on individual classes.

These are just suggestions, and I look forward to hearing your views of them. Best wishes. Rif Winfield (talk) 18:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Dear Rif

Thanks for the comments; I had already anticipated the need for pre-Nineteenth century gunboats (and, as you say, gunbrigs), and I know how I'll get them in there very easily. Can you send me the details in the same way? I'll take a couple of weeks at least to run through the current gunboats/gunvessels page, ensuring that the details are error-free (which I doubt, given my errors of transcription that I've already uncovered). It also occurs to me that torpedo-boats are not listed anywhere - I imagine another (but much shorter list) is called for. As for the format, it has the very strong advantage of making the class pages simple to write - as I'm doing with

HMS Diana (1823)) for that very reason.

Thanks for all your help - without it, I wouldn't so much have started.

Yours, Shem (talk

) 17:32, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Shem, I have just emailed you the complete chapter on gunboats and gunbrigs of the Napoleonic Wars. I would add a further comment on the 1846 gunvessels. While the format of my book meant that I had to separate iron-hulled and wooden hulled vessels, I suggest that it would be more useful NOT to do so in respect of the Sharpshooter, Rifleman, Minx and Teazer. Their design features relate to each other, and it would be clearer to list and then discuss them them in one wikipage, as a Group rather than as a Class, instead of separating them out because iron-hulled and wooden-hulled variants of these designs were built for comparative evaluation. I will send you later details of the torpedo boats and other torpedo craft of the pre-1905 Navy should you wish (although the TBDs are of course already listed in Wiki articles). I'll answer your other question when I've had a chance to check through the new article. Regards. Rif Winfield (talk) 11:12, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I have looked through it, and no entire class seems to have been left out. I agree that the class tables in the main article can be reduced as articles on the individual classes are completed; this is the sensible way to show them. I have acted over the Sharpshooter, Rifleman, Minx and Teazer as suggested above, and I have also separated out the composite gunboats from the purely wooden screw gunboats by inserting the appropriate heading. As regards colonial vessels, I leave at present to you to decide - but my feeling that they are technically needed to be included while the 'colonial' status of the various dependencies lasted. Rif Winfield (talk) 17:53, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Dear Rif

Thank you for all the assistance; your expert eye is invaluable, and much, much appreciated. I think your advice to list Sharpshooter, Rifleman, etc as a group is an excellent idea, and one I shall pursue. I um'd and ah'd over their place in the list for quite a while, wanting to place them together, but trying to keep the article coherent at the same time. As for the class tables, one of my constraints is that the page

A class destroyer (1913). There are a couple of torpedo gunboats listed under the category "Royal Navy gunboats", and yet others under "Royal Navy torpedo boats". What I'm trying to say is there is no list, that I can find, no route to get to the list from the other lists, and no sensible category. These I can all sort out, fairly easily, but I will need the details from you, and perhaps a bit of guidance. However, all in good time - sailing gunvessels and gunbrigs first!

Yours, Shem (talk

) 19:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Shem, I think the re will be a need for a separate category on 'torpedo boats', and the torpedo gunboats can be included in these as well as all the steam-driven torpedo boats. Whether or not the later motor craft should be in the same article in another matter. I am happy to email you that appropriate Chapter as promised (Chapter 10) but if you are obtaining a copy of the book, if would be easier if you had this first to give yourself an overview of the data. Rif Winfield (talk) 08:48, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I imagine a List of torpedo gunboats and torpedo boats of the Royal Navy, or something like it, will be in order. A link from the template will then be easy to do. This would include the steam-driven boats; the MGBs and MTBs really need their own section. This is becoming a lifetime's work! Yours, Shem (talk) 13:46, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it becomes a mammoth task. Take your time. There's no rush. I also have many non-naval commitments (besides the naval writing for my publisher - I aim on a book every two years) so can only fit in the occasional burst of activity. Rif Winfield (talk) 18:33, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Dear Rif

You are addressing a systematic issue that has bothered me for a while. Firstly, I think there needs to be a

I see you have already asked Benea! I'm sure some good advice will be forthcoming. Yours, Shem (talk) 22:28, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Shem; I will await his reply: but will do so from home as I am today using a strange keyboard (currently in Istanbul!) with untraceable punctuation and certain;y cannot find any commas. At the moment I can only say that I totally agree with you for pre 1660 ships and will proceed with putting everything into that article. Rif Winfield (talk) 13:23, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Dear Sir!

I really appreciate your changes! You are truly a specialist in this area and I'd like to ask you an other question. Do you know where I could find Syrens blueprints? If there is anything else you find out about this ship please feel free to enhance the article!

All the best from Vienna/Austria! APhilipp29 (talk), 10:55, Nov. 7th 2008 (CET) —Preceding undated comment was added at 09:55, 7 November 2008 (UTC).

Regretfully there does not appear to be any draughts/plans of the Pictou (ex Syren) in Admiralty records; only a proportion of draughts were taken off from captured vessels, and certainly not many of the small captured vessels like brigs or schooners, unless the Admiralty or the Navy Board decided that it had special qualities which might be worth copying in new vessels to be built in Britain. Plans of the Syren may exist from when she was built in America, but there is no knowledge of them in British records. Like many captured vessels which were taken and served in the British Navy for a short while, little details are recorded at all.

One potential confusion you should avoid is that there was also a US naval brig of 16 guns called the Syren, built in 1803 and captured off the coast of Africa in 1814 by HMS Medway. Plans of this brig (which was built by Benjamin Hutton of Philadelphia) certainly exist, but you should note that this was definitely not the privateer which became your Pictou. Rif Winfield (talk) 21:36, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Dear Rif
I'm slightly confused about the use in articles about early English ships of the red ensign (

HMS Dreadnought (1573). I would have thought that the appropriate national flag () might be better, although I understand that the flag flown by a sixteenth-century ship would be very much up to the commander. Interested in your thoughts. Yours, Shem (talk

Don't want to but in as this isn't my talk page after all, but I just thought I'd point out that the

WP:SHIPS policy on ensigns is to use the ensign the ship would have worn at the end of her career, so for the example you give the red ensign is fine. Martocticvs (talk

) 13:57, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

I hadn't seen the policy (which says "Choose a flag accurate for the period the ship served in, or for their final period of active service, if they served in many eras"), and I'm grateful for the pointer. Perhaps my choice of example was wrong in that case. What about

HMS Revenge (1577) without thinking? In the past I've used several ensigns (see HMS Amelia) which I think is more comprehensive. Interested to hear your thoughts! Rif, if you'd rather we took this somewhere else, please say, yours Shem (talk

) 19:46, 26 November 2008 (UTC)