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By Paul Austin - Dallas, Texas - USA
 

Our Young Navy - Part Four

To Part One

To Part Two

To Part Three

William Doughty was a draftsman in the Wharton-Humphreys yard when Josiah Fox came to prominence. Under the direction of Fox, Doughty drew up the plans for the frigates United States, Constitution, and President. Trained as a shipwright and draftsman, Doughty eventually became a significant figure in the yard. He was involved in the design and plans of many ships the yard built, although who gets credit for what is hard to decide. Evidently, Joshua Humphreys made the overall decisions, Fox handled the details, and Doughty drew the plans and did the lofting. Possibly, his talent for lofting led to him becoming the equivalent of office manager at the yard.

What may be revealing here is the United States was designed, built, and launched first, in Philadelphia by Humphreys at his yard. She was the slowest of the frigates to come from the Humphreys concept of big frigates. Six months later in Boston, Constitution slipped down her ways as a faster, heavier, better designed and armed frigate. And then President was built in New York, after many delays being launched in April, 1800. She was the fastest of the frigates built with the vision of Humphreys, the knowledge of Fox, and William Doughty's capacity for drawing plans and lofting. It seems the three men learned quickly what works. Chapelle says the designs from these three men, 'influenced American frigates to the end of the sailing ship period.'

President

After this, Doughty left the Wharton-Humphreys yard to operate a shipyard in Georgetown, MD, from 1801 till 1813. His capacity for organizing ship construction enabled him to be employed at the Washington Navy Yard off and on for many years. While Doughty was a good draftsman, it seems his ability to supervise construction was his greatest asset.

Then, around 1815 his life changed. He had grown up along the Chesapeake, watching the topsail schooners which sailed the Bay. While he was at the Washington Navy Yard the commission came for three new 44 gun frigates and four large ship-sloops. Doughty drew the three frigates within inches as copies of President, as if they didn't interest him or he thought no improvements could be made on the Humphreys-Fox collaboration. What did interest him were the large ship-sloops. He took a gamble with these craft. No designers in the Washington yard showed any interest in clipper schooner models, but Doughty did. He took the Baltimore clipper schooner hull model, enlarged it, and made his mark on the history of American ship design.

He drew a hull with plenty of keel aft, a midsection with 23 degrees of deadrise, and slight tumblehome in the topsides.

The Ontario, Erie, and Argus were 117 feet on deck, 31' 6" beam, and 14 feet depth of hold. These sloops carried 20 carronades, 32 pounders and 2 long 18 pounders. Although they were called sloops, they were rigged with square sails on three masts. Later, the Wasp, Peacock, and Frolic were built on these plans (Wasp was named after the first Fox Wasp).

The Peacock had such a successful career it became the model of all subsequent ship sloops for the next 26 years.

Many of these ship sloops were built by the Navy. After 1815 Doughty specialized in the sharp hulls of the Baltimore clipper schooners. The Navy had asked Josiah Fox for revenue cutters, which he designed with deadrise and long keels, around 1798. War had decimated these cutters so when peace came the Navy needed to replace them. In 1815, when the Navy asked Doughty to design three new classes of revenue cutters, he took the direction laid out by Fox even further. No square sails for Doughty now, these cutters were fore-and-aft schooners, the classic American rig. In 1825 Doughty designed two more classes of cutter, for shoal waters. One class is interesting for its use of two 'drop-keels,' which we would call daggerboards. The boards were very square, dropping vertically with rollers to ease any jamming. This class of cutter was 60 feet between stem and stern, a topsail schooner with bulwarks. The Peacock had such a successful career it became the model of all subsequent ship sloopsfor the next 26 years. Many of these ship sloops were built by the Navy.

After 1815 Doughty specialized in the sharp hulls of the Baltimore clipper schooners. The Navy had asked Josiah Fox for revenue cutters, which he designed with deadrise and long keels, around 1798. War had decimated these cutters so when peace came the Navy needed to replace them. In 1815, when the Navy asked Doughty to design three new classes of revenue cutters, he took the direction laid out by Fox even further. No square sails for Doughty now, these cutters were fore-and-aft schooners, the classic American rig.

In 1825 Doughty designed two more classes of cutter, for shoal waters. One class is interesting for its use of two 'drop-keels,' which we would call daggerboards. The boards were very square, dropping vertically with rollers to ease any jamming. This class of cutter was 60 feet between stem and stern, a topsail schooner with bulwarks.

A revenue cutter from 1825 with the drop keel.

The second class of cutter was bigger, bulkier with more sail area. They had one drop keel, shoal draft, one more foot in depth of hold and 10 tons heavier than the first class of drop keel cutter.

Chapelle says of these revenue cutters, 'The spirit and traditions of the present Coast Guard were founded in the slippery little revenue schooners of the days of sail. These rakish topsail schooners, slashing through the heavy seas of a winter's gale, were the first to express the motto of the present service, Semper Paratus-Always Ready.'

William Doughty had gone from the great frigates of Humphreys-Fox to the revenue cutters of 30 years later. He doesn't appear to have been in any controversy. He was not the selfpromoter Humphreys was; Chapelle says he wasn't the detail man Fox was. Yet he sustained the high level of design and plans from the 1790s to the 1830s.

While William Doughty didn't create any new fad, he did develop his lines in a certain way. He drew a hull form which had a full body well forward and well aft, with substantial deadrise in between. While other designers had long narrow entrances with hollow lines, Doughty never wavered from the general shape of Constitution. His ships had great deck space with narrow deadrise through the water. It was ideal for revenue cutters, especially those with topsails and square sails on the foremast.

I began this series on the note of how the United States Navy became such an international force in such a short time. One answer is the number of great seamen, trained in the Revolutionary War, who came to maturity in the War of 1812. Another answer is the great pine and oak available in this new untouched land, right up to the coastline in New England. A third reason might well be the three men whose designs kept our shipbuilding at a high level for a long time when the Navy was made of wood. And finally the great craftsmen who worked in metal, in cannons, in sails, in the yards.

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These articles could not have been put together without the writing of H. I. Chapelle, Ian Toll, George Daughan, and Larrie Ferriero. The remarkable drawn images are from Henry Rusk. They are invaluable. Writing this has been a boyhood dream come into the present. I have to sincerely thank Chuck for allowing me to dip my fingers in the history of the U. S. Navy.

If you have a son or daughter, I would recommend taking them to see the USS Constitution at the Boston harbor. Someday I'll make it there, myself. I hope to give the Navy the opportunity to arrest me for climbing the yards. I wonder what the food's like in the brig...

The End

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