SO482A.  Historic shipwrecks: Science, History, and Engineering

Last Day of the Bonhomme Richard

Lesson Objectives:

• Read three accounts of the battle.
• Use a simulation to look at the effects of battle damage on the Serapis.

Read the following narratives of the battle:

• Log of the last day of the Bonhomme Richard, typescript in the National Archives.  Read the last page of the PDF.

• Account of LT Henry Lunt (only available inside USNA), written in the log of Serapis, and torn out and placed with the log of the Bonhomme Richard, published in 1936 by the Marine Historical Association in Mystic Connecticut (now Mystic Seaport).  Read from the middle of page 45 to the end (pages 3-4 of the PDF).

• Narrative of John Kilby, published in Scribner's in 1905. Bottom of page 30 to bottom of page 33 (pages 6-7 of the PDF).

Run a simulation of a frigate from the Age of Sail:

We will approximate the winds on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday September 24-26, 1779 as being southerly with a speed of 17 knots.

You will run the Surprise simulator to investigate the effects of the battle damage to the Serapis.  The simulator was not designed for this, and you will note that its depiction of the sail plan did not expect users to remove sails as we have done because the scaling does not look right.  Despite this limitation, the simulation gives us some idea of how the battle damage might have affected Serapis.

Download the simulator, with three models, and unzip it:

• Winchelsea in the British squadron chasing Jones, with the default sails for a frigate.

• Serapis_1 with battle damage, removing the main sail, the jib, and the spanker.  The spanker is removed because the ship is unsailable with it, at least in this simulation.

• Serapis_2, with additional battle damage, removing the topgallant on the foremast, and reducing the size of the other sails on the foremast to 50% to account for damage inflicted by Alliance.

Directions with screen captures.

In all three models, the ship starts out sailing toward 45ºT with all available sails set.  We are running with an automatic helmsman and yardsman, who will attempt to carry out your orders.  If you are adventurous, you can run multiple versions of the simulation at the same time.  You can also check the help file and look at other options, including changing the sizes of the sails which is how we are simulating damage.

Start the Surprise program, and pick "File, Open" and pick the model you want to run.  Run the simulation until the ship appears to be in a steady state (speed and heading not changing), and then fill in the table below (you will need this for the quiz).

Adjust the ship's heading to 90ºT, by clicking on the helmsman button so "await orders" appears, then click again, and set the heading to the desired course of 90ºT.  Run the simulation until the ship appears to be in a steady state or the ship appears unable to respond to your request, and then fill in the table below (you will need this for the quiz).

Adjust sail on the Serapis_2 model, using the "Decrease sail" button on the top of the screen, and see if can you get to a speed of 2 knots to the east?  This was what the log reported for Saturday afternoon, and if the model is accurate and the logbook speed is accurate, this might provide information on how much sail they had up, and if in fact they could have sailed to the east. 

Discussion forum. 

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USNA Blackboard

• Surprise simulator

Last revision 4/13/2011