Amphion
1778
1:60
In the summer of 1778, a royal Swedish yacht Amphion raised its first sail. The ship was built by a ship’s architekt F. H. Chappman and it was powered by oars and sails. A type of sail as on a brigantine rig was used there. It was armed by only eight small salutation cannons.
The interior of this ship is very itneresting. On the stern, there are two royal apartments and a big cabin which was used as a audience room and a wardroom. The stern is preserved in a museum in Stockholm. Above the audience room, there is an oval skylight. Also on the stern, you can see a gilded head with sun rays with a monogram of Gustav III. Gilded carvings under and above the stern windows are in rococo style. The figurehead on the bow represents Amphion, who was the son of Zeus – the bearer and spreader of culture with his lyre.
King Gustav III used Amphion as a comand ship in some navy battles, for example between the years 1788 – 90 and also during battles near Fridrikham Biborg and Svenskund. Amphion was used as the flagship of the fleet till the year 1850, then it became an accommodation ship and from the year 1938, the stern of Amphion is placed in a new building of a navy museum in Stockholm.
I started to build this model in the year 2016 but unfortunately, in the museum there were not so good plans available. So I decided to reconstruct the old plans, to create new plans and the old ones rewrite in a way, that it will be possible to build a quality model based on them.
At the end, I would like to write that an Italian copany Corell published plans of Amphion but it is a totally different ship. It is more like a Swedish yacht Fröja. I reconstructed this ship and plans for it according to a historical literature and accessible sources.
I used the same colour scheme which is on the model in the Stockholm museum. It means that the ship is grey-white under draught, the hull is ochre and the deck houses are blue. Frames of windows are white and decorations are gold.
I used following historical sources:
- D. G. Harris - F. H. Chapman, The First Naval Architect and his Work
- K. H. Marquardt - The global schooner
- K. H. Marquardt - Schoner in Nord und Süd
- K. H. Marquardt - Bemastung und Takelung von Schiffen des 18. Jahrhunderts
- L. Peterson - Rigging: Period Fore-and-Aft Craft
- W. zu Mondfeld - Historic Ship Models
- R. McCarthy - Building - Plank - on - Frame Ship Models
- O. Curti - Schiffsmodellbau
- Historic documents - Sjöhistoriska Museum, Stockholm
Photos and an example of the plan:
