The Brilliant Engineering | USS Constitution vs Guerriere

⚓ At five minutes before six on 19 August 1812, the USS Constitution came alongside HMS Guerriere within half a pistol-shot. Thirty-one minutes later the British frigate had lost all three masts. The Constitution counted 14 casualties, and her hull was whole. This is the engineering story of the frigate the world calls Old Ironsides, told through her fight with the Guerriere. Working from Joshua Humphreys' timber sheet of August 1794, Falconer's dictionary of 1769, Isaac Hull's reports and Douglas on naval gunnery, we follow a chain of problems in which every fix created the next one: a long hull that bends, a heavy side, scarce live oak, a launch that stuck and timber that rots. The Constitution's two feet of oak were a margin, and a margin is something less than armour. The Guerriere was beaten partly by her own spoiled powder, her rotten breechings and a mainmast with a rotten heart. A month earlier, in a flat calm, her crew saved her. 🔧 Inside this video: • Humphreys' 44: 174 ft 10 in on the gun deck, one inch short of a 90-gun ship • Keel, floor timbers and futtocks, read from the 1794 sheet • Riders and keelson: how a long hull was kept from breaking its back • A side about two feet thick, built in three layers of oak • The 1797 launch that stopped twice, and the inch and five eighths behind it • The July 1812 escape: kedging in 26 fathoms, 2,335 gallons pumped out, the squall • Spoiled powder, rotten breechings and Dacres' court martial • The "sides made of iron" story, and what the sources actually contain • How much of the 1797 ship survives: 8 to 12 percent by the Navy's count Salt & Oak takes one object apart like this every week, built from primary sources and arithmetic. Subscribe if that is your kind of naval history. ⚓ Which mattered more on 19 August 1812, the Constitution's two-foot side or the Guerriere's spoiled powder? Make your case in the comments and bring your source. #USSConstitution #WarOf1812 #NavalHistory #AgeOfSail #OldIronsides #MaritimeHistory #SaltAndOak 00:00 Half a Pistol-Shot 01:10 A Frigate Seen as a Ship of the Line 02:30 One Sheet of Paper, August 1794 05:06 Keel, Floors and Futtocks 06:20 Live Oak and a Builder's Complaint 08:49 Problem One: The Broken Back 10:16 Problem Two: Two Feet of Oak 11:08 Problem Three: Scarce Timber 11:54 Problem Four: The Launch That Stuck 13:18 Problem Five: Rot 14:22 Seven Sails and a Kedge Anchor 17:13 The Squall 19:42 An Hour of Manoeuvre 21:02 Spoiled Powder, Rotten Masts 22:38 The Old Ironsides Legend 24:09 How Much of 1797 Survives 25:36 Outro