3D Ship Reconstruction

Within the three-year Project “From the North Sea to the Norwegian Sea – interdisciplinary research on the Hanse”, founded by the German Leibniz-Association at the German Maritime Museum, questions were raised on the seaworthiness of ships of the Bremen-Type. The main object of the resulting research was the Late Medieval Bremen-Cog from 1378/79, which was found in 1962 in the river Weser close to Bremen and is today on display at the museum in Bremerhaven.
In order to evaluate the complex concepts of sea-keeping and oceangoing, a reliable hull form, as well as accurate construction details are required. Establishing the vessels overall hydrostatic characteristics, static and dynamic stability, and overall sailing abilities, requires detailed calculations using the centres of buoyancy, flotation and gravity.
This goal of the project was to examine the current form of the vessel on display, as well as attempting to distill several apparently conflicting data sets into a valid hypothetical reconstruction to be used as the basis for detailed hydrodynamic and sea-keeping analysis.

Within the three-year Project “From the North Sea to the Norwegian Sea – interdisciplinary research on the Hanse”, founded by the German Leibniz-Association at the German Maritime Museum, questions were raised on the seaworthiness of ships of the Bremen-Type. The main object of the resulting research was the Late Medieval Bremen-Cog from 1378/79, which was found in 1962 in the river Weser close to Bremen and is today on display at the museum in Bremerhaven.
It soon became clear that the shape of the Bremen Cog, as it currently stands, on display in the museum’s ship hall, is not a true representation of the hull shape but has suffered several periods of distortion. Consequently, a decision was made to attempt to examine the current overall hull shape and compare that to the available data sets.

Oared warships dominated the Mediterranean from the Bronze Age down to the development of cannon. Purpose-built warships were specifically designed to withstand the stresses of ramming tactics and high intensity impacts. Propelled by the oars of skilled rowing crews, squadrons of these ships could work in unison to outmaneuver and attack enemy ships. In 241 B.C. off the northwestern coast of Sicily, a Roman fleet of fast ramming warships intercepted a Carthaginian warship convoy attempting to relieve Hamilcar Barca’s besieged troops atop Mount Eryx (modern day Erice). The ensuing naval battle led to the ultimate defeat of the Carthaginian forces and an end to the First Punic War (264–241 B.C.). Over the course of the past 12 years, the Egadi Islands Archaeological Site has been under investigation producing new insights into the warships that once patrolled the wine dark sea. The ongoing archaeological investigation has located Carthaginian helmets, hundreds of amphora, and 11 rams that sank during the course of the battle. This research uses the recovered Egadi 10 ram to attempt a conjectural reconstruction of a warship that took part in the battle. It analyzes historical accounts of naval engagements during the First Punic War in order to produce a narrative of warship innovation throughout the course of the war. It employs experimental three-dimensional reconstructions in the Rhinoceros and Orca 3D software based on archaeological evidence in order to determine basic hull dimensions and fundamental characteristics of the Egadi 10 warship’s design. Finally, it compares the resulting reconstruction to Polybius’ accounts of the warships that sank at the site.

This project is a complete re-examination of the Graveney ship find from England. The impact this archaeological find has had on the literature from the past 40 years was tracked and analysed, and the select pieces of the original archive were digitised and examined in the CAD modelling program Rhinoceros 3D. The methods of the original documentation of the ship are reviewed along with the use of 3D documentation in the analysis of archaeological archives. A product of this research is a proposal and stability analysis of an alternative hypothetical reconstruction of the archaeological vessel.


Dette projekt er en komplet fornyet gennemgang af Graveney skibsfundet fra England. Virkningen dette arkaeologiske fund har haft på den arkaeologiske litteratur de sidste 40 år er blev sporet og analyseret, og udvalgte stykker af det oprindelige arkiv er blevet digitaliseret og undersøgt i CAD modelleringsprogrammet Rhinoceros 3D. Metoderne brugt til den oprindelige dokumentation af skibet gennemgås sammen med brugen af 3D-dokumentation til analyse af arkaeologiske arkiver. Et produkt af denne forskning er et forslag til og en stabilitets-analyse af en alternativ hypotetisk rekonstruktion af det arkaeologiske fartøj

"The Kyrenia ship sank during the last decade of the fourth century B.C. near the town Kyrenia on the North coast of Cyprus, probably the victim of an attacked by pirates. It was discovered about 1 km offshore at a depth of 30 m, and it was excavated in 1968 and 1969 by a team of nautical archaeologists under the direction of Michael L. Katzev. More then half of the hull had survived in relatively good condition and those timbers represented at least 75% of the original structure. After extensive seabed recording, the wood was raised, preserved in polyethylene glycol, and reassembled in Kyrenia's Crusader Castle, where it is displayed with cargo and artifacts from the wreck."

STEFFY, J. R. (1994). Wooden ship building and the interpretation of shipwrecks. College Station, Texas A & M University Press, page 42-55.

The aim of this chapter is to re-examine the characteristics and suggested reconstruction of the Poole Iron Age logboat discovered in Poole Harbour, Dorset in 1964. The logboat was first examined in detail by Professor Seán McGrail in 1974, when a series of hull form characteristics and reconstruction drawings was published.
A series of measurements and photographs were recorded shortly after discovery in 1964. Subsequent measurements are given on a Poole Museum leaflet published in 1973 in addition to the recording carried out by McGrail in August 1974.
Since the initial publication, advances in recording techniques such as 3D laser scanning, advanced 3D digital modelling, allows the creation of a more definitive reconstruction model. This model, together with computer-aided digital analysis of varying hypothetical reconstructions and the ability to test previous results, allows, through an iterative process, a more definitive, synthetic reconstruction to be proposed.

The necessities of representing complex three-dimensional shapes on two dimensional surfaces such as paper led to the development of a set of conventions for drawing in which the object is represented as a series of intersecting views, traditional ‚top down' or plan, side and front orthographic views typically perpendicular to each other. Usually in the case of regular box-shaped objects such as buildings, these are parallel to the surface they represent and often supplemented with slices or sections through the object. Documenting ship timbers has traditionally followed these principles, using sketches with dimensioned annotations to enable the later production of scaled plan-elevation-side view orthographic drawings, 1:1 contact tracings on clear plastic to produce developed surface style drawings or elevated plane (projection-by-eye) tracing to create full size plan-elevation-side view orthographic drawings. However, are the resultant reconstructions valid simply because the drawings produce sweet curves or nicely faired hull lines? Coates (1995) discussed the need to produce one or more hypothetical, fully functional reconstructions, which have to be tested to be tenable. This paper presents a methodology in which the hypothetical reconstruction is digitally modelled and analysed in three dimensional space at full size scale. At the very least, this approach will reduce or completely remove any potential scaling, transcription, or draughting errors, and the subsequent naval hydrostatic testing should lead to a more definitive hypothetical reconstruction.

Hull lines are not only a representation or a designing tool for ships, but also the fundamental analyzing tool for Ship Reconstruction of any types of shipwrecks including ancient ships.

Recommended Drawing Order (by the author)
1. Baselines on the sheer, the h-b (half-breadth), and the body plans
2. A keel and posts on the sheer and the body plans
3. Sheer lines on the h-b and the sheer plans
4. Section lines on the sheer and the h-b plans
5. Midship section on the body plan
6. Sheer lines on the body plan
7. Waterlines on the sheer and the body plan
8. Tentative section lines on the body plan
9. Tentative waterlines on the h-b plan
10. Fix the h-b plan’s waterlines
11. Fix the body plan’s waterlines
12. Buttock lines on the body and the h-b plans
13. Buttock lines on the sheer plan
14. Fix section lines on the body plan if needed
15. Diagonal lines on the body plan
16. Diagonal lines on the h-b plan

Hull lines are not only a representation or a designing tool for ships, but also the fundamental analyzing tool for Ship Reconstruction.


Recommended Drawing Order
1. Baselines on the sheer, the h-b (half-breadth), and the body plans
2. A keel and posts on the sheer and the body plans
3. Sheer lines on the h-b and the sheer plans
4. Section lines on the sheer and the h-b plans
5. Midship section on the body plan
6. Sheer lines on the body plan
7. Transom lines on the body plan
8. Transom lines on the h-b plan
9. Waterlines on the sheer and the body plan
10. Tentative section lines on the body plan
11. Tentative waterlines on the h-b plan
12. Fix the h-b plan’s waterlines
13. Fix the body plan’s waterlines
14. Buttock lines on the body and the h-b plans
15. Buttock lines on the sheer plan
16. Fix section lines on the body plan if needed
17. Diagonal lines on the body plan
18. Diagonal lines on the h-b plan
19. Deck lines on the sheer, the body, and h-b plans

During three seasons of fieldwork, the Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project (BSMAP) documented more than 60 shipwrecks, spanning the last 2500 years of seafaring history. Among the finds was BSMAP_2016_STR_WRK_002, a vessel dated to the end of the 9 th or beginning of the 10 th century AD. This paper offers a preliminary description of the find.

A new investigation has been carried out on the Isola delle Correnti shipwreck by the multidisciplinary team managed by Prof. Beltrame, in addition to the previous investigations already carried out on the shipwrecks of Punta Scifo, Marzamemi and Capo Granitola.

This PowerPoint Presentation was prepared for Kotaro Yamafune's public presentation at his doctoral dissertation defense (December 17th, 2015).

He is currently preparing series of articles based on this doctoral research.

If you are interested in reading his unpublished manuscript of this dissertation, please feel free to contact,

koutarou_yamafune_0321@yahoo.co.jp