Check out the large selection of the digitized holdings of the Great Britain’s Royal Maritime Museum.
A notable feature of the site is its holdings of ship hull plans, which go back well into the early 1700s. A great many of the ships included served in North American waters during the colonial and Revolutionary War periods, as well as the War of 1812. If you type the name of a ship with “plan”, you’ll see the available ship’s plans for the vessel.
The plans are mostly of British-built vessels, so plans of foreign warships seized as prizes and taken into the Royal Navy do not usually appear. Plans may include profiles; bow and stern views; and deck plans. Masts and rigging are omitted, but they would have been more or less standard, so the hulls would have been more unique or distinguishable.
Other treasures include portraits, maps, photographs, paintings, and more visual materials. Included are many subjects related to the history of the U.S. and Canada.
By David A. Norris, Internet Genealogy author
