They Did Build Them Pretty....

[Minimalist]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/2 ... NTCMP=SRCH

[kbs2244]

The Brits, yes.
They did seem to have some background in keeping them practical.
The French, and especially the Spanish, seemed to often want to make them more floating palaces than practical warships.
The tall, fancy, aft Officer Quarters made them top heavy.
Not a good trait when a 2 or 3 level broadside was fired.
You could tip yourself over.
I have forgotten the name and date, but the Brits seem to have made that mistake only once in warship design.

[Minimalist]

The Mary Rose.

[kbs2244]

You may be right.
I do remember that it sank while the King watched.
I remembered it at the launch though.

From all reports, the Mary Rose sinking was due to a lack of training or discipline, not design.

[Digit]

Apparently the ship was on a 'fly past' with all gun ports open, including the lower ones, which normally housed the heavier weapons. As she heeled into a turn water flooded into through the ports. The gun decks were open from end to end.
Gun ports, when not in use, were normally sealed shut by caulking.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

As with most things it takes a combination of screw-ups to lead to a real catastrophe. After my original post I read that another factor in the Mary Rose capsizing was that she had been extensively modified mainly by adding more and better guns. The problem here of course is that the added weight caused her to displace more water and therefore reduce her freeboard level. So you have a ship sitting lower in the water, making a turn with her gun ports open. There was also some suggestion that the crew may have failed to obey orders to close the gun ports quickly enough. They were also in the middle of a fight and the French might have killed/wounded the officer who was supposed to give the order to close the ports. There's no way to know.

Anything less than all of those events happening and the ship probably does not sink.