I'm a relative of Jesse Fearson, who was a American Privateer during the Am. Rev. and american- French Quasi-War. Not sure if he retired to Baltimore from privateering before the war of 1812. (Also his sister-in-law was Mary Pickersgill who made the 'Star Spangled Banner which flew over Ft. McHenry.).
Anyway, I found three ships that he commanded as an American Privateer, the sloop-of-war, Buccaneer, a cutter(?), William and another cutter the Eagle. Also found a mention of one of his schooners being captured by Spanish Privateers working for France..
My father and I thought it would be cool to be able to find the plans for one of these ships (especially the Buccaneer) and to be able to make a model from them. Anyone have any resources where I can find out more about these ships, or if there are any drawings or images of what they would look like?
My research is in 1790-1820 shipbuilding industry in Salem, MA, so I'll throw a bit out there.
First, ship plans most likely do not exist on paper. Master shipwrights of the time generally built a model of their intended ship in order to understand the lines they were going for, and any plans were generally just loosely jotted notes. The shipwright would be on site and micromanaged nearly the entire project (a good shipwright hand picked every piece of wood in a ship) until completion. As such, only he needed to know everything.
Some of the larger naval ships would have plans, such as the Constitution, but to my knowledge most of the early naval blueprints were destroyed in the War of 1812. The closest you may get is a painting, or if you're very lucky a model which can be reverse engineered (this is what the National Park Service did for the Friendship of Salem).
If you're able to locate the builders of those ships, you can search other vessels of similiar time/design and try to find more on dimensions or paintings - but no two vessels, even when made from similiar plans/models, were identical. Available materials, laborers, innovations, and other things of the sort would impact the choices made in construction.
Later tonight I'll take a look at some of the vessel listings I have easy access to and see what if anything I can find out for you.