Sadly ‘yes’ Mike, I have definitely looked into 1797 ships.
I have owned and logged 40 different varieties of 1797 ships paired with 10-leaf obverses, and a further 7 different ships paired with the 11-leaf obverse.
I have taken digital microscope pictures, all to exactly the same scale (65x), for comparison. I have now sold all but 4 examples retained in my collection.
Apart from the number of gun port differences there are also many distinct differences in positioning of flag, bowsprit, platform, sails and rigging, also size of ships, roughness of sea and angle of ship in the sea.
I attach 8 examples to demonstrate some of the differences I found, reduced in size to meet the site 500Kb limit.
Hope this helps!