Charles Royal Yacht, 1674 - 1/64 kit by catopower

The Charles Royal Yacht is a 1/64-scale wooden kit produced by the Japanese wooden kit manufacturer Woody Joe. They are known for producing kits of Japanese castles and temples, but they also produce quite a few wooden ship model kits, a few of them of Japanese subjects, but many of western subjects as well, as is the case with this model.

The kit was developed with the assistance of the late Mr. Kazunobu Shirai, who was a former president of the Japanese ship model society The Rope Tokyo. It is something of a model of a model, and appears to be based on one of the collection of the Royal Museums Greenwich. It's not an exact replica and takes a few liberties in the design.

I wrote up a kit review in the old Ships in Scale magazine many years ago, and finally got around to building the model. Among the changes from the original kit, I added a few windows, painted the upper sides red instead of black, and replaced the large gryphon figurehead with a smaller and simpler lion. I also planked the deck using my own supply of boxwood, though the rest of the model is primarily planked using the kit supplied Hinoki, or Japanese cypress. Because of the light color of this wood, it was necessary to stain it to get the desired finish.

Rigging line is mostly from Ropes of Scale, and the blocks are mostly older stock from Syren Ship Model Company. I also swapped in some cannon barrels that I preferred to use, though I can't recall the source, and I made my own set of sails. 

This has been a fun build, and not terribly difficult. I can see why The Rope Tokyo uses this kit for its beginner workshops.