Moonbug

Lawrence,

   Thanks very much for the visit and the kind words. Much appreciated.

- Bug

Jean-Pierre,

   Thanks so much for stopping by my build, and I appreciate the insight!  It's always a pleasure to chat with a fellow enthusiast of this time period. As you know, it's quite a challenge weeding through the varying opinions and speculation regarding the Santa Maria. Particularly because Columbus himself has such disdain for her that he didn't write of her nearly at all, preferring the sleek caravels much more.

   I do in fact have Mondfeld's book, which I adore, as it is one of the most comprehensive sources of information regarding the differences in centuries. That probably explains much of the similarity! ;-)  

   When I was in the early stage of planning out the Santa Maria, it became clear to me that I would have to make some tough choices regarding which author to pay attention to, and which direction to go as a result. And you are absolutely correct, most of these gents present evidence solely to support their own opinion. While you are obviously correct regarding most carracks and their three masts, Xavier Pastor's version in his book "The Ships of Christopher Columbus" shows the SM as a Nao with the bowsprit and spritsail added.  In Mondfeld's book he does explain (p.226) that the bowsprit first started to appear as early as the 13th century, and later in the book he shows a Flemish carrack from about 1480 that shows a bowsprit, although it is not rigged with the spritsail itself. After going back and forth quite a bit, trying to find any documentation on ships built in the 1400's, and looking at every photo I could find of the Mataro, I decided to go with the extra mast. Particuarly because of the ambiguous nature of the Santa Maria's origins and even where she was built before she was purchased from Columbus.

Thanks again, input and viewpoints are always welcome and I hope you enjoy the build. Incidentally, I am supremely jealous that you've had a chance to inspect the Mataro in person, what a wonderful opportunity!

By the way marktime and Mark, had I remembered to pay attention to Mondfeld's book I wouldn't have had my little belaying pin gaff!

- Bug

Thanks Marktime!   Whoa indeed... I just got "Vanguard" a few days ago, and the info on page 112 was what made me realize my error in first creating the mainmast rail with belaying pins (which has since been corrected). Wish I had the book from the start to marry with Pastors!

I went back and looked at your SM, and saw how you lashed the rope to the knighthead.  

Oh, the halliard is the block between the knighthead at the yard that the rope ran through after it passed through the sheaves in the knighthead.

- Bug

So working on the cleats and rails has led to this...

First, I made a quick replacement / fix to the rail at the mainmast to remove the belaying pins that didn't exist for another hundred years or so...  That would have been a giant blemish to try as hard as I have to maintain some authenticity only to have a blunder thats off by a century.  Doh.  

But then, since the cleats and rails that I'm installing obviously don't match the giant metal cleats and fixtures that are illustrated in the AL diagrams, I needed to go through and do a comparison between Pastor's rigging plans and the AL rigging plans.  What I discovered, is that the AL rigging plans are actually pretty darn accurate!  The major difference is the lack of tacks and sheets, and of course the locations of where the rigging is tied off onto the deck. 

With that knowledge in hand, I began redrawing a mockup of the deck to include an accurate representation of where my deck fixtures (bombards, pumps, ladders, etc.) are located, then plug in all of my cleats and rails. I can then re-accomplish AL's version of rigging placement and have my own, more accurate version. 

Here's a problem that I can use help with if anyone knows - Nothing I an find in either Pastor's book, or Smiths "Vanguard of Empire" book tells me where the lines off the Knight and Halliard are rigged. My best guess is that it would have been to the rail at the base of the mizzen, but that would take the lines directly over the hatch - which seems unlikely.  Thoughts??

Very nice work!

-Bug

Hey Bob, I've got a whole pile of broken drill bits I still use!

-Bug

Hah Sjors! Easier said than done. My lovely wife now insists that I have to have a plan for what to do with the completed ship before I can start it. And I still owe her the Artesania Latina stagecoach that she got for Christmas last year.

I might just go the route of the "double build" soon though like many of you guys.

-Bug

Hey Mark, thanks for stopping by. Following your scratch builds always provides great little tips for builds. Nice work on the Licorne.

Thanks for the info on the pins. The good news is, by the time I got my recent book and discovered the time frame of when pins came into play on caravels and naos (well after the SM obviously) I had only errantly built the mainmast rail with pins. So that's the only one I need to fix. However I still need to figure out HOW the ropes were tied to the rails at that time and how the excess rope may have been stowed against the line or on the the deck.

-Bug

Nice work Sjors,

Except you all are making it very difficult for me to decide what my next build is going to be. :-/

-Bug

Watching all of this between you and mobbsie and Lawrence makes me want to hurry up and finish my Santa Maria so I can build another 18th century vessel!

-Bug

Thanks Jason!

-Bug

Thanks Nigel and Lawrence I appreciate the comments.

Today felt like a day where I did a lot of work but got very little accomplished. I did quite a bit of reading but still haven't discovered a solid infor on belaying to the bulwarks. No worries, I'll press on with my best instincts.

I applied a couple cleats and some rails to the poop deck. Which turned out to be a much bigger challenge than I thought - I had to make sure I mounted them while still having enough room left to "open" my poop deck so that the captain's cabin can be seen. Pretty narrow window there. We'll see if it holds up later when the rigging goes up. I'll post some photos when I get a little more done and get a chance.

-Bug

Awesome, the copy of "Vanguard of Empires: Ships of Exploration in the Age of Columbus" I requested showed up at the library already!  

My lovely wife couldn't help but make fun of me of course - noting that this was likely the first time the Librarian every needed to notify anyone of this book.  This was compounded by the fact that the last time it was checked out was apparently in November of 1998.

Nonetheless... let the research commence!  Thanks again for the tip Marktime!

- Bug

Awesome, looking forward to the photos.

- Bug

Hey Sjors, nice work. What's your reference for being able to tell what will be visible and what to plank on the lower deck?

-Bug

Great work Augie, looking good!

-Bug

Thanks guys. Can't wait to see your aporoach Grant.

-Bug

Nice work Vivian. How did you add the cross? Was it already on the sail?

-Bug

Time for cleats.  After a couple failed attempts at making wooden cleats for the bulwarks, I finally came across this entry from Floyd:

http://modelshipworld.com/index.php?/topic/1906-wooden-cleats/

which of course made me feel silly for not looking here in MSW first.  Doh.

At any rate, I used a very similar process starting with a 3mm X 2mm strip, measuring off every 10mm for the width of the cleat I needed. I used a 10mm dremel grinder for the bottom of the cleat and a 3mm to 7mm conical shaped grinder for the top.

I then sanded and rounded the edges with 400 grit sand paper. I did this BEFORE I cut them apart since sanding any kind of small piece is much easier for me if it's still on a stem.

After cutting the cleats apart I rounded the edges.

Hey Wolf - I'm telling you right now that although I'll need to alter the shape a bit to fit my Santa Maria's time frame - I'm totally stealing your techniques for my second life boat.  Nice work!

- Bug

The church model is the mataro found here: http://www.maritiemmuseum.nl/digitent/mataro/online/eng_mataronline.pdf which proved to be pretty helpful for me when constructing the head beam and prow of the ship. 

The Artesenia Latina plans and inclusions are pretty weak also. I completely abandoned the plans early and have since relied very heavily on Xavier Pastor's book "The ships of Christopher Columbus" as well as some other research. 

I just ordered the book "Vanguard of Empire - Ships of Exploration in the Age of Columbus"  Roger C. Smith to be delivered to my library, as pointed out to me by marktime.

- Bug

Very cool. Man, I see so many of those proxxon's...  Drat, my next birthday is too far away.  hehe

- Bug

Love the sheaves!   I gave it a go with a working sheave, but ended up having to bail on the idea and went with "simulated" because I just couldn't get it to work. Congrats!

- Bug

Yes of course - and regarding the entire ship. I didn't realize how little actual information there was, and how much conjecture there was before I started this build. I assumed such a famous vessel would be easy to reference. But alas, no. That has turned the project into a fun history lesson,  a very interesting challenge in trying to balance historical accuracy with aesthetics, and of course a fun build.  There's a lot of "yeah, that could have been right" as opposed to the "that's the way it was" builds like the HMS vessels of later centuries.

- Bug

Isn't peer pressure fun?!  ~

- Bug