Landlubber Mike

Hey Ron, thanks for the note.  Sorry to not get back to you sooner, I read your note at work and we aren't supposed to post on message boards from our government computers, so figured I would wait until I got home.

Your Swan is incredible.  The sea is one of the best I've seen, amazing!  You make me want to scrap my Pegasus!  I know that people have differing opinions on adding sails to a build, but to me, sails (plus in your case, the sea) really bring the model to life.

Amati hit a home run with these kits.  The subject really hits the sweet spot in terms of size, detail, and ornamentation, not to mention the kit components.  And the fact that there are such detailed plans available from the NMM helps with the authenticity factor to the extent people think that is important.  I have the Pegasus plans from the NMM and Amati was consistent in all respects except for a few minor simplifications - I forget the terms of the parts, but on the Pegasus plans the cross bar on one of the rear bitts faces aft, and one set of bitts goes through the gratings (Amati moved the gratings slightly to avoid builders having to do this).

Completely get your thoughts on it being a "warship" - I'm building the Charles Morgan, and think that the whalers are really interesting subjects with a lot of history and cool detail (plus you don't have to rig cannons with 2mm blocks).  At the same time, I certainly wouldn't condone their purpose.  I would just say that as model builders, we aren't celebrating the use of these ships (whether for war, whaling, carrying slaves, etc.), but just representing subjects that at one time played an important part in history.

Glad you decided to build the kit!   To me, it's the best model I've seen out there on the Swan class, and that's saying a lot with some of the heavy hitters that have built ships of this class.

Mike

Thanks Frank - hope you are doing well my friend