el cid

Not to stray too far, but Daniel asks “I mean, really, who mans a capstan in their dress blues?”
 
I’m a bit young to have served during the period when manual capstans were used, but at least in the US Navy in the 1970s and ‘80s, dress uniforms were common for topside sea and anchor detail personnel when entering or leaving ports not your home port or your home port when leaving or returning from deployment. This included the line handlers and anchor detail and was a major PITA when dress whites were prescribed. We usually kept two sets of whites, one specifically for sea and anchor detail.
 
Cheers,
 
Keith

This is pure conjecture, but I believe there is a rational basis for which running rigging is left aloft and which is not when sails are "sent down," rather than an "up for grabs" "to each his own" decision. The "proper" arrangement of running rigging when sails are absent comes apparent, it seems, when we contemplate the operation of a full-sized vessel. Whatever is aloft has to be carried or hauled aloft and once aloft, isn't likely to be "sent down" if it doesn't need to be. Consider a square sail which which is to be repaired and reworked in port and so is "sent down." The sail is furled and tied off in stops and then lowered to the deck in the form of a "sausage." When it's returned from the sailmaker's loft, it's hauled aloft as a 'sausage" again and the head is secured to the yard. It makes sense that a sheet, for example, would be left aloft by tying a figure-eight knot in the bitter end and letting it stop in the block, running the fall to the belaying pin below. There would be no need to sending down the sheets, buntlines, brails, and so on when the sail was sent down. They all could be easily reattached when the sail was sent back up. Cordage, particularly wet cordage, can get heavy in a hurry, so it's going to be left aloft unless it has to be sent down for some particular reason. Similarly, for example, a headsail would be lowered and removed and it would make no sense at all to do anything with the halyard but to tie the hoisting end off at the foot of the stay and the fall at the pinrail.  On the other hand, It wouldn't be shipshape to leave the jib sheets laying about the deck if the jib was gone. The sheets would be coiled up and stowed on the rail or wherever was convenient. It's all about reducing the work aloft to the minimum amount necessary.
 
If one keeps this in mind, what running rigging stays aloft when there are no sails bent on becomes a fairly logical determination. No? 

North Link Ferry 'Hrossey' passing The Old Man of Hoy. We sailed to and returned from Shetland aboard this ship a few weeks ago. W/C 16.5” X 11..74”
 

Done yesterday and this afternoon , based on HMCS Montreal and HMCS Skeena 16.5” X 11.75”

HMS Gentian

Form follows function.  With all of that reinforcement, that must be somehow associated with mooring lines or anchor handling.  It’s too small for a gunport.

William,
 
Good to hear from you.
 
I don't know where I will go with the project either. My intent was to create a complete set of 2D drawings that modelers could use. This turned out to be a massive undertaking - a side profile drawing takes 5-6 days to generate from the 3D model (on a 4.7GHz i7 machine with 32 Gbytes of the fastest RAM I could buy, running 24/7)! Then it will take a week or two to clean up the drawings and scale them for plotting.
 
I wanted to build a 1:96 scale model, and the hull is partially completed. 3D printing has come a long way since I started the project in 2004, and I am considering converting many of the files to printing files. But there will be a pretty good learning curve and I don't know when I will start that. First I must build a workshop to house the tools and the model. Who knows when/if that will happen!
 
Converting the 1 Gbyte of files to a new format for Flight Simulator is not something i am interested in doing.

Moving Right Along, 117 hours
 

Here is everything stacked up so far. It seemed like this was going pretty fast but then I looked at how many white metal pieces are left ...
 

And here's my dog Loki admiring my work.

The crew’s mess was all the way forward. On the early Flowers, before the focsle deck was extended back to the pilot house and enclosed below, the only access to this berthing/messing compartment was via the exposed foredeck. I seem to recall Nicholas Monserrat (sp?) touching on this “inconvenience” in “The Cruel Sea” or “Three Corvettes,” both highly recommended if you haven’t already read.
 
Cheers,
 
Keith

George,
 
This is a little late, but I will post it for your information. Here are photos of a sliding hatch on the Lady Washington. This type hatchway was/is very common. The part under where the hatch slides back isn't wasted space - it is headroom as you descend the ladder.
 

 

 
 
The top is not always sloping. On some vessels it is parallel to the deck.
 
 

The crew’s mess was all the way forward. On the early Flowers, before the focsle deck was extended back to the pilot house and enclosed below, the only access to this berthing/messing compartment was via the exposed foredeck. I seem to recall Nicholas Monserrat (sp?) touching on this “inconvenience” in “The Cruel Sea” or “Three Corvettes,” both highly recommended if you haven’t already read.
 
Cheers,
 
Keith

The crew’s mess was all the way forward. On the early Flowers, before the focsle deck was extended back to the pilot house and enclosed below, the only access to this berthing/messing compartment was via the exposed foredeck. I seem to recall Nicholas Monserrat (sp?) touching on this “inconvenience” in “The Cruel Sea” or “Three Corvettes,” both highly recommended if you haven’t already read.
 
Cheers,
 
Keith

The crew’s mess was all the way forward. On the early Flowers, before the focsle deck was extended back to the pilot house and enclosed below, the only access to this berthing/messing compartment was via the exposed foredeck. I seem to recall Nicholas Monserrat (sp?) touching on this “inconvenience” in “The Cruel Sea” or “Three Corvettes,” both highly recommended if you haven’t already read.
 
Cheers,
 
Keith

The crew’s mess was all the way forward. On the early Flowers, before the focsle deck was extended back to the pilot house and enclosed below, the only access to this berthing/messing compartment was via the exposed foredeck. I seem to recall Nicholas Monserrat (sp?) touching on this “inconvenience” in “The Cruel Sea” or “Three Corvettes,” both highly recommended if you haven’t already read.
 
Cheers,
 
Keith

The crew’s mess was all the way forward. On the early Flowers, before the focsle deck was extended back to the pilot house and enclosed below, the only access to this berthing/messing compartment was via the exposed foredeck. I seem to recall Nicholas Monserrat (sp?) touching on this “inconvenience” in “The Cruel Sea” or “Three Corvettes,” both highly recommended if you haven’t already read.
 
Cheers,
 
Keith

Imagna,
 
Thank you for pointing this suggestion. It made me look into it and I realized that in fact, this little cabin is the "Galley" !!! The long and bent pipe exiting from it, is the Galley funnel, which supposedly had multiple access to remove the soot due to the cooking. I am modifying my previous post to reflect this change.
 
Yves

well i finished it
 
an enjoyable build
kit quality 10/10
my effort 3/10
paints rattle can
glue was pva and medium C/A
sort furnishings by the wife, thank you
 
thank you for following, i have another ready to go on the build table

A quick update on the hull and decks: 
 

 
Hull has been puttied and primed. There will be more sanding, before the first coat of paint.
 

 

 
Also working on the printing of the deck sections. Following are a few excerpts from the instructions manual: 
 

 

 

 

 
And the printed parts:  
 

 

 

 
Yves

In modern US ships the number of treads in a ladder (vertical or angled) depends upon the vertical length. This is divided to give a number of equal spaces between the treads (top of treads) somewhere around a foot (12 inches). This can vary between about 10" to 13" between treads, with the bottom tread on vertical ladders as much as 18" above the deck. Angled ladders tend to have the same spacing from the deck to the top of the lowest tread as the rest of the treads. Blueprints usually don't actually give the spacing, but just give the height of the bottom step from the deck and the distance from the top step to the deck above, and show some number of treads and say "Equal Spacing." The rest is left up to the shipyard.
 
I suspect ladders have always been made this way. You have a space to fill with steps and you want them spaced in a reasonably familiar way. The fact that the spacing differs from ladder to ladder doesn't matter. Take my word for it - I climbed all over ships at sea with varying tread spacing and never had a problem missing steps. But it is important for the spacing to be equal on a given ladder. Also, the lowest tread should not be too close to the deck - that can cause tripping. And the top tread should be about the same spacing below the upper deck as the tread spacing in the ladder, but often is shorter if necessary to get appropriate spacing between the other treads.  You don't have trouble finding the deck above the ladder when climbing - it is wherever your foot lands. - again, I speak from experience!
 
Well, if you are climbing a ladder in the bow while the ship is pitching in high seas you may find yourself catapulted into the air just as you reach the top step with the ship dropping out from under you and then have momentary difficulty finding the deck, but gravity quickly remedies that!

I have been looking for more information about the historical use of the jib stay traveller. Every book I have looked at mentions the traveller, but most stop there.
 
Darcy Lever's 1808 "The Young Sea Officer's Sheet Anchor" is an excellent period source about rigging and sailing.
 
In the ship handling part of the book in Section 84 "Taking in the Jib, &c." lever describes lowering the jib to the bowsprit to reduce wind effect on the bow that is making it difficult to keep the ship on course. "... when it is close down on the Boom, if the wind be likely to encrease, the Stay or Out-hauler ... is let go: it [the sail on the traveller] is hauled in close to the Bowsprit Cap and stowed away ..."
 
So the traveller was used to bring the jib tack back to the bowsprit cap when the sail was to be stowed.
 
However, there are also references implying that the traveller may not always have been positioned all the way forward, perhaps as Ian Grant said, to change the effect of the wind force on the sail. Lever discusses the effects of wind force on sails forward and aft of the center of gravity that cause the ship to change course into the wind (griping), and methods to reduce these forces to allow the ship to be steered without using the rudder (which increases drag when it is turned off midships). However, he does not mention reducing the fore sails for this purpose, but does describe raising and lowering them when turning the ship to allow the fore sails or mizzen sails to bring the ship about.
 
In Section 60 "JIB, &c." Lever discusses the inner martingale stay that is attached to the traveller to generate a downward force to counter the lifting force of the jib stay. "Many vessels have only the outer Maringale-Stay; but the inner one is very serviceable when the Jib is a third, or half in, as it acts immediately under the Stay." [my emphasis]
 
George Biddlecombe's 1925 "The Art of Rigging" (page 99) also describes hauling the traveller back to the bowsprit cap to raise the sail.
 
"The Jib being ready to bend, haul the jib stay and traveller close in to the bowsprit cap; ... reeve the stay through the hanks (which are already seized to the head of the sail) ... haul it out to the traveller; hook the stay [to the traveller]  ... then haul the traveller out to the jib-boom end (if required), and set the stay up." [my emphasis]
 
So both authors imply that the traveller may be positioned at places other than full forward or full aft. But neither actually describes doing this to moderate the forces acting on the ship.
 
So historically the traveller was used when setting or reefing the jib.
 
But I still don't know how common the use of a traveller was, and especially on topsail schooners.

If you ever find yourself near Savannah, GA, there is an 8th Air Force museum just off I-95. They have a B-47 visible from the Interstate as a marker. They have a number of a/c in the museum building and a few out side, too. The B-17G is open to peek into a bit and you see how tiny this mainstay heavy bomber of that war actually was. My old F-4 carried a heavier bomb load at times than the old Fortress. And the a/c skin still is all that protects the crew. No armor plate, except in the A-10, that I can think of.
And they reconstructed an English parish church on the grounds, bell tower and all. Nicely done.

There seems to be a dearth of information on binnacle cabinets.  This is a replica of a 17th century cabinet from the vessel Nonsuch (found at the Manitoba Museum website).
 

I love the WW2 Russian fighters. For whatever reasons, I never recall seeing many photos or reading about Russian WW2 aircraft until more recent times. Growing up in the 50's and 60's, all we ever saw were American, British, Japanese, and German aircraft. Never French, Italian, Russian, Polish, etc.

Also beware the difference between “tung oil finish,” the stuff you find at the big box and hardware stores, and “pure tung oil,” the real stuff. I think the first is more like a polyurethane and just uses the words “tung oil” for marketing. Pure tung oil is harder to find and takes more effort and time to apply, but eventually hardens and oxidizes to a beautiful, natural, water resistant finish…for gun stocks, furniture, and other knick knacks.

Also beware the difference between “tung oil finish,” the stuff you find at the big box and hardware stores, and “pure tung oil,” the real stuff. I think the first is more like a polyurethane and just uses the words “tung oil” for marketing. Pure tung oil is harder to find and takes more effort and time to apply, but eventually hardens and oxidizes to a beautiful, natural, water resistant finish…for gun stocks, furniture, and other knick knacks.