Dr PR

It is definitely a pond yacht! Real schooners did not have the mast doubling (where the lower and upper masts overlap) anything like what you have on the model. On real ships the shrouds would loop around the mast head, with both legs of the loop coming down on the same side of the ship. On the model I suppose the shrouds may have been fastened to the eye bolt loops below the spreaders. I wonder if there is an Internet forum for pond yachts? If you can find someone that sells modern pond yachts they might know if there is a Forum.

To finish the bowsprit cap and install the dolphin striker I had to make a few parts and finish the fitting of the cap. I drilled holes for the ring bolts and dolphin striker fasteners before attaching the cap to the bowsprit. The tenon was a bit too long so I used a file and sandpaper to finish the end of the tenon smooth with the face of the cap. The dolphin striker straps were cut from 0.005 inch (0.127 mm) brass sheet, and the ring bolts are from 0.020" (0.51 mm) brass rod. I soldered the gap in the ring bolts. The "bolts" are 7 mm brass nails that have been cut to length. I cut a short piece of 0.0625 inch (1.6 mm) brass tubing for the sheave in the dolphin striker and pined it in place with brass rod. The fitting at the bottom of the dolphin striker was made from 0.005 inch brass sheet that was folded and soldered. It is for the martingale stay and backstays. Assembly was pretty straight forward. I used Duco cement to glue the bowsprit cap in place, and also put a bit in each of the holes for the ring bolts and nails. I probably spent more time on my hands and knees looking for wayward tiny parts than I did with the assembly. The ring bolts on the face of the cap are there in case I discover I need them. I originally thought that one would be used for the traveler outhaul, But if I use this configuration the flying jib stay would be attached to the traveler and run through a block or sheave at the mast top, and back down to a tackle somewhere on deck near the base of the fore mast. But this is already too crowded with belaying points. The sheave in the dolphin striker will allow me to attach the flying jib stay to the mast top, run it through a thimble on the traveller, then through a sheave/block at the end of the jib boom, down through the sheave in the dolphin striker and then to a tackle attached somewhere in the bow. In this way the stay acts as a support for the sail and as the traveler outhaul. The two ring bolts on the back side of the cap are for the jib boom outhaul. I need to put a sheave in the base of the jib boom for this rig.

As Druxey said, the deadeyes with the sheer pole were for shrouds that lead up to the lower mast tops. One line ran up from one deadeye set, looped around the mast, and then back down to the other deadeye set. The shrouds were lashed together with small line at the mast top. I think you said you had Petersson's "Rigging Period Fore-and -Aft Craft." Look on page 78 to see how the shrouds looped around the mast top and were lashed together. Pages 76 and 77 show the way to rig the deadeyes. It was traditional to rig the starboard side shrouds first and the then port side shrouds (if there were more than two per side they altered stbd, port, stbd, port, etc. starting with the forward shrouds and working back). On pure fore-and-aft schooner rigs it was common to have only two shrouds per side. Some smaller vessels didn't have ratlines, but it appears your ship did. Page 83 of Petersson's book shows how some backstays were also rigged with deadeyes.

Thanks. Although I am happy with the rigging plan I came up with I am still ruminating about the belaying points. It seems to me there are too many lines crowded around the base of the fore mast. Some of the lines could be belayed to cleats fastened to the shrouds. Also, I have no provision for studding sail rigging and belaying. I guess these lines could be belayed on pins already in use for the topsail rigging. I will place two ordinary cleats on the housing of the bowsprit about half way between the foot and the bed. One will be the attachment point for the jib boom outhaul. The other could be for a traveler inhaul. These cleats cannot be installed until after the bowsprit is permanently in place. I should also add that I am following plans and descriptions in four books to develop the bowsprit and its rigging: Darcy Lever's "The Young Sea Officers Sheet Anchor." Karl Heinz Marquardt's "The Global Schooner." James Lees' "The Masting and Rigging of English Ships of War." John Leather's "The Gaff Rig Handbook."

I have added some small details to the bowsprit assembly: The gammoning cleats (also called thumb cleats) are to prevent the gammoning ropes from pulling back farther on the bowsprit: The bees and bee blocks fit onto the forward end of the bowsprit behind the bowsprit cap. They have holes for the jib stay (starboard) and preventer (port). Behind the bees are three more thumb cleats to hold the bobstay collar in position. The jib boom saddle fits right behind the cleats to support the foot of the jib boom. The jib boom crupper (essentially the same as gammoning rope) fits around the bowsprit and jib boom immediately behind the saddle. I fashioned a new bowsprit cap that makes a slip fit onto the tenon on the front end of the bowsprit. There will be some ring bolts added to the cap and a dolphin striker will fasten to the front of the cap. I created a short octagonal base on the jib boom. Sometimes there was a sheave near the base of the boom for the jib boom outhauler that was used to pull the boom outward into position after it had been unseated and retracted inboard when docking at a short berth. There also should be two sheaves at the forward end of the boom for the fore top stay and the traveler outhaul. However, the boom is only about 0.130 inch (3.3 mm) diameter at the base, and 0.075 inch (1.9 mm) diameter at the front. I might be able to drill out narrow slots for the lines to pass through, but I doubt that I will put actual sheaves in the boom.

Thanks. I will add a lot of details that weren't in the kit plans. Up to this point everything went pretty smoothly. But yesterday it turned into a minor nightmare. I cut the forward end of the bowsprit to length and then sawed and filed the tenon for the bowsprit cap. Then when I was fitting the cap the tenon broke off! This was a surprise because the wood seemed to be very strong. I contemplated starting over and didn't like the thought of having to repeat the work already done. So I came up with a solution to drill out the end of the bowsprit and make a part with a cylindrical end to fit into the hole and a square part for the tenon. I started with a 1/16 inch drill in a pin vise and made a hole about 1/2 inch deep. Then I used sequentially larger drill bits to create a hole 1/8 inch diameter. But part way through this process a corner of the end broke off! Now it really was a mess! I didn't stop to make photos, but you can see the seam where the corner broke off in the picture above. I went ahead and finished drilling out the hole. Then I looked through all the wood I had to try to pick the sturdiest piece to work with - I didn't want the thing to break off again after I glued the repair part in place. You can see from the photo above that I eventually got it glued together, including the broken corner. So that was all of Thursday, just to make a simple tenon. Today went a lot better. I tapered the housing of the bowsprit (the part between the bed and the foot) and trimmed it to an octagonal cross section. I also cut back the round to square transition at the forward end of the bed to make a bit more room for the gammoning. Next I will attach the bee blocks and start work on the jib boom and boom saddle.

Make a tool box and put it beside the engine compartment with the cover off. It will look like the engine was being serviced. Whatever you do it will be a beautiful model!

I think you have it right about the fore staysail, jib and flying jib. The connecton points for the stays look OK, but in some cases the fore stay and jib stay connect at about the same point. There is a lot of variation on this. Many vessels did not have a dolphin striker so the Gloucester schooner style bowsprit is OK. I'm pretty sure the larger, upper plates on the side of the bow were for the bowsprit guys. The smaller plates may be for foot ropes as you suggested earlier. One think to keep in mind is that racing boat sails and rigging were often quite a bit different from working boats like fishing schooners. Even so, at first glance they look a lot alike.

The DesignCAD program has seen better days, and it has a lot of bugs. But I continue to use it because I am familiar with it and it is much easier to use than any of the other half dozen CAD programs I have used. Most programs have just one fixed user interface, and often I find that the menus and commands make no sense (Photoshop is an excellent example of a user hostile user interface). DesignCAD allows you to execute each command/function in five different ways, menus, keystrokes, tool bars, command line and macros. You can create your own menus, or assign functions to keyboard keys/key combinations, and you can create custom tool bars with icons for the commands you use the most. A command line where you type in command sequences is a throwback to the early days. And you can create macros that you can assign to menus, tool icons, key combinations and use in command lines. You can modify or disable all of the original menus, tool bars and keyboard layouts. Some users have generated their own custom user interfaces. Something I rarely see mentioned for CAD and drawing programs is macros or a programming language. I know trying to learn a programming language in addition to learning how to use a CAD program is probably the last thing you want to do. But it can be useful for command sequences you use often. For example, DesignCAD has a function to Set Drawing Center (the point that the view rotates around) and a separate function to Rotate View around the drawing center. I got tired of repeating the two commands so I use a macro that combines them into one operation - point and click then drag the cursor to rotate the view. I then redefined the keystroke that started the original Rotate View function to execute the macro. Macros can be created just by starting the macro record function and then performing a sequence of commands. When you stop macro recording you give the macro a name. Or you can write a more complex program in the BasiCAD language, a modified BASIC for CAD work, and save it as a macro. Macros are recorded in plain ASCII text that you can edit over and over if you need to. Macros can be general drawing functions that prompt for certain variables, such as the number of times to repeat a command or the specific dimensions of the objects that are generated. They can be quite complex and can even execute other macros. One fellow wrote a program that unfolds 3D objects into flat planes. It is very useful for generating 2D patterns that can be folded into a 3D shape. Another macro generates an exploded parts view. I have done these things manually and even for simple objects and assemblies it can take quite a bit of time. But with the macros you just start them running and go get a cup of coffee! One thing to look for in a program is the ability to customize it to fit your personal work style. After you have been using the program for a while the ability to tweak the way it operates can save you a lot of time, energy and frustration.

You hit on a type of problem that is common in CAD software because the programmers have never used the program they are creating. I cannot imagine a CAD program without layers, and the ability to create assemblies and sub assemblies on multiple layers and treat them as single objects. The CAD program I use has Groups and Solids. You can create multiple pieces on different layers, select them all and create a Solid or Group with them. Solids behave like real solids, and you can perform boolean operations (add, subtract, etc.) on them to make holes, etc. You can add bits to existing solids, but if you explode the solid it falls apart into the individual basic components (planes, surfaces, etc.). Groups are collections of different objects, like Solids. But groups can be nested, with groups of groups of groups, and so on. And each level in the nest can be exploded to release the groups and objects in that nest. The sub groups remain intact. Think of an automobile engine. The engine block is a solid. It can be grouped with other solids like pistons, piston rods, crankshafts, etc. to form an assembly. The alternator can be a different assembly of solids like the shell, rotor, etc. Ditto with the water pump , power steering pump and air conditioning compressor. These can all then be grouped into a basic motor assembly. This motor assembly group behaves like a single object, and it can be grouped into a chassis assembly, and so on.. But if you explode this group each of the other groups remains intact. It would be a great system, BUT! For some reason the programmers placed an invisible Group "handle" on whatever layer was active when you selected all of the parts to be in a nested group, even if none of those parts are on the active layer (the handle should be on a layer containing a part of the group). Thereafter this invisible handle follows the nested group and you cannot select it. If the handle is on a locked layer you cannot select the group, even if all parts of it are on unlocked layers. And there is no way for you to discover what layer the hidden handle is on! The programmers had a great idea for nesting groups of groups, but totally screwed it up with the invisible, unselectable handle! It makes nested groups essentially worthless! If the bozos had ever used a CAD program to design complex assemblies they would not have created such a stupid design flaw! Unfortunately, such design flaws can be found in almost all software, primarily because the programmers don't use the programs they create.

I would guess the larger upper plate on the side of the bow is for the bowsprit guys. "Guys" is a term applied to cables attached to spars to give a horizontal pull. In the case of the bowsprit they are for stability and strength. On booms that swing the guys pull it from side to side. The smaller lower plate on the side might be for martingale back stays if the vessel had a dolphin striker. This was pretty common. The martingale stay ran from the tip of the bowsprit down to the bottom of the dolphin striker. From there two martingale backstays led out in a "V" to attachments on the port and starboard sides of the bow. I think the large metal plate on the stem at the waterline is for the bobstay. If the ship had the martingale stays to support the end of the bowsprit/jib boom the bobstay would attach somewhere near the middle of the bowsprit where one of the fore mast stays attached. If there was no dolphin striker the bobstay would attach farther out near the end of the bowsprit. I don't know what the smaller plate on the stem is for. It could be a fastener for a block that is part of a tackle that controls strain on some part of the running rigging (sail rigging) such as a traveler on the bowsprit. Some fore sails were attached to a traveller that could be pulled in on the bowsprit to furl the sail or run out forward to hoist the sail. This made it easier to handle the sail without having to climb far out on the bowsprit, and was very common. If the vessel had footropes they could have been attached to cleats on the bulwarks at the bow. **** Keep in mind that the standing rigging always forms triangles with the mast and hull. The mast is the vertical side and bears the weight of the rigging. The hull/deck is the horizontal side that connects the bottom of the mast to the belaying (attachment) point for the rigging. The rigging provides support for the mast to absorb forces from the wind and sails that try to mend/break the mast. So for every piece of the standing rigging try to find the other two sides of the triangle. There may be two similar lines on opposite sides of the mast to form a triangle with the hull, as with the martingale backstays. **** Leather's "Gaff Rig Handbook" is the best reference I know of for racing yachts in the 20th century, but it mainly talks about British vessels. He doesn't mention the Elmina in the index. However, the book is a horrible reference! He mainly gives the history of the fore-and-aft rig, with details scattered all through the text. None of the rigging details are listed in the index so to find one small bit of information you have to search through the book! **** Schooners are my favorite vessels and I have lots of reference books. I am happy to help with details if I can. You can send me a personal email message (PM) through the forum.

More work on the bowsprit. I needed to make a section of the spar round and tapered. I wanted to use the square-octagonal-rounded technique because I had never done this before. So the first thing I did was taper the part forward of the bed (where the bowsprit passes through the bulwarks). The section between the blue tapes is the part to be rounded. To achieve the taper I just sanded each side of the piece to reduce the width of the part forward of the bed (blue tape on the left). There is extra material on the forward end that will be removed to make the tenon to fit into the bowsprit cap. There is a pretty simple trick for tapering a stick. Lay a sheet of sandpaper (100 grit in this case) on the workbench/table. Hold the piece of wood so the part to have the most material removed (the forward end of the bowsprit in this case) is on the sandpaper and the part you don't want to trim as much is off the paper. Now just move the wood back and forth, on and off the sandpaper, keeping the narrow end on the paper at all times, but moving the wider end on and off the paper. The narrow end is always in contact with the grit and has more material removed than the wider end that doesn't spend as much time in contact with the sandpaper. The result is an even taper. Next I used a knife and file to shave off each corner of the four sided piece between the bed and the bees (the forward end of the bowsprit) to make the section octagonal. Then I repeated the process on all eight edges to make it sixteen-sided. I wasn't too careful to get precisely straight edges because the next step was to file and sand the part to get the tapered conical section between the bed and the bees. For this I used a file with a flat side and a rounded side. The rounded side was used to get the transitions between the square sections and the round part. Then I chucked the piece in a hand drill and used fine grit sandpaper to get a smooth finish. The transitions from square to round are OK, but they would have come out better if I used a lathe with the round file positioned in the tool post. Also, I let the sandpaper ride up on the square parts a bit and this rounded what should be sharp corners. It looks like the bed extends a bit too far forward. The gammoning will go right in front of it. I may need to extend the round section a bit farther back. I also think I will need to replace the knee under the bowsprit with a longer piece. About 3/8 inch was broken off between when I started this hull back in the '80s and when I resumed the build a couple years ago. There isn't much left for the gammoning to be secured to. This was my first attempt to taper and round a spar starting with square stock and it was pretty easy. Finding the right size square stock was the hardest part!

The bowsprit is the correct place to start the rigging. Period books on rigging start there, because some of the fore mast rigging has to attach to the bowsprit. Here is a drawing of a schooner bowsprit rigging. It shows a two piece bowsprit and jib boom, but the terminology is the same. Here is another from Harold Underhill's "Masting and Rigging the Clipper Ship and Ocean Carrier" (one of the best references for sailing ship rigging, especially after the mid 19th century). This is for a late 19th century or early 20th century single pole bowsprit. It has a "running bobstay" that allows controlling the tension on the bobstay. Note where the inner bobstay attaches to the bowsprit - about half way along the length and not at the forward end. Often this is the only bobstay if the vessel had the martingale stay. Sometimes there were two separate bobstays on larger vessels. The bobstay usually had some type of tackle that could be adjusted to increase tension. There were several ways the bobstay attached to the stem (the leading edge of the hull). Sometimes a simple hole was drilled through the stem (top illustration) and the bobstay ran through the hole. Or a metal plate (bottom illustration) was fastened to the stem, and it had an eye that the bobstay fastened to (with a shackle for chain bobstays). I have even seen an arrangement that had a block shackled to the metal plate on the stem and another block attached to the bowsprit. The bobstay was the line running through these blocks with the running end (loose end) leading up to a cleat on the bulwark - this allowed tension to be tightened on the bobstay. I don't think this was a very common rig. In all cases the bobstay attached to the stem at a point above the normal load waterline. If the vessel has a dolphin striker (sometimes called a martingale) it will be attached to the bowsprit about half way out, or just forward from where the (inner) bobstay attaches. Usually where the fore stay or jib stay attaches to the bowsprit. There are a lot of variations here, and some schooners didn't have a dolphin striker. The bobstay(s) and martingale stay pulled down on the bowsprit/jib boom to take the vertical strain from the force of the sails. The bowsprit/jib boom guys took the horizontal strain on the spars. There are many photos of modern schooners on the Internet, and some very good photos of bowsprit rigging. Search for these vessels: Belle Poule La Recouvrance Etoile Pride of Baltimore The spar that fastened to the stem was often found on racing schooners to spread the foot of the fore staysail out to the side, much as a spinnaker boom is used for the spinnakers on smaller vessels. I think John Leather discusses this in his "Gaff Rig Handbook."

It has been a while since I posted an update. I am still working on the belaying plan, and I have added a few details like the side ladders. I have drawn up plans for the masts and bowsprit. The kit came with dowels and I was originally going to use them. But I decided to make more realistic masts and bowsprits. After all, this is a learning exercise, and I wanted to have a go at making the masts and spars from square stock. I have started on the bowsprit. I have a 3/8" (0.375 inch or 9.52 mm) square piece of mahogany. The maximum diameter of the bowsprit is 0.322 inch (8.18 mm), so I needed to remove about 0.05 inch (1.3 mm). But the piece I am using was slightly curved, so the first thing I had to do was sand two adjacent sides to get flat surfaces for further shaping. I didn't want to try to reduce the size of the piece by sanding - that would take a long time and a lot of elbow grease. So I decided to use my 40+ year old Dremel motor tool, speed control and drill press as a milling machine. I have used this rig before - the sides for the cannon carriages were made with it. The drill press is a piece of junk, as many have commented before. The motor tool is fixed in position and the table moves up and down. But the table won't stay locked in the vertical position and the vibration from the tool causes it to slowly lower, so I occasionally had to reposition it and start over. But it did the job, I have been waiting for warm dry weather so I could do this outside. Removing that much material makes a lot of dust! I did trim the piece down to 0.322 +/- 0.001 inch (8.18 mm). I am really thinking about getting a Sherline mini mill for this type of work! But first I need to build a shop to put it in!! The next thing to do was enlarge the opening in the bow. The original dowel was 0.303 inch (7.69 mm) diameter. The part of the bowsprit that penetrates the bow (the bed) will be 0.322 inch square. With a bit of filing I opened the hole so the new piece would fit. Then I used a saw and files to shape the tenon at the foot of the bowsprit to fit into the timberhead step. When this was done the rough bowsprit fit into place. The base of the bowsprit will be tapered and the housing will be shaped octagonal. I am also thinking of adding some knightheads right at the bow to support the bowsprit.

That thread looks like carpet thread to me. I have a spool that is the same pale green color and waxy. I got it decades ago for model rigging because it is not fuzzy like the stuff that used to come with ship model kits and makes nice rigging. I painted it black for the standing rigging.

You are correct about getting side tracked and doing things that aren't really necessary for the model. Since I had the (almost) full blueprint set I started out to create the entire internal structure for the OK City - I was impressed of a CAD model of the Yamato that had all the frames, longitudinals and bulkheads. After messing with that for about a month I realized that it really wasn't necessary. And I am an expert at getting sidetracked. I started my USS Oklahoma City web page (www.okieboat.com) to post modeling pictures. I got carried away and now there are something like 88 pages, most of it the history of the ship and the Cleveland class, plus the history of the development of the Talos missile (including GMM manuals), detailed descriptions of the weapons systems, engineering plant, ship's crew, sea stories ... It took 14 years to complete the web page and the CAD model. I just like learning about things!

Hans, Nice work. I'm like you, I started in CAD long ago in 2D days and adapted to 3D when it became available. So I have had 30+ years to learn the tricks. For prospective 3D CAD beginners there is one major hurdle, especially if they are familiar with 2D drawing/drafting. You have to forget everything you have learned and start over! In 2D work you create a flat drawing representing a 3D object, and there are many fairly standard techniques for this to show projections, dimensions,etc. But in 3D you work in a virtual universe to create the actual 3D object. There is almost nothing in common with 2D drawing. You have to think in 3D, work in your virtual universe, and build the full dimension object. It is the same difference between drawing a house plan and then building the house. So a beginning 3D designer has to learn the quirks and bugs in the software while trying to learn to work in a virtual reality. Like everything else it seems to be difficult at first. But if you are persistent it will eventually "click" and once over this hump it is a lot easier. It really isn't any different from learning to build a good scratch built model in the real world - but it is a lot easier to fix mistakes!

Very interesting! The Shark might make a nice scratch build project.

My post about topsail schooner rigging gives a good idea about how there were many variations - I sometimes think as many variations as there were schooners! The topsail schooners probably had the most complex schooner rig. But many (most) schooners did not carry any square sails. For the fore mast on these you can just repeat the rig that was on the main mast, with or without a boom on the fore sail foot. Another catch is the configuration of the masts. Some smaller schooners just had single pole masts without top masts. These usually had the gaffs hoisted high on the masts and had no gaff topsails. Some had short topmasts with a topsail rigged above the gaff, at least on the main mast. There is quite a bit of variation in the complexity of the tops at the mast doubling. Some had a gaff topsail on the fore mast and others had a main top staysail on the main top stay. And I have found eleven different types of fore-and-aft topsails on the fore and main masts (I show seven in my schooner rigging post, and need to update the post). "Bermuda rig" schooners had just a large triangular sail on the main mast with the foot attached to the boom. These had no gaff, but early versions actually had a short spar attached to the top of the sail (it was trapezoidal) that was used to hoist the sail. Your Elmina model doesn't have a racing hull like the one shown in Chapelle's book, and it has very short top masts. I would pick a rig typical of a working schooner or private yacht, with large gaff sails on both masts. The top masts are not tall enough for the typical gaff topsails so these masts may have just been supports for the gaff peak and throat halliards, and for stays for the fore sheets. However, there were some unusual jackyard topsails that flew on two spars, one rigged to the end of the gaff (jackyard) and the other (topsail yard) hoisted to the top of the topmast, with the triangular sail flying between them. These were temporary sails and were hoisted aloft from the deck. But this seems to have been used mainly on racing boats of the late 19th century to get around rules that limited topsail size. The model does have a boom for the fore staysail, so it probably also had a boom for the fore sail, as well as a longer boom for the main sail. Since it had a simple spar bowsprit I'd guess it had the fore staysail and a single jib, with perhaps a flying jib that could be rigged if needed. **** Now for the hard part. After a sail plan is selected the necessary standing and running rigging lines are fairly obvious variations on common arrangements. But the belaying points for all those ropes on the deck and bulwarks were almost never documented because "everyone knew how to do that." The seem to be two simple rules. First, the lower lines lead forward and the higher the line the farther aft it leads. And lines that run through blocks or sheaves on the mast lead down to the base of the mast while lines coming down from yardarms lead outboard to bulwarks or on deck close to the bulwarks. Often the higher lines on the mast also lead outboard to the bulwarks. The actual belaying points could be ring bolts, cleats or pinrails. All this varied from ship to ship, but the end result was rigging that did not foul the other lines and ran smoothly. **** There are two clues to the size of the vessel and whether it carried square sails. The beam was wider relative to the length on smaller vessels. Larger ships had a longer length to width ratio - but not by too much. But the beam to width ration can tell the approximate size of the ship (small or large). Ships with square sails on the foremast usually had the widest part of the beam forward near the foremast that carried the greater weight of sails and spars. The wider beam was more buoyant and could support more weight. In this case the foremast was often greater diameter than the main mast and usually a bit shorter. Full fore-and-aft rigged hulls had the widest part of the beam midships near the heavier main mast and both masts were the same diameter, again with a shorter fore mast.

There are several basic ways to rig a schooner, and many variations of each. Unless you can find a rigging plan (or lots of photos) of the Elmina you will have to pick a plan and go with it. "The Global Schooner" by Karl Heinz Marquardt is the best reference I have found for schooners. Howard Chapelle mentions the Elmina briefly in "The History of American Sailing Ships" (Bonanza Books, New York) and has a hull lines plan on page 337, but doesn't show the deck layout or rigging plan. Elmina was a schooner yacht that was used for racing. He has a lot of examples of the sail plans and some rigging for this type of schooner. Chapelle's "The American Fishing Schooners" has a tremendous amount of details about schooners and schooner rigging. Leather's "Gaff Rig Handbook" has a lot of information about racing yachts. Here are two extraordinary builds of large schooner models. Lots of very good ideas: https://modelshipworld.com/topic/19848-schooner-germania-nova-by-keithaug-scale-136-1908-2011/?do=findComment&comment=605204 https://modelshipworld.com/topic/12515-schooner-altair-by-keithaug-scale-132-1931-finished/?do=findComment&comment=378702

It was common to have running backstays port and starboard. The windward stay was hauled taut to take the strain while the lee stay was slacked to allow the boom to swing. This was also sometimes done with the mainstay on schooners. I don't know how you would transfer a backstay from one side to the other while tacking. With single stays the forestays and halliards would prevent swinging them in front of the mast, while the sail, boom and gaff would prevent moving them across aft of the mast. Also, there would be a period when nothing was supporting the mast. I'll be interested in seeing what you discover.

Dave, The NRG figures come in a variety of scales. You have to select a model and then select the scale. (unfortunately, you can't select the scale first to see what is available). It appears not all figures are available in all scales.

I agree with Mark! In the Wikipedia entry for the USS Oklahoma City CLG-5 there is an incorrect date for the first time a surface-to-surface ARM missile was successfully used in combat. The date is wrong by about a year! I was the officer in charge during that shot and remember it well. I have documented the date, and I have corrected the error several times, but someone keeps changing it back to the wrong date! Quite a bit on Wikipedia is just speculation and not researched well.

Dave, To reiterate what folks have said here, ropes and cable sizes were given in circumference. However, the circumference of ropes and cables was calculated from the diameter of the mast. That tripped me up the first time around and I was calculating some enormous rope sizes!

Once again, extraordinary craftsmanship! Beautiful models.