ClipperFan
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Rob, one of the toughest challenges with this evaluation process is to admit to your own "confirmation bias." Which I am now compelled to do. It always seemed odd to me that a lifeboat davit would be mounted within the Shrouds but not being familiar with these vessels other than rudimentary glances and since it was also illustrated in Mike's book, I figured it had to be right. Now I have yet another correction to make of my supposedly "painstakenly accurate" 1:96th scale drawing.... Thanks a lot! 😉 -
Rob, in an effort to show what I'm seeing, I've cropped and sharpened the image of Glory beached at Endolyne. Just above the capital "A" is the Starboard fore davit. It's about midway between mizzen and Main Shrouds being just Between mizzen deadeye shrouds #4 & #5 is the clearly visible aft davit. The distinctive curve at the top is too clean to be a tree branch. Mike also illustrated off balance boat launch davits in his illustrations. I understand what you're saying about the other photo but the front angle doesn't give enough definitive evidence to really compare it to anything.
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Rob, From these two photos, to me it looks like the mounting location for the Starboard Davits never changed from Glory's launch in 1869 until her hull was beached in 1923. The aft location remained within the Mizzen Shrouds and the fore was behind the Main Shrouds. That means the Davits were offset throughout Glory's career, as the Port location was further forward with the after most being just ahead of the wrought iron hand rail and the foremost being much closer to the Main Shrouds. It doesn't appear like these Davit mounting locations changed at all during her entire long career.
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Rob, whenever I see truly furled sails on Tall Ships, it always amazes me how tight and uniform "Shipshape & Bristol fashion" the crew manages to get them. The challenge for the modeler is to capture this authenticity to scale. I think in this case, a "less is more" approach would suit best. For instance, compare the size of your mouse ears to the actual much ones on Glory herself.
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Rob, Vladimir and to everybody else who follows this "Glorious" build, have wholesome, happy and above all safe Holiday Season.
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George K, I hope you had a pleasant Thanksgiving get together with family. It's truly become one of my favorites. Quite possibly because it's at heart a simple feast where there are no outsized expectations than enjoying good food and company. Thanks for your progress update. Your personal builds are more authentic and believable than the Britannia castings, which really don't look that bad either this time.
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Finally our friend Michael Mjelde shared an amazingly sharp image of Glory's Stern which settles forever the question of the full structure of a McKay Rear House. Contrary to the kit's rectangular plan, the actual vessel's house narrowed as it followed the thinning contours of the ship in order to keep the walkways consistent for working of the ship.
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Another divergence with the kit's plans has to do with her large Rear Carriage House. As you can see in these several pictures (all photos courtesy of eminent author Michael Mjelde) Glory's front fascia is far more ornate and incorporates 4 large 2' high by 1 & 1/2' wide windows surrounded by multiple carved arches. Included is author Mjelde's own sketch of this beautiful design. A famous oil of James E Buttersworth, commissioned by Sampson & Tappan of Boston, owners of "Flying Fish" to celebrate her phenomenal first place finish in the 1853 "Great Deep Sea Derby" from New York to San Francisco when she completed the journey in 92 days and 4 hours. She out sailed 14 other crack Extreme Clippers including 3 other McKay Clippers. The front fascia of the vessel in Buttersworth's powerful painting is far more ornate than the plans of the kit. There are 2 large arched windows on either end, elaborate carving and what appears to be twin arched doors with identical pillars as on Glory. Another fascinating feature is a type of "gingerbread" in the form of small spheres completely surrounding the structure. Even the partial wrought iron guard rail is depicted and appears to be painted gold.
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Donald McKay was notoriously secretive about his nautical designs. Case in point: the treatment of his Clipper Ship prows. In the contemporary descriptions by Boston Daily Atlas publicist Duncan MacLean, he goes into great detail to describe the McKay Bow, first introduced on his prototype Extreme Clipper "Staghound." He also comments on the superiority of these rugged nautical devices designed to take on the toughest Seas of the world while rounding Cape Horn. Yet all of today's models don't incorporate them at all. I've included a photo of the Bow of "GLORY of the SEAS" so you can see how her Naval Hoods and Cutwater blend gracefully with her Grecian Goddess 'Athene' figurehead. Unfortunately all of this has to be scratch built since your kit only has the Stem. I've sketched a more accurate, lifelike flying fish figurehead and illustrated how your "Flying Fish" Clipper would have actually appeared with her prow fully reconstructed. This little sketch isn't totally to scale, so I will follow up with one that is.
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campbewj I hope you don't mind some observations I've already shared with others in the process of building this magnificent kit. I'll start with an actual tracing of this vessel's lines, which originates from Bergen Sjofort Museum, Bergen, Norway. This was discovered in a Nautical Research Journal.
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Bradley, another area of dispute I have with the kit plan is a quite plain front fascia of her Rear Carriage House with a sole horizontal port window. Compare it to the far more ornate front fascia with dual arched windows on either side of what appear to be dual doors of the same Carriage House of "Flying Fish" as depicted in the famous painting of her by James E Buttersworth. His stunning oil was commissioned by her owners Sampson & Tappan of Boston in a truly unique celebration. It was done to forever commemorate "Flying Fish" achieving a stunning First Place Finish in the 1853 "Great Deep Sea Derby" wherein she out raced 14 other 'crack' Extreme Clippers including two other McKay vessels! I've included a couple of Michael Mjelde images of the real front fascia of "GLORY of the SEAS" which confirms that these larger arched 2' × 1& 1/2' windows were indeed used on board. Michael Mjelde's own sketch of Glory's front fascia is included to give you an idea of how truly ornate these vessels actually were.
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George who's also building the "Flying Fish" expressed disappointment with the kit supplied figurehead. Here's an alternate, far more realistic Flying Fish figurehead. It has always been a pet peeve of mine that every model I've seen of this vessel only features the bare Stem while omitting substantial Naval Hoods and Cutwater which she would have been equipped with too. Here's how these nautical devices would have mounted to the Stem. This sketch is just to illustrate how these devices would have interacted but isn't truly to scale. I'm printing out Bow close ups and will create a more accurate to scale version. Meanwhile, the highly detailed Bow of Glory, courtesy of Michael Mjelde shows how her prow actually appeared.
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Bradley, probably one of the more significant discoveries about the arrangement of the large rear 'Carriage' house is that, as the Stern of the ship narrows, so too does the shape of the house to configure with it. I've drawn a scale sketch of this area to highlight how the catwalks on both sides remain constant while the house gets narrower. This contradicts the MSW plans.
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Bradley, If you're one of the folks following our exhaustive research into the accurate structure of Donald McKay's final Medium Clipper "GLORY of the SEAS" you'll know we've been given access to some incredibly sharp pics of the ship herself. These amazing photos, shared by eminent author Michael Mjelde have given us some keen insight into these beautiful Clippers. I hope you don't mind my sharing some of these insights with you, in order to assist you in creating a more accurate "Flying Fish" model. The first image is an actual tracing of McKay's own "Flying Fish" lines, believe it or not, residing in a museum in Norway!
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Rob, I hope you find this as fascinating as I do. It's kind of a 6 degrees of separation from "GLORY of the SEAS" involving her intrepid future Captain Josiah Nickerson Knowles. He was the sole Master of the 1854 Maine built Medium Clipper "Wild Wave". In 1858 while cruising at 13 knots, the vessel ran aground on a smooth circular coral reef of Oeno, a small one mile island. Later the Captain discovered that the island was misplaced by 20 miles due to an error in his chart by mapmakers. Captain Knowles wrote quite a fascinating first person account of the determination of the ship's crew to facilitate their escape: "The Crusoes of Pitcairn Island, being an account of the wreck of the "Wild Wave" of Boston, on Oeno Island in the Pacific, and the subsequent adventures of her master and crew on Pitcairn's Island, as related in the diary of Captain Josiah Nickerson Knowles, of Brewster." From the brief summaries I've read, Captain Knowles demonstrated his future inventiveness in designing and building a vessel from scrap wood on Pitcairn's Isle. I came across a beautiful painting of the doomed vessel "Wild Wave" which I thought you might appreciate seeing.
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Rob, I sent Mike your entire series of comparison images of your model to actual scenes of Glory herself. There were so many pics that it required several emails. While his response is very brief, I think you'll be thrilled with it. Here it is verbatim: "He is bringing the ship to life. What add to it is that the images are in full color."
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Rob, While researching Josiah Nickerson Knowles, I came across this beautiful painting of Captain Knowles. While we're most familiar with him for his introduction of the extended, enclosed helmhouse, Captain Knowles had an incredible experience as Captain of the doomed Clipper "Wild Wave." His crew and passengers were marooned on a small island in the Pacific when their vessel ran aground on a hidden coral reef. He and a handful of his crew took a lifeboat to Pitcairn Island 100 miles away. The same isle of the mutineers of HMS Bounty fame. When he arrived the island was deserted so Captain Knowles had to seek help at another island. It's quite a fascinating tale of determination and inventive heroism.
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Rob, Wikipedia has a pretty thorough chart of the Captains and voyages of "GLORY of the SEAS" including exact dates of departure and arrival locales. Elisha Sears departed Saint John, New Brunswick May 14, 1871 & arrived in Liverpool June 8, 1871 a voyage which took 25 days. In all fairness, her journey should have begun a day earlier but she grounded on a sand bar. From his recommendations to Captain Josiah Knowles to add additional back stays in order to run Glory on full sails implies he was hampered in his own attempts and most likely had to sail under less than optimal setting of sails. On August 19, 1871 Captain Josiah Knowles departed from Cardif, Wales and arrived in San Francisco, December 16, 1871 a voyage of 120 days. February 7, 1872 he left for Liverpool arriving there 112 days later on May 28, 1872. He departed from Liverpool July 25, 1872 where he arrived in San Francisco November 25, 1872 . A journey of 119 days. January 25, 1873 he left San Francisco to arrive in Liverpool 128 days later on May 23, 1873. The next voyage is when Glory had a very fast voyage. She departed New York October 13, 1873 and arrived in San Francisco either on January 16 or 18, 1874 a journey of 94 or 96 days. Which leads me to wonder. After four long voyages, had the captain finally sorted out Glory's rigging, including the added two backstays? This would imply that those backstays might have been added in the later months of 1872, possibly in November? Meanwhile, it leaves plenty of time for Samuel Walters to paint his commission after major modifications to Glory's helm as well as the additional catwalk to the ship's boats remounted on the Boy's house.
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Rob, In response to my question about the added backstays, Mike sent the following email: "Please note that I have concluded that the additional backstays were added following the arrival of "Glory" at Liverpool when Josiah Knowles took command. It was most likely following the earlier suggestion of Elisha Sears who conducted the 'delivery' voyage via St John with lumber from Boston to Liverpool and that Sears had concluded that she needed those two additional backstays if she was going to be 'driven' under full sail." This brings up an interesting thought. Samuel Walters was a contemporary English artist of fine repute. Perhaps this was when he was commissioned to do his beautiful oil? He would have been able to see Glory close up while she was anchored in Liverpool.
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Rob, high praise indeed! I am honored. My apologies too for the sometimes "gadfly" approach I took in the pursuit of meticulous accuracy. Without doubt, we can all be proud of the results we have attained. This has been quite an amazing journey in our mutual attempts to be true to McKay's final masterpiece. Vlad's brilliant computer and bulkhead work certainly helped in accellerating your projects.
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Rob, I have a feeling that Mike will be blown away with this series, as am I. This is total vindication of the many, many months long (well actually over a year) painstakingly accurate research we all did to develop the most accurate "GLORY of the SEAS" plans to date. As impressive as she is in images, she must make an even bigger impact in person. I'm so anticipating her loft masts and massive yard arms being rigged.
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George, it will be so nice when we can all get beyond this pandemic and see a return to normalcy.
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George, that is simply a wonderful model of the War of 1812 Lake Erie Brig "Niagara!" Beautifully done.
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Rob, if only someone had painstakingly documented all of these revisions to Glory's appearance and had the forethought to write it all down in some sort of manuscript that could be easily researched.... 🙂
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