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http://www.bruzelius.info/Nautica/News/BDA/BDA(1852-12-17)b.html Vladimir, Perhaps the most incredible feat of seamanship was displayed by Donald McKay's brother Lauchlan, easy going yet hard driving Captain of the 1852 Extreme Clipper "Sovereign of the Seas." October 12th, 1852 on her Maiden voyage the great ship under a heavy press of sail experienced an incredibly complicated dis-masting which affected all three masts. I've attached a sailor's first person account which describes in great detail their almost unbelievable act of seamanship under the capable, inspired leadership of the indomitable Captain McKay.
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https://www.jclary.com/classics-of-the-seas/flying-cloud Rob, Vladimir this link brings you to an amazing piece of art depicting Clipper 'Flying Cloud' as she actually appeared in her record breaking journey rounding Cape Horn on her maiden voyage. I read a book which made great reference to her Log and the descriptions of multiple challenges to her rig is hair raising. Back then, these circumstance were simply part of the routine.
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Rob, neither you nor Vlad have any reason to apologize to anyone about the pace of your construction progress. You're scratch building practically every single component in your museum quality builds. Personally, just like the carefully patient process we developed to rediscover the true glory in "GLORY of the SEAS" I strongly prefer a pace that is prudent and gives the very impressive results you're both creating. In this case, the time worn adage is definitely true "haste makes waste."
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Rob, beautiful work. As I said to Vlad, the recreation of these yards reveal how substantially made they really were. It makes total sense to rig from stern to fore, as this will tighten shrouds as you move forward, culminating in the bowsprit.
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Rob, I am not suggesting either you or Vlad make any changes to structures you've already painstakingly constructed. Just as an Academic conversation, I continue my observations of these confusing bilge wheels. First I want to stipulate that both flywheels are indeed mounted outside the pinrail they're located on. However, this even more sharp image clearly shows that the Port flywheel is indeed reset behind the mainmast fife rail. If you look at the rear section of the top Port rail, the front part of the Port wheel disappears behind it. Now follow the top horizontal bar to which this same flywheel mounts and appears to have line looped around a couple belaying pins and it clearly looks like it would be much closer to the inner section of the mainmast. Again, if you follow this pattern, you can easily see the "zig-zag" pattern you'd expect to see if the main bilge pumps were mounted outside of a more narrow rail. If anything, it's a fascinating conversation.
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Rob, beautiful just beautifully done consistent craftsmanship. This really looks like a miniature yardarm. I'm constantly blown away by you artisans.
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Rob, I know I'm getting a bit of a deserved "rep" about being a pain in the *** for detailed accuracy. Believe me, it's not my intention to make your lives difficult as modelers. I'm just trying to maintain fealty to historic accuracy in order to be consistent to our initial stated goal of creating the most accurate version of Glory in every detail possible. Hopefully this will continue to unveil Glory's uniqueness as a McKay Clipper. Case in point this blurry image looks like it proves what I said about the main bilge pumps having a narrower mounting rail then the main fire rail. Otherwise how would the flywheels line up with the fife rails and also be mounted outside their own rails? Besides which, just from a "workflow" viewpoint, as long as the shorter crankshaft don't interfere with pump efficiency, wouldn't it make sense to inset the pump rails, so that the flywheels don't impede on working area around them?
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Vladimir, your yardarms are an absolute thing of beauty! It's amazing how graceful and symmetric they all are. Most impressive is how they're uniformly thicker in the center and gradually narrow towards the outer ends. I can even imagine how massive these critical spars must have appeared on Glory herself. Well done!
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Vladimir, Rob I took another look at this image of Glory's main deck, with specific emphasis on her bilge pump flywheels. At first, I thought it wasn't possible to determine whether her iron spokes were straight, like the 1886 Ship "Balclutha" or "S" curved, as we discussed earlier. Sure enough, when I enlarged the image it does clearly show that Glory's bilge pump flywheels did indeed have the "S" curved iron spokes and not straight ones. They're also narrower than the mainmast fife rails, since the wheels appear to align neatly behind them. Viewed from above, the fife rails look like they're a square and the bilge pump mounting would look smaller and rectangular.
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Rob, Wow!.... until now I didn't know that your vast modeling skills included levitation!! How else do explain not one, or two but three beautifully crafted yards seemingly defying gravity and floating in air? Oh by the way, Happy St Valentine's Day to all my fellow modeling friends, I hope you enjoy the day with a close loved one.
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Vladimir, like Rob, you're truly more of an artisan than a modeler. Simply beautiful work. If you're planning on angling back the fore companion, might I suggest you shorten it too? According to the deck layout, this hatch way is a little shorter that the fore fife rail. It's also just a bit closer to the front of the rail than currently positioned. Being closer to the fife rail would also draw attention away from the height of the forecastle too.
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Vladimir, beautifully done detail work on the windless, capstans and fore Companionway. It's obvious you put a lot of emphasis on the specifics of the Companion. Maybe it's due to your close up pics but I have a concern about the relative size of your Companionway in comparison to other deck fittings. While her deck profile in this image should be slimmer at the Bow, her deck fittings are for the most part very accurate. If you look at upper and profile images, you'll see that Companionway is no higher than the Foremast Fife Rail, matches width and is actually a little shorter too. Actually, when it comes to deck hatches, the Fore Companionway is the smallest of all. I hope I'm wrong and it's just the excellent close ups that make your nicely detailed hatch look outsized in comparison.
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Rob, as you described the careful consideration you're giving all the painstaking weathering details of just a single tightly furled sail, it's occured to me that you're transitioning from mere model making to an artisan. You may not recognize it yourself but trust me, I see it and I have no doubt that others would do so too.
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Rob, I never tire of seeing the beautiful detailed progress of your build, no matter what the pace.
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Kevin, an initial concern I had when addressing the enormous inaccuracies of the Mjelde plans was how to not offend Michael himself, as these were illustrations published in his books. Probably my biggest thrill was how gracious, understanding and generous he actually was in sharing numerous, rare, many never seen before images of Glory herself. Our efforts in attaining a far more accurate version of McKay's final Clipper is a tribute to the selflessness of Glory's greatest living promoter, who like all of us has as his ultimate goal to replicate "GLORY of the SEAS" precisely.
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Rob, Vladimir I wouldn't trouble myself too much over period accurate capstans. Unless it states in documents, either form could have been used. As for Footropes, from the viewpoint of modeling simplicity, I think real thin black wire would be easier to create realistic loops. Unless thread is seriously waxed, it will twist and contort in odd ways.
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Kevin, Rob has greatly enlarged a plan from one of author Michael Mjelde's book appendices. While the deck layout is mainly accurate, the deck's outline no longer is. That's because we discovered that Glory's bow profile is much slimmer at the entrance than previously thought. Vladimir might be able to produce one since he created the revised bulkheads with his computer. I mainly focused on her broadside profile. I can add too that from a never seen before Stern above shot of Glory docked in Alaska, graciously supplied to us by Michael Mjelde, we now know for a fact that her Rear Carriage House narrows to match the outer contours of her hull, with 5' passages on both sides which remain consistent Bow to Stern.
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Rob, according to her description in Boston Daily Atlas Champion as originally designed by McKay carried four sails per mast. It's most likely the daguerrotype was taken before the royal mast could be mounted. Still, four yardarms is a throwback to the old Ships of the Line for sure, as his earlier cargo Extreme Clippers all had five. Perhaps it's due to their intentional Passenger Ship designation that until "Donald McKay" all three of the Black Ball vessels built for the James Baines line had similar rigs, with exception that Champion was the sole ship without at least a Main Skysail. A big advantage of Howe's modification of Forbes design, it that it did away with the need to stitch upper and lower topsails together. Howe's rig also required less men to trim a vessel's sails. Looking at it that way, it may be McKay's way of lowering the actual number of sailors necessary to serve on board. Either way, all contemporary paintings of these magnificent Clippers depict them with sky sails mounted on all masts. So sometime in their service, they must have been re-signed to include them. As a connoisseur of Clipper Ships, I prefer them to have a full suit of five sails on each mast, four for some reason just looks.... awkward.
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Vladimir, A few years ago, my family was treated to a few cruises on Royal Caribbean vessels. Twice we embarked on "Majesty of the Seas" and once on "Liberty of the Seas." Ironically Majesty was a twin to the appropriately name twin sister Ship "Sovereign of the Seas" which was the largest Cruise Ship in the World at the time of her launch, which was way back in 1987. What I particularly enjoyed about both vessels was the romantic feeling derived from a sense of being on an elaborate movie stage setting. Everything was magnificent multi level views and especially on Majesty there were enormous but tasteful amounts of highly polished brass and gold metals. She was definitely a Ship of the 80s too. I agree about modern shipping vessels, they're just enormous but nothing beautiful to look at.
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Rob, Donald McKay was constantly experimenting with both Hull shapes and sailing rigs. Apparently both "James Baines" and "Champion of the Seas" like his first "Sovereign of the Seas" as well as "Lightning" all had Royals on Fore & Mizzen with only the Main sporting a Skysail. These ships were all launched before Howe's innovative split Topsail rig was introduced. However it appears McKay "went wide" instead. The Main Yardarm on Champion stretched 95' while her counterpart on the James was a staggering 100'! Topsails on both vessels were similarly immense.
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