Glen McGuire

Minor but rather time-consuming progress made this week - adding all the hanging rope coils for the running rigging. A little over 100 of them. They makes me miss ratlines. Just kidding, Bob! I think we're getting fairly close here, at least inside the 20 yard line. Maybe? I believe the biggest obstacle remaining is the davits and davit rigging for the ship's boats. There's not a lot of detail on those in the instructions, so I've got some build log studying to do. However, I need to hit the pause button on the Constitution for a couple of weeks so I can get another SIB going.

Welcome aboard, Linus! Your 1/700 scale models are exceptional!!

If I gotta choose between the rum keg and the chart table, I'll take my chances with blind navigation! Exceptional work, Keith! Such a cool project and so well done!

As far as I know, my cows are strictly vegan. We've got a healthy number of rattlers around and they seem to steer (ahem) clear of them. I'll let them know that they are considered dietary supplements in your parts! 😃

That is the only "B" word allowed to be said around my longhorns, Ron! Others like Burgers, Barbecue, Brisket, Beefsteak, etc really upset them!

Those railings look awesome! Well done, Phil!

That's the best place to discover them, Ian!! That's hilarious! Remind me not to sit near you at dinner, Henry! 😃 Was that before or after the fall on the ice? I think you're gonna need a 55 gallon swear drum before all this is over! NO NO NO!! They have all been well behaved of late. Don't give them any ideas or encouragement, Keith! 😃 I have not tried those, Carson. I bet they are a lot better than Ol' Sailor Jerry's spiced rum!! 🤮 Thanks, Phil!! Thanks, Pat! I think. I'm going to assume that is an Aussie compliment! Speaking of Australia and cows, a friend sent me this. Can you explain this, Pat?

Ice and ratlines! Dang, Bob. That sounds like quite a fall. Glad you are still in one piece. I guess that last picture answers my question about the snow.

Thank you to all for the nice comments and the likes. I greatly appreciate your help and support. I have a question for Bob (a.k.a @Knocklouder). Do you have a Venmo for your swear jar? If so, I need to send you a large contribution. If you don’t have Venmo, then run a tab for me. Why? Well, a couple of days ago I was tooling along with the last part of the running rigging – the gaff and spanker boom. I got the gaff in place with its full rigging and a nice parrel securing it to the mizzen mast. I started working on the spanker boom and ran into a problem. When I put the yoke up against the mizzen mast, a bunch of the lines tied to the mizzen spider ring interfered with the boom’s yoke. I knew something was wrong but I was pretty sure I’d done the spider ring correctly. So I went back to the instructions and found this bit of info I’d somehow overlooked. “The gaff and spanker boom swing on the trysail mast.” The trysail mast? What the heck is a trysail mast? So I checked a my reference pictures from other build logs and there it was – a mast just aft of the mizzen mast with the gaff and boom clearly attached to it. And that’s when the debt to Bob’s swear jar started piling up. Ugh. I could not think of any way out of the jam except ripping the gaff out and all the gaff rigging I’d locked into place, followed by making a trysail mast and squeezing it into position. There was no reasonable way to drill a hole in the deck to step it properly, so it would just have to be glued into place. That whole exercise pretty much consumed yesterday. I picked a dowel just slightly smaller than the mizzen mast, but large enough where I did not need to remake the jaws on the ends of the gaff and boom. I put a notch on the top of the dowel to fit between the 2 center ribs underneath the mizzen mast top. I glued the bottom of the dowel to a larger diameter disk to look like the collar around the base of the other masts. I painted the mast brown to match what I saw in my reference pictures. It slipped into place quite nicely and I got the gaff reinstalled and rigging in place. Huge sigh of relief, but not real happy with myself for the careless oversight costing me a day of work. I did not take any pics of the gaff before I had to rip it out. Here's a pic of the new trysail mast in place along with some other shots of the gaff and spanker boom and their rigging. Gaff rigging below. You can see the halyard attached to the gaff at 3 points (2 of them via single blocks), running thru a triple block before heading below to the deck. Here's the spanker boom which bisects the vangs coming down from the gaff. Another shot of the boom showing the parrel wrapped around the trysail mast. A wider shot of both. You can also see the main lower yard brace in place now. One end is tied to an eyebolt on the boomkin just above the quarter gallery. It runs to a single block on the yard arm then back to a single block also tied to the boomkin. Then it runs thru a sheave in the bulwark and is tied off to a cleat on the inside of the bulwark. And with that, I dare say that the running rigging is complete!! WOOHOO!!! Another major milestone, albeit not without some difficulties along the way! When I got all the standing rigging finished a while back, I made a comment in jest that Pat (a.k.a. @BANYAN) needed to send me some of that Australian Bundy rum that I'd heard so much about, so I could celebrate the milestone. Well lo and behold, he took me seriously and being the kind and gracious man that he is, Pat actually sent me a bottle of Bundy rum which I just got. He timed his generosity to perfection! So this time, I was able to celebrate the completion of a huge milestone with a mix of Aussie and Texan flair! I made my favorite rum drink (mai tai) using Bundy rum for the spiced rum and dark rum from a distillery in Hye, Texas just to the west of Austin. The cultural combination was perfecto!!! So a huge thanks to Pat for his generosity and to everyone else for your support in helping me get this far in the journey! I hope none of your chooks turn into emus!

LOL! Who else but Knocklouder would say that!

I am fashionably late to the party but caught up on all the previous posts. What a unique and interesting subject you have chosen for your scratch build, Paul. Very impressive work so far. I look forward to watching your creation unfold!

Work continues on the running rigging for the main and mizzen yards. I was thinking about ratlines while struggling to get all the running rigging in place. With ratlines, I kind of get in a rhythm and the more I do, the easier it gets. I find the opposite true here. The more running rigging I do, the more lines are in close quarters and the harder it becomes to route them correctly and avoid tangles and interference with other lines. Two examples. First, on the lift lines for the main mast yards, I did not notice until after I had tied them off to their belay pins that I had routed a couple of them through the foot ropes on the top sail yard. I also managed to do this same clever thing on the top gallant yard. Ugh! So I had to remove and replace the foot ropes for both of those yards. Here's the corrected main top sail yard. Second example. With braces form the main mast yards routing to the stern and braces from the mizzen mast yards routing forward, some things got a bit messy and adjustments had to me made. In the pic below, the red arrows follow the mizzen top gallant yard brace running from the yard arm to a double block secured to the main top mast and then down to the deck. According to the instructions, the double block should be attached to the main mast top head where the green arrow points to. However, when I put the double block up that high, it caused the forward running brace from the mizzen top gallant to interfere with the rearward brace from the main mast top gallant yard (green circle). So I had to move the double block low enough to keep the braces clear of each other. There were a few more similar complications, but those were the easiest to illustrate. After I got all that sorted out, I grabbed pretty much all the clips I own and fixed them to the ends of all the lift and brace lines. This put everything under tension so I could make adjustments and get all the yards parallel with each other on both the longitudinal and vertical axis. Here's a side view with all the lifts and braces tied off. All of them except one! The brace for the main lower yard extends rearward and is supposed to be tied off to a boomkin protruding outside the ship at the stern. I kept whacking it with fingers, arms, tweezers, snips, etc, so I decided to leave it off till I get the gaff and spanker boom in place. That is why the main lower yard in the pic below is a little off kilter. You will also notice that my mizzen upper stays got sad and droopy on me. But that will be an east fix after the gaff and spanker boom are done. I love this perspective from the bow showing off the symmetry and interplay of the running rigging.

Your eyebolt fix is very well done, JC. With rigging tied to the eyebolt and sails attached, a slightly off center eyebolt is something nobody will ever notice (except you!).

NEVER throw anything away, right Bryan? I love those oarlocks. Very well done!

Looking very nice, Harvey!