Glen McGuire

Thanks for the heads-up on that, Phil. Sounds like a great reference. I've got his book on the Sailing History of the American Navy but I need to check out the one you mention as well.

I have no idea (nor does anyone else apparently) if the real Jenny was one of those or not, but I'm with you, Chris. When I came across that painting, I thought it was such a unique and beautiful ship with 3 masts, the schooner rigging, and the top sails on the fore mast. As soon as I saw it, I knew that's the one I had to try and build. However, I promise you that when you see my Jenny, it will NOT be anywhere near as beautiful as those in the pictures above. I'll try to get some pics of it posted tomorrow.

All of the sudden I'm feeling like W. B. Travis at the Alamo!!

Well, I was gonna skip doing a build log for this project because I intended to just make a quick SIB for my niece as a gift. But I got a little nudge from @Keith Black and @Knocklouder to start one, so we’re going to jump into this thing in progress. I’m almost done building the ship but much work remains inside and outside the bottle. The Backstory Some time ago, my brother received a $200 bottle of scotch as a gift and just recently gave me the bottle. Of course, the bottle was empty just like the Kraken rum bottle I got from a friend last year 😠. I need to choose better friends and brothers I guess. My brother has a daughter named Jenny, so I thought it would be cool to find a ship named Jenny and make a SIB as a gift. I started looking around to see if there were any interesting ships named Jenny. The only one I could find was one called the "Ghost Ship Jenny". Of course that intrigued me right away. Ghost Ship Jenny The Jenny was an early 1800’s 3-masted English schooner. In 1822, she left her home port on the Isle of Wight in southern England for a journey to Callao, Peru on the western coast of South America. Late in the year, unbeknownst to anyone, she got trapped in ice on the return trip while navigating the Drake Passage between the southern tip of Chile and Antarctica. Seventeen years later (1839), a whaling boat named Hope was navigating the Drake passage and spotted a large schooner drifting among broken ice floes. The Hope’s captain and several crew members rowed over to the ship and boarded her. They discovered it was the long-lost Jenny. The entire crew was found dead with their bodies well preserved by the cold. Many of the forgotten crew were still lying in their hammocks. The Jenny’s captain was frozen at his desk hunched over his last log entry, “May 4, 1823. No food for 71 days. I am the only one left alive.” Real story or Fake News? Adding to the intrigue is the fact that there's a lot of uncertainty about whether the story is true or a just a chilling legend. Jenny’s tragic plight was written about in several periodicals during the 1840’s, but none of the publications cited specific sources that referenced either the Jenny or the Hope. There is also speculation that Jenny’s story was, perhaps, a retelling of another event that happened to a ship named Octavius that was found near Greenland 50 years earlier, both sharing remarkably similar circumstances, albeit in a different century and opposite end of the globe. Ghost Ship Jenny the SIB So I thought that was compelling enough for the subject of a SIB. There aren't any pictures of the Jenny to build from (since no one is certain she was even real) so I've got a lot of artistic license. There also don't appear to be a lot of 3-masted schooners from that time, but I did find a painting of what looks like an 1800s era 3-masted schooner as well as an early 1900s Dutch one called the Oosterschelde, both of which I am using as a guide for my Jenny. My idea is to show the Jenny inside the bottle trapped by small icebergs. I want her to looked like she's been stranded there for many years, so I’m shredding and smudging her sails to give them a tattered look as well as trying to figure out other ways to make her look ravaged by the cold and weather. Here’s a couple of pics I’m using as a rough idea for a ship trapped in ice and tattered sails. The penguins are feeling right at home and clamoring loudly to horn their way into this build. I've held them off for now, but not sure if I can for much longer...

Wonderful work, Papa! Well done. What is that fixture she is mounted on right now?

It's a shame you killed all those rats in your shop last month. Maybe they could've helped with the ratlines! 🙄

I think you've done a super job with the thatching. To me, imperfections often make things look more realistic. I would not go too overboard trying to hide tiny flaws.

Adding the shear poles is a nice touch!

Yours is, without a doubt, the coolest boat on the water! Not even close!!

Fantastic work on all those little dudes, Steven!

Prayers that your surgery is safe and successful, Bob. Hope to see you back at the modeling bench very quickly.

Those shrouds are looking good, Bob! But I have a question - who's the "Neanderthal Writer"???

The thatch is looking good. Glad to see you back at it!

Great to see you back in action, Grant.

Got it. Thanks, Bob. Following that log now.

I'm in too! Let's GIT 'R DUN!!!

Hey Bob, can you provide links to your other build logs? I don't want to miss out on any of the action!

Glad to see you are back up and running, Bob! Looking forward to the next build update.

That is EPIC! Congratulations, Ian. Such a brilliant build!!!

Wonderful paint job, Ian! Looking forward to the video!!

I am so very sorry to hear about Maggie, Keith. My prayers for both of you.

I think you made a great choice with the broom straw for your thatch. It looks great and each strand has small, random variety to the straightness which looks very natural. However, I agree with what you say about the straight line on the bottom edge looking unnatural. Especially compared to this picture from one of your earlier posts. Like you said, it would be a lot of work to remake what you've done already, but I think you will be a lot happier with the result.

You are correct, Keith. Those are the 3 in Boston right now. The good news was that I did not have to worry about damage during shipping. The bad news was that I had to drive them up there from central Texas (28 hrs each way). The worse news is that I have to drive back up there and get them in a couple of weeks! To your last question - yeah, there's probably some risk having them on display for 6 weeks somewhat unsupervised (there is usually a model club member or two in the exhibit rooms, but they can't keep an eye on everything). The museum put the Kraken under a plexiglass case so it is safe, but the two others are just sitting on a table out in the open. I was told the museum expects 10s of thousands of visitors during the exhibit with many, many busloads of school kiddos. The biggest risk is probably young 'uns trying to grab some of the pirate's coins out of Captain Kidd's treasure chest. I have the bling glued down pretty well, so hopefully it's all still there when I return.

Thank you, Keith! I've got my SIBs on some pipe shelving in the corner of my office (see pic below). Three of my SIBs are missing from the shelves as they on on display right now at the USS Constitution museum in Boston as part of their annual ship model show. When I get them back I'll have to add to the shelving since it was full before I completed the Wa'a Kualua.

I don't know about that, Steven. I think the crewman bears an uncanny resemblance to the helmsman model.