I’m just about to start rigging the Vanguard Alert, and I’d be very grateful for advice.
Working on the hull has been a great pleasure, thanks to the thought and ingenuity Chris has put into designing the kit. I’ve learned a great deal from the logs of masters like Blue Ensign and Thukydides. I’ve followed some of their departures from the kit, and made my own adaptations to cope with my lack of skill and my shaky 92 year-old hands and eyes. I’ve kept a log.
Now I’m about to start dressing the mast, and I need to decide how the shrouds are attached. Goodwin (and the kit) shows them fixed to a collar some way below the cheeks. I don’t find Goodwin easy to understand, but his source seems to be the contemporary model of Hawke.
I’ve not come across this practice elsewhere, and Goodwin apparently offers no further evidence. The shrouds are usually looped over the trestle trees, where their downward tension is countered by the cheeks. Nor does Goodwin explain the Alert’s departure from normal practice.
Goodwin says Alert was rerigged in 1780s with the standard three yards (c.f. Sherbourne and Cheerful), when the Admiralty abandoned the four yard rig. That would be a simple solution to my problem.
I’d be very grateful for comments. Is it conceivable that the Hawke model is wrong, unlikely though that seems?
Rodric