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   As your ships are quite unusual, where do you find all the basic drawings of the ship and all of the deck and rigging details?

    For years, I have tried to find  basic hull drawings of the current great lakes schooner Denis Sullivan, but even the architects can't come up with the body lines for the hull. (All of the other drawings, but not those.)  I don't know if it is some copy-write thing or what. 

    Since I had intended to construct a 3/16" scale model of it, I am at somewhat of a loss of how to even begin.  The ship is currently still in use, but I doubt that I could measure up the under water portion from my wheel chair.

    I love your subject mater, small unusual ships that model manufacturers overlook. 

2 hours ago, Jim Rogers said:

Love the water.

I agree with that, seeing the ship in its natural element is one of the best ways to view a ship.  (After all, it's how most sailors would see ships.) Towing the  ships boat is also a real nice touch.  The ship and ships boat are also well done.

What kind of ship is this?  I can't say that I have ever seen one quite like it.  Is this in current use, or something from years long gone?

This looks like an interesting little ship, but I have to ask one thing.  If the helmsman is up on the platform and is behind the sail, how can he see to steer?

Apparently you can actually operate your sails to show it with them set or furled.  Nice touch!

In this view it looks like a bird that's about to take off.  I wonder what her actual top speed was.

Very unusual looking ram at her bow.  With the eyes here it reminds me of a Chinese duck.

Quite an impressive setup!  Thanks for including the pictures and info on the overall diorama.

Good job with such a small scale.  Is this image here a part of a larger diorama that you have included several other similar ships?  Do you also have an image of the overall diorama?

The photos of the ship in the water really give a much better image of how it would have actually appeared to most observers.

The officer in charge of that boat must have had excellent sea legs to be standing like that!

    You have an excellent eye for details!

Excellent job on fabricating the metal fittings, especially the anchor release.  Am I to assume that your ship was scratch built? 

    I think you did an excellent job on the decking here, and the fittings are certainly well done, but here again, blackening the ironwork would improve the impression of authenticity. (check out the Young America build log by EdT for some excellent tips on this)

    The lapstraking of the lifeboat was very well done here.

    The only suggestion that I have for improving your ship here would be to blacken the ironwork, most notably in this view, the chain and freeing port hinges.

    Excellent work on both the planking and the coppering on the hull here!   I really like the fine definition on the planks, there's no doubt that they appear as individual boards. 

    I've seen some ship models that are sanded so smooth that the individual courses blend into one smooth surface.  I don't believe that a real ships surface could ever have been that smooth.

    As far as the coppering goes you have shown a very subtle impression of the rivets and yet one is still able to discern the pattern quite realistically!

    The overall impression is 

Very nicely done.  Such small scales are very hard to keep in scale, most notably the sail material.  While somewhat out of scale it really does not detract from your model.  I also really like to see unusual ships like this.

    That's a nice job on an unusual little ship.    I see that it has a pilot house and a tiller.  Is this something peculiar to this ship?  Seems like they would need someone at the tiller to steer the ship and someone else in the pilot house to run the engine. 

    Then there is the idea of having someone at the rear of the ship trying to steer while looking around or thru that pilot house.  I've always wondered about that, especially when the ship is much larger where they are even farther back.  The only experience that I've ever had steering a boat was in a runabout where I was in the forward end of the boat (more like driving a car than a boat) at the steering wheel.  One sure wouldn't want to drive a car or truck while sitting in the rear end!  

    Well, you seem to have quite the multi-cultural crew on board!  Along with the expected Arabs it looks like we also have a pair of British Indian regulars, some West Indies pirates, some musketeers, and that must be Captain John Silver with his peg leg in charge.  Wait just a minute here, isn’t that Mike Love from the Beach Boys with the baseball cap in the launch headed for Kokomo?  

    All humor aside, the model itself looks to have been very well executed, with quite a wealth of details!  These ships do make quite an appealing model. 

    Despite their feared reputation for being nimble, fast sailors and very heavily armed for their size, they seemed to have had very crowded decks (how did they manage to man those oars while sitting right on top of their canons?) and very little free-board.  In a heavy sea I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to be very far from land without a flotation device close at hand!

    Aiming or elevating their guns also must have been a bit of a problem with such small gun ports.  Did they have to aim their guns by steering the entire ship and firing them when the ship heeled over enough to raise the guns so they didn’t just send their shots into the sea?  

Iosto

    You have really created something here that anyone would be very proud to show!  Your woodworking skills are outstanding, especially the carving.  The deck details are very clean and precise even at the 1600 x 1067 resolution. I also liked the detailing job that you did on coppering the hull and your rigging. The only thing that didn’t show too well was that the sail material up close was a little too coarse.  But, unless one works at ½” scale or larger for ship modeling, who can find material that looks fine enough to be in scale?  Overall though, I thought you did a superb job!  

And just how did you squeeze that submarine in such a shallow puddle? 

       Boy, that is a spectacular job!  If only I could ever do so well.

     As I have built this same kit and sold it many years ago, I was amazed at all of the extra details that you were able to add to it!  When I built mine, I strictly followed the kit plans and directions.  The guy that I sold it to was happy with it but after seeing your version,  I think I would like to do it over.