marktime

Those are the most beautiful boats that I have ever seen. Finish is perfect. Thank you for sharing.

"I have found this to be a fairly painful process. This much handling of small fine pieces of wire punctures the finger tips quite frequently and I'm getting quite a layer of scar tissue. I cut the shaped chain sections with side cutters then grind the ends flush with a disc on my Dremel. I have brushed the edge of the disc a couple of times with a finger. This smarts too! Heart and soul into a model obviously isn't enough, some blood also helps."

David, I want you to know that us followers are sharing your pain.  Pleae don't stop. We promise to bandage your broken fingers when you have finished teaching us how to construct a superb model..

:D

One day we must talk about the carelessness that allowed the flagship of this voyage of discovery to founder upon a reef in relatively calm waters.

Congrats from me too. Looks magnificent and surely an inspiration to all who followed your build log.

Nope, that won't do, rum had not been produced in the Caribbean until a little bit later as nobody was growing sugarcane. There is a tale that Columbus stopped off here in the Canary Islands, at La Gomera, one of the seven islands of this archipelago called the Canaries, on his way to fame and fortune. He had intended a short stay but had a little jolly with the then governor, Beatriz de Bobadilla y Ossorio, and stayed a month. She in return gave him, as a going away present, cuttings of sugar cane. To keep him sweet I imagine.

I don't see any of this in the Diario, the only mention of the Canaries was the fitting out of the Niña in Las Palmas but it is supposed that this tale represents the way sugar cane entered into the Caribbean and ended up, some 450 years later with Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, describing the Royal Navy as only interested in Rum, Bum and Baccy. Make of that what you will.      

Mmmm... about the ropes. I had in the past access to photos of the replica Santa Maria that sailed in 1992 to celebrate the 5th centenary and one particular view was of the great arch and windlass. The amount and assortment of ropes was astonishing but the thing that I took away from that photo was the ordered chaos and the many different sizes and colours  that made up the cordage.

Neat trick making that hook. 

Here's a photo of the Niña, part of a fantastic series taken by member Kentyler that were regrettably lost to the forum in that ancient crash. Might be of interest to you.

That detail within the crow's nest is very neat, your pulleys are superb and the crow's nest itself looks very good. Do you think the sail bulk of the mizzen is a bit much?

You 'aint got fat fingers, bro! You do realise that after making that exquisite stern lantern from old bits of twisted wire, some pins stolen from your wife's sewing box and a sliver of 3 mm brass plate that we are now holding you to a very high standard!

Like the furled sails and the toggles. Could you make them a bit smaller, scaled up they would be fairly large in comparison to your blocks. That's a nice detail on the forestay to the mainmast.

Some good looking rigging there and a neat knighthead.

As for furled sails on the main and fore, note that the yards were dropped to furl the sails and then rehoisted to get them out of the way. Not surprising that they needed the mechanical advantage provided by the tackles to hoist yard plus sail.

Well done, it's a fine looking model and beautifully presented.

Hi Moonbug. Good to see you in action again. Looks like you're doing some fascinating work and I'm enjoying seeing what you are bringing to one of my favourite models.

That's so exciting to see how the colouring has brought the model to life. Fantastic.

With your skill level it seems a pity to paint the hull. The finishes are outstanding.

I wonder if you realise quite how many people you are inspiring with this build.

Thank you.

Some good ideas there. You are achieving an excellent "aged" look.

Lovely finish on the hull and good attention to detail.

Hi Janet. Let me add my compliments on your work.

As to junk sails, here's a pic of a not very lovely junk but typical, I imagine of the genre. It has been said that junk builders were not concerned with aesthetics as everything tended to be repaired with whatever was the cheapest at hand.

Does it really matter which side you place your stretchers? They'll catch the wind on either side depending upon the tack.

From the log kept by Columbus it appears there were two boats on the Santa Maria, a small dingy type called a Chalupa and a larger one with a single mast and sail called a Batel. On a particularly favourable day the Batel sail was rigged on the poop deck to catch even more of the following winds.

The Batel was also used to circumnavigate the first landfall island, with very high probability, Plana Cays. 

The guns on the Santa Maria would have been lombards, a breech loading weapon lashed to a stationery truck, i.e. no wheels

That transom detail is superb. Is it part of the kit or did you scratch-build the detail?

There are several people who have built the AL Santa Maria, including myself. I passed my plans onto another builder but I think if you search the data base for all Santa Maria builders and then send them a direct message you might have more luck in getting a response. Alternatively, post questions and we will put photos up to show you the way we did it.

OK. I understand what you are trying to achieve. As for the knees, I agree that you can really only go so far in detailing and the visible stuff is where we should really concentrate our attention. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

So is the gun-port reveal the cross-section thickness of the outboard strakes at this level or is it the combined width of the outboard plus inboard lining?

David, in an earlier post you talked about thickening hull and bulkheads where you are going to make penetrations. Can you expound a little on this apparent need?

Pulled it off the web, sized it in a copy-shop and then added a personal note. Great fun. 

Thanks for the thumbs-up.