Ghost Ship Jenny by Glen McGuire - 1/400 - BOTTLE

[Glen McGuire]

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 eastern 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...

 

 

 

 

[Knocklouder]

Looks like a cool ship, great gift for a niece  😊. Good luck on your journey  

Bob M.

[Javelin]

I was just about to send you a message, enquiring about this one as I had seen it in your signature, without a build log link! 

It's great since I'm scrolling through your sailing ship builds in search of your techniques for a similar build of mine. How lucky can I get? 

 

Looking forward to see the rest of this build! 

[GrandpaPhil]

Looking forward to this build!

 

This will be an excellent gift!

I heard the penguins are super excited and preparing for an invasion!

Edited April 3 by GrandpaPhil

[Keith Black]

 Great backstory and I'm sure the Jenny will live up to your past SIB builds and finally..............penguins!

 

"Okay guys, volunteers for the Jenny SIB project proceed to the check point on your right"

[mtaylor]

I knew we could count on you to herd some penquins this way, Keith.  Well done.

[Glen McGuire]

10 minutes ago, Keith Black said:

"Okay guys, volunteers for the Jenny SIB project proceed to the check point on your right"

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

[Thukydides]

I like the idea of a ship in a bottle trapped by the ice. Sounds like a really cool project.

[ccoyle]

Love the three-masted topsail schooner rig!

[Glen McGuire]

8 hours ago, ccoyle said:

Love the three-masted topsail schooner rig!

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.

[Knocklouder]

On 4/3/2024 at 6:15 PM, Keith Black said:

"Okay guys, volunteers for the Jenny SIB project proceed to the check point on your right"

 

 Are you fixen to have auditions.  All right here comes the Canadain volunteers.  

They have their green cards  I think lol. 

 Glen we talk about polar bears and them gnawing  on the crew, well reading about the Jenny  I found out there are no polar bears  in the Antartic  who knew lol. Not me  and I know less than yesterday  lol.

 Can't wait to see it all come together.  At least this one has no pressure, if you break a mast just say you meant to do that  😉 

Lol I know get back to my ratlines lol 

Bob M.

[Keith Black]

20 minutes ago, Knocklouder said:

All right here comes the Canadain volunteers.

 

 " Don't alarm the others but the latest scuttlebutt is, the Canucks are coming"

[Ian_Grant]

 Regret to inform there are no penguins in the Canadian Arctic. Just polar bears, seals, narwhals, belugas, etc.

[Keith Black]

14 minutes ago, Ian_Grant said:

Regret to inform there are no penguins in the Canadian Arctic

 

[GrandpaPhil]

Glen,

  Chapelle’s Search For Speed Under Sail has plans and line drawings of late 18th century and early 19th century three masted schooners.

 

I just saw them when I was looking through my library for something else.

 

(This forum is my greatest resource for inspiration and ideas)

Edited April 5 by GrandpaPhil

[Glen McGuire]

2 hours ago, GrandpaPhil said:

Chapelle’s Search For Speed Under Sail has plans and line drawings of late 18th century and early 19th century three masted schooners.

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.

[Glen McGuire]

20 hours ago, Knocklouder said:

I found out there are no polar bears  in the Antartic  who knew lol.

Funny you should say that because this whole penguin thing got started with a polar bear comment by @Keith Black during my Aurora build!

 

 

20 hours ago, Knocklouder said:

At least this one has no pressure, if you break a mast just say you meant to do that 

Exactly!  As you can see from the last picture in the post below, if a mast breaks, or a sail rips, or lines break it will just add to the effect of an abandoned, weather-bashed ship!

 

 

 

[Glen McGuire]

OK. Back to the build…
Like I mentioned in the first post, we are joining this program in progress.  The ship construction was pretty much the same method I’ve been using – laminated basswood hull, thinned bamboo toothpicks for the masts, yards, and bowsprit, gutterman thread for the rigging, and shirt cloth for the sails.

My plan was to build the ship as if it were new and then distress it from there.  I took very few pics along the way since I was not planning on doing a log.  But here’s what I’ve got.  The first pic shows the ship almost complete in its pristine fashion.

 

 

The second pic shows my first efforts at shredding all the sails except the stay sails.

 

The third pic adds the stay sails and some smudging.  I scraped graphite from a carpenter’s pencil into dust, stuck the tip of my finger into it, then dabbed it onto the sails.

 

In the last pic I added the anchor and then tried to add melting ice in random places about the ship.  The melting ice is small bits of modeling clay.  

 

Again, I'm tying to give it the look of an abandoned ship that's thawing out from it's icy, Antarctic tomb after 17 years.

Edited April 7 by Glen McGuire

[GrandpaPhil]

13 minutes ago, Glen McGuire said:

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.

 

Chapelle’s History of American Sailing Ships has been invaluable to me also.

[Keith Black]

17 minutes ago, Glen McGuire said:

Funny you should say that because this whole penguin thing got started with a polar bear comment by @Keith Black during my Aurora build!

 

 

 The Jenny looks spot on with the tattered sails and added snow, the penguin also likes it.  

[Javelin]

Your penguin is somewhat out of scale, I dare say. 

I'm quite curious how you did the mast hinges? Did you make 2 halves, 1 on the top and 1 on the bottom part of the mast or did you sandwich 1 piece of top mast between 2 pieces of the bottom part? 

Kind of difficult to explain what I'm talking about I guess.... 

Also, the hinge pin, how do you keep it in place? 

Difficult to make out in your pictures due to the paint. 

Looking forward to your method for making the ice in the bottle.

 

[Glen McGuire]

15 hours ago, Javelin said:

I'm quite curious how you did the mast hinges? Did you make 2 halves, 1 on the top and 1 on the bottom part of the mast or did you sandwich 1 piece of top mast between 2 pieces of the bottom part? 

Kind of difficult to explain what I'm talking about I guess.... 

Also, the hinge pin, how do you keep it in place? 

Hey Roel!  My mast hinges are a "hidden hinge" method I learned from one of @John Fox III's build logs (his are a work of art while just mine manage to get the job done!). 

 

The masts are 2 piece.  I cut a narrow slot in the top end of the bottom half of the mast.  For the top half of the mast, I carve out a narrow tab the fits snugly in the slot.  I angle the base of the slot and the end of the tab to form a "stop" to keep the top half from folding the wrong way.

 

Then I'll put the 2 halves together and use a 78 drill bit to put a hole thru both.  Finally, I insert a piece of .015" music wire for the actual hinge and put a dot of CA glue on each end of the wire to secure it.  I believe Mr. Fox uses wood for the hinge rather than wire.

 

Here's a couple of pics from my Treasure Fleet build that should give you a better look.  If memory serves, Mr. Fox had a sequence of detailed pictures of his hidden hinge construction in his build log but I cannot remember which log I saw it in.

 

     

 

Edited April 6 by Glen McGuire

[Glen McGuire]

Roel, here's one more pic I found that shows the hinge pretty close up.  Hope all of this helps.

 

[Javelin]

Thanks for that Glen. Basically how I made my crude hinges for Sea Installer then. They were far from perfect and luckily hidden by the casings on my model. 

Also thanks for pointing me to @John Fox III 's build. He cheated by putting "in a lightbulb" instead of bottle and avoided showing up in my bottle searches. That is indeed a work of art, I love his hinges and might have to try and steal that method ( but likely end up on a level of "doing the job" rather than a work of art as you mentioned).

 

[Ian_Grant]

Looking at your model's tattered sails and battered hull reminded me of a ghostly ship in a certain poem:

 

......
......
     The western wave was all a-flame
     The day was well nigh done!
     Almost upon the western wave
     Rested the broad bright Sun;
     When that strange shape drove suddenly
     Betwixt us and the Sun.

     And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,
     (Heaven's Mother send us grace!)
     As if through a dungeon-grate he peered,
     With broad and burning face.

     Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
     How fast she nears and nears!
     Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
     Like restless gossameres!

     Are those her ribs through which the Sun
     Did peer, as through a grate?
     And is that Woman all her crew?
     Is that a DEATH? and are there two?
     Is DEATH that woman's mate?

........

........

[Glen McGuire]

12 hours ago, Ian_Grant said:

Looking at your model's tattered sails and battered hull reminded me of a ghostly ship in a certain poem:

That is captivating.  Thanks for sharing, Ian.

[Ian_Grant]

1 hour ago, Glen McGuire said:

That is captivating.  Thanks for sharing, Ian.

Glen, if you aren't familiar it's from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798) by Coleridge. A bit of a difficult read these days, maybe then too.

[Glen McGuire]

11 minutes ago, Ian_Grant said:

"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798) by Coleridge.

I did not recognize it when I read your post, but now that you mention the title, I remember it from speech tournaments in junior high!  Yes, a difficult read and recitation.  

[Glen McGuire]

A small diversion from the build...

I am fortunate enough to live right in the path of totality for yesterday's solar eclipse.  Unfortunately, we had a thick layer of clouds streaming in from the gulf of Mexico during the middle of the day which obscured much of the view.  However, there were fleeting moments with small breaks in the clouds.  At my house I was scheduled for almost 3 full minutes of totality.  In reality, I got several 5 to 10 second windows. 

 

The really spectacular part was when the sun began to reappear.  It looked like small flames dancing on the edge of the darkened sphere while it caught fire.  Seconds later the thick clouds came roaring back and shut down the view again.  Here's a couple of pics taken with my phone camera.  They do not do justice to what it actually looked like, but are still pretty cool.

 

 

Edited April 9 by Glen McGuire

[Knocklouder]

Wow Glen, that is so cool. The Canadain Penguins volunteers were looking forward to seeing this event. But sadly, no one beleived they were Canadain. 

  It turns out that their grandparents were brought to the Artic in 1936 by a fellow named Lars Christenson on board a ship called the SS Neptune. Lars let 9 king Penguins loose, 4 breeding pair and a juvenile.  Over the next 10 years, more species of Penguins  were released . And if you were born in Canada  you are Canadain .

 Some even had offspring.  Sadly  local artiic inhabitants  took their toll on the colony.  Most of the Penguins were rounded up in the early 50's for their own safety ,  But the volunteers were born in Canada and are living at the Calgary Zoo in Alberta.  Some even show signs of inter mixing with other species.  All though  you guys probably don't beleive  that Rudolf lives in Canada  either lol But there is proof.

There is even old tales about Penguins that have dared each other to go on board a death ship that has 3 masts and was frozen in the Ice.. 

GHOST STORYS FROM THE PAST!!

Bob M.

Edited April 9 by Knocklouder
Guessing typos lol