Mast Length Opinion

[Bill Jackson]

Hi guy,

I am working on the San Felipe galleon and I find I am thinking in circles. The masts length according to the instructions are wrong compaired with the many books I have as reference material. The masts instructions show masts that are 40 to 50 mm too long.

Of course you know I try to keep my models true to the time period etc. So just putting the mast up with the wrong lengths kinda make me ill. But if I chqnge the lengths I will also have to change the sail sizes and a number of other things too.

YOU OPINIONS PLEASE!!

Bill

[dvm27]

Well Bill, if leaving them overlong "kind of makes you ill" then you really have no choice but to modify them (assuming your sources are correct). It should be fairly easy to scan the sails and reduce them in size proportionally. Or you could just leave them as is and noone else would be the wiser (except you). But if you plan on making more model ships you should get in the habit of correcting inaccuracies whenever possible. It's an important step in becoming a semi or scratch builder.

 

Loved our annual visits to Baguio in the 1970's during university breaks!

[Bill Jackson]

Greg thank your opinion. I have to agree with you. But correcting their lengths is a major undertaking indeed. I am using RC Anderson's book and a few others. If I keep my nose in the correct time period, I should be ok. My current time period is late 1500's and the galleon is Spanish. Maybe I will take a leap of faith and try it.

Baguio in the 70s was great! Now the traffic makes traveling around the city a task! But iys still a beautiful place.

Bill

[Dr PR]

I have seen kits that have masts too long (one of the earliest kits I built had masts far too tall). They look out of proportion, and that provoked Wolfram zu Mondfeld (Historic Ship Models) to make some pretty pointed criticisms of these overly tall models!

 

You mention Anderson's book - are you using his Seventeenth Century Rigging book? He did a lot of research on these vessels so I would use his formulas if you can't find a more authoritative source. There are a few galleon builds on the forum, and these fellows may have more information about the masts.

Edited Sunday at 05:02 AM by Dr PR

[Bill Jackson]

Thanks for your comments Doc. I think I'm going to give it a try; that is cutting the masts to the proper size. From what you guys have said so far, it seems that this incorrect mast size is a norm rather than an exception. Anderson's books are good  but I wish he had more info on Spanish galleons.

Thanks again

Bill

[Dr PR]

I think I recall that Spain has a national maritime museum with some ship plans on line. It might be worth the trouble to poke around on the Internet to see if you can find plans of a Spanish galleon.

[Bill Jackson]

I will poke around some. BTW is served on CG-10 (Albany)