Yes, I began it as an experiment in hull construction without the use of a saw , and for instructional purposes. It is made from layers of balsa wood all cut with a scalpel. By the time I had finished the bare hull, I decided to push ahead and complete it, Bob

Thanks Colin,

I just remembered I had this photogrpah, it graphically illustrates the shape of these old wooden vessels. This was the last mortal remains of the 400-ton wooden barque Jhelum, that I photographed in Port Stanley, Falkland Islands in 1982. She was built in Liverpool in 1850, and hulked at Stanley in 1870 after getting a severe battering off Cape Horn. It was quite interesting inside it, as the poop cabins remained, but everything forward was in the final stages of decay, and the whole shebang has since collapsed into the harbour. So ended the last surviving Indfiaman!   That is my ship in the background, RMS St Helena, all flagged out for the victory party to be held onboard that evening –  

Bob

Edited By Bob Wilson on 22/04/2020 20:26:10

Edited By Bob Wilson on 22/04/2020 20:26:50

Bob,

I do remember. My St Helena was built in 1963 in Vancouver, as Northland Prince, but became St Helena in 1978. Then we all transferred to a new ship, also called St Helena in late 1989.

Bob

For the last two days, I have been making the display case – soon be ready for the masting & rigging!

More progress on the 900-ton barque. It does not have a name – I designed it myself. Initially, I did not intend to finish it, but made the hull to try out a new method of showing the copper plating. But after I had made the hull, I was so pleased with it, that I decided to carry on. The copper plating is actually a photograph of a brick wall. I stretched the bricks in Adobe Photoshop to the correct scale of the plating, and put them on in strips two or three bricks deep. It did not take very long, I and really like the way this model is turning out!

This one has not aroused a great deal of interest – another "damp squib" in fact, but I like it very much, and feel it is one of my best so far –

Bob,

I am not in the least discouraged. The fact that so few people make anything like this makes it far easier for me to sell them, although we may keep this one, as we like it so much. The copper sheathing was certainly worth the effort. It kept the worms from boring into the planking and ruining an expensive ship. The plates were nailed on over a felt backing. Quite often, sailing ships spent weeks or months in port loading or discharging, but there was plenty of headroom inside merchant ships. It was only sailing warships that had low headroom in order to pack in hundreds of seamen. Ships like this would normally have cargo, but the big iron or steel ones, especially on the nitrate run to South America, would sometimes go out in ballast that was generally hundreds of tons assorted rubble, but a cargo of coal out and nitrates back was more profitable

Bob

Edited By Bob Wilson on 06/05/2020 09:42:04