Thank you all for the encouragement...
Bremen's lifeboats were a bit of a mess... so group 1, I made wrong by not setting the frame deep enough within the outside shell of the boat, and did this very consistently for about 20 boats, when by chance I made one the right way. Checked the photo of the assembled model that covers Schreiber's kit, yup, made them wrong.
Group 2 I made the right way, even if some were a little "ribby," and added a small rudder for each, which didn't really increase the overall length. Then went to install... the boats were running into the winch platforms, each other, and not lining up correctly under the davits...
looked at Schreiber's picture again, closely, and then a side elevation of the prototype.
The bulk of the boats between postions 5, 6 (3rd pair aft of the bridge) and 23, 24 (second to last pair on Upper promenade deck) should all be 28mm long ; boats 3 & 4, with the gunwale extensions, should be 30mm. All of Schreiber's, both assembled wrong and assembled right, measure 30mm. Schreiber does also include a pair of yellow colored boats for positions 3 & 4 which are clearly too long...
They do all technically fit under the davits...
oh, the other thing is that the davits aren't correctly placed, beginning with boats 3 & 4 and then not having even spacing between pairs of boats, the gap between davits at the winch supporting platforms is like 9mm, and the empty platforms, 7 or so...this was already a finished concern i had figured, since these platforms are part of the Sundeck structure.
So I ended up with group 3, after a bunch of trials. 28mm long except for boats 3 & 4, 8 mm beam, little bit longer parellel section in the middle and open-topped, since most pictures I've seen show her boats uncovered. I was not as consistent between boats as I would like to be, but I'll have another group for
Europa.
I dont want to sound as if i'm complaining about Schreiber, I think overall its pretty good and much easier to 'repair' than any plastic ship I'd ever put together. It's been a lot more work, but also much more fufilling...Rigging next, and I'm horrible at that
