Mayflower Galleon 1:100 (The pilgrims journey)

[PAPER FAN]

That is a superbly beautiful model. She looks like the real thing.

[RdK]

Hi everyone!

Thanks Mike and Paper Fan!

The pilgrims are almost there! Hoisting the last sails as they discovered land on the 9th of November (400 years ago...).

Here some progress from the messy rigging and a few problems.

Main sails sheets and braces

I found a small discrepancy in main sail sheet rigging between the Mayflower II (pic. 1) and the plans by Waldemar Novy (pic. 2). So I consulted Anderson's book and modified my approach a bit. In the book the rigging of the main sail sheets (the thicker rigging part that goes from the bottom corners of the sail to the back of the ship) is described as..... being during that era (early to mid 1600s) not typically with an extra block on the side (but possible) and typically starting from a ring-bolt on the wale, leading to the block at the clew of the sail and back to sheave in the bulwark or to a block on another ring-bolt and then to a hole in the side. This second block should be above its standing part. The sheet should also never foul guns or chain plates...... You can see my interpretation of this in Picture 3. The main sail braces (the thicker rigging from the upper corners of the sail to the back) are also in the plans of Waldemar Nowy oddly attached to the side with a ring-bolt (pic. 4), but then again on another part of the rigging plan, they are attached to the cleat on the upper deck..
...I attached them to the cleat. They start, however from the ring-bolts on the poop deck.

The rest of the pictures show a bit of the rigging progress so far. The main topsail gave me extra trouble, because of my clumsy and messy way to shape the sails with the varnish...It got so hard and difficult to bend, that when I stretched it to fit the topsail sheets to the main mast blocks, the whole top yard got totally bended... Therefore I had to tighten the braces of the main yard and the main top yard quite a bit to straighten the crooked appearance! Would had preferred to give them a bit slack, but no can do...

Next is the final mizzen sail and the anchors. As last thing I will have to make a name shield for the stand and the flags...

So much for now!

-RdK

[Michael Mash]

Fine work and excellent photos Radek.
I think the pilgrims will be safe aboard your Mayflower.
Mike

[abhovi]

Very nice result Radek. Compliments.

[Siwi]

This is fantastic to see. I'm from Southampton, which was one of the departure points for this ship (also Titanic). There were planned to be a lot of events in the city this year to celebrate, but we only managed to do the big youth music concerts in March before the pandemic shut down everything. So I guess this model is about the best form of commemoration to see at the moment.

[Seahorse]

Good job! And the finish is not far away.

[Don Boose]

It has been a great pleasure to watch you build this model of a historic ship. Thank you for all the detailed narrative on the adventure of the build.

Don

[RdK]

Hi there!

Thank you all for the kind words!

Here's a short update: I finished the rigging of the ship. There is still work to be done with placing all the coils on the deck as well as finishing the name for the stand and the anchors as well as the flags.

But the sun was shining today and I tried to make some pictures with natural light.

My apologies for the bad picture quality (quite grainy). Will do a better job next time.

Rgds,
Radek

[Michael Mash]

Lovely skillful work Radek. The photos are fine.
My favorite is that dramatic stern view in image number 7.
Mike

[RdK]

Hi!

Thank you Mike! I also like that particular picture!

Anchors...

As mentioned by Ab in post #216 and #217, the anchors in the plans were from a different era, so I had to do them again, or at least remodel the one I've already done: The anchor arm was too round and the fluke too small...(pic. 1)

While making the second one (pic. 2), I noticed it was a bit too thick to my taste (pic. 3), so I cut off all unnecessary material (and broke the anchor in the process twice!), made sure the fluke is this time big enough and started to think about how to attach the anchor to the ship. Surprisingly there is not too much information about that either in the plans nor in other ship modeling forums... Apparently this seems to be such a trivial case that no one needs to describe it in detail...

So after quite some research in the internet I found two drawings of "cathead rigging", which I used as basis for my Mayflower (pic. 4). There is plenty of information about how to attach the anchor cable to the anchor ring, but how to set the anchor on the side of the ship is a different story: It requires a rope called painter; the one attached to the deadeye and the shank of the anchor is called shank painter (pic. 5), whereas another one can be attached to the ring, called ring painter. The ring painter and the cat block tack can be attached to the cathead via a bolt-ring or in a more simpler fashion by a big knot in the end of the rope. I used the method of a vertical hole in the cathead and the rope fixed with a knot from the top part, as seen in the schematic in picture 4. Because I figured that out at this stage, I could not drill a real hole in the cathead, so I just imitated a small hole and glued the knot from the top and the rope from underneath the cathead to imitate that it is one string of rope going through the piece.
I am still a bit unsure about the ring painter if I should attach it, but I think I will. All other loose ends of the cat block tack and (if I attach it) the ring painter will be attached to the closest cleat or pin on the fore deck (more pictures in a later post).

The last few pictures show how (without the ring painter yet) the ready rigged cathead and anchors look like on the Mayflower.

With ready anchors the pilgrims are now able to set anchor and land safely in the new world!

But before doing that they still need to hoist the Union Jack!!


RdK