clear silicone

Silicone is not the way to go.

It smells bad, it shrinks as it cures,

A better idea is the stuff that all art stores sell for putting texture on art boards or canvas before painting a picture,

In the States its mostly sold by Liquitex.

They call it Acrylic Gel.

search.yahoo.com/.../search

and it looks like a couple of things dropped into a bad caulking job.

"Clear" caulking does not dry clear.     Go to the art supply store

Polyester resin is another good "water" maker. Pour a quarter inch or so. It will self level.  Good as is for harbors and docked or moored ships.  For ships at sea, build up waves over polyester with the Acrylic stuff.  Do not pour around plastic hull- setting resin gets hot.  Make wooden plug of lower hull, apply a parting agent, and then pour resin.

I've used clear silicone caulk (like the kind used for bathrooms and windows) before and had no issues and it turned out looking pretty good.  A couple things to take note of though:

-Paint the base your sea color before applying the caulk, then attach your ship.  This will actually give the water some depth.

-Keep the caulk thin, if it gets really thick then you'll have some cloudiness.

-If you do end up with cloudiness, and where you want to paint wake, use white enamel paint.  It will bead up a little which actually makes it look like real sea foam.  Be ready to do multiple coats of white.

I would recommend playing with it a bit on some scrap material (cardboard, wood, styrene, etc.) and see if you like it before you dismiss it, caulk is pretty inexpensive.

Groot

I'll bet it was acrylic or polyurethane caulk. Silicone caulk is expensive.

May have been, I grabbed clear bathroom caulk at the hardware store and went with it.  I want to say the tube said silicone, but it was a couple years ago.

Groot