Santa Maria

Ron's idea is excellent - but I'm afraid the theme for my modeling activities for the rest of this lifetime will be Interesting Ships That I Haven't Built Yet. So many ships, so little time....

Considering the myriad choices available to us (especially scratch-builders like Dr. Tilley) it seems that we tend (at least in my experience and conversations) to build random examples of ships that interest us. John's reference to August Crabtree prompted me to think about a theme and, therefore, a systematic selection of particular ships within which to tell a story. Crabtree sought to trace the evolution of the sailing ship from Bronze Age to the dawn of the age of steam. Pretty broad theme! How about the great wars and the sea battles that were the milestones of the conflicts; the years between 1600 and 1800 and the trade ships of that remarkable period (Indiamen and others); the galleys and galleasses that fought at LePanto in 1571; the great age of discovery and exploration? I think this may be a lifetime project for me (I'm 60) but it's worth starting. Keep you posted!
Best,
Ron
(This should probably have been in "What's everybody building" but John's reference to the ships available and not available got my thinking program engaged)

John, you hit the nail on the head about sailing ship modelers being cost conservative. When I was a starving college student, I was building both the Victory and the Alabama in my small apartment. The local Woolworths was closing and I got both kits for $15. I think I built both models for under $20 in 1990. I do not spend much money on sailing ships. A, because there is not much out there in the way of aftermarket PE and such, and B, I like the challenge.

My other hobbies are RC planes and Rockets. Both of these hobbies are bombarded with ARF and ready made models to the point where individuality is becoming extinct. I am also building an Academy Bismark, and this model too seems to me like I building from a cookie cutter and mine will look no different than the other 1000 or so models that are pictured on the web.

I think another part of the lack of interest in building sailing ships is that they cannot be prefabed like other models can. Although Monogram (Revell) came close with the "quick build" series, there still are not any kits that come pre-painted, practically prefabed, with all the details precasted in resin or photoetch.

Then there is accuracy. How much can a manufacturer invest into trying to find the correct design, color, rig, and sail pattern of the ship like the SM, which has no solid historical references to it, and please historical critical modeler?

The plus side, we as ship modelers can still build to our own liking, on the minus, we won't have the luxuries of prefab and aftermarket resin and phtoetched goodies, or the volumes of Squadron reference books made to historical accuracy.

Scott

Scott, I would really like to be able to build "Ranger" if it ever came out. I am sure you know the significance of the Ranger, but to those who do not, it was the first US Navy ship to be recognized and saluted by a foreign navy (France) and was captained by a guy named John Jones (middle initial - P). Thanks for bringing her name up.

CScottrc - A nicely researched model of the Ranger would be great. The problem is that, as is the case with so many other Revolutionary War vessels, the surviving information about her is extremely meager. She's not one I personally would want to tackle. But if somebody else wants to - great.

Sounds like all of us generally agree: making models of famous ships is a great hobby, but there are plenty of fine, unexploited subjects out there. Unfortunately we all need to get to grips with the overwhelming fact of life in this phase of the hobby: the plastic sailing ship kit is, to all intents and purposes, dead. Maybe it will come back to life some day, but for the time being we're stuck either building hackneyed subjects or scratchbuilding.

I remember from my days as a hobby shop clerk the built-in problems with sailing ship kits. Most of those that got purchased never got finished; that's a problem endemic to model kits of all sorts. The sailing ship is especially frustrating from the hobby dealer's standpoint for two additional reasons. One - building a sailing ship model takes a great deal of time. The customer who buys such a kit may spend a hundred dollars or more on it, but if he actually builds it he won't buy another one for a year or more. (If he doesn't actually build it he'll probably get discouraged and never come back in the hobby shop.) Two (and even more frustrating) - the better the ship modeler gets, the less money he spends. Model railroaders shell out hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year on their hobby. The sailing ship modeler gets weeks of satisfaction out of a handfull of wood and a few dollars' worth of paint and adhesive. Such people cannot keep a hobby shop in business.

I sometimes gripe about the low quality of the merchandise carried by firms like Model Expo. I contend that - with the very notable exception of the Model Shipways products - most of the kits in the Model Expo catalog are over-priced junk. But we probably should be grateful that the firm exists. I certainly wouldn't want to try to make a living selling ship model supplies these days.

The good news is that scratchbuilding isn't as hard as most people seem to think. I don't take the hard-line, anti-kit stance that some scratchbuilders do; I believe in kits and I think they occupy an important niche in the hobby. But there is something extremely liberating about being able to pick one's own subject.

Jtilley you are very correct there are a ton of ships that I would love to see in kits that aren't.I'm not a scratch builder like yourself so I have to rely on kit companys for my models.And mostly plastic at that . My dream is for some company to come out with a Revoluntinary ship model as Scott stated The Ranger or The Fair American.I still believe if a company like Trumpeter did this it would sell like there Aircraft Carrier kits.Perhaps this is a old modelers foolish dream.

And yes Clipper ships. There's only one decent plastic kit the Cutty Sark and like Jtilley said you do get tired of seening it.But till then I build whats given to me.
Rod

Like the Ranger?

Chapelle was an outspoken character, and tended to stray into hyperbole on occasion. I probably have the same problem. I don't suggest a ban on Santa Maria models; I suppose it's not a bad idea for each generation to rethink the subject. Ship modeling, approached rigorously, can be an extremely useful research tool. Unlike the rendition of a drawing or a painting, it forces the researcher to confront all the problems in three dimensions - without the expense and impracticality associated with a full-size replica.

I guess my problem with Santa Maria models relates less to the lack of references than to the fact that she's such an incredibly hackneyed subject. As Ron implies, she's pobably the most famous ship in history. (The only possible rival is Noah's Ark - which, fortunately, has not provided much inspiration to ship modelers.) The number of Santa Maria models produced since 1492 has to be in the millions. Some of them represent good, solid, research; others are sold in grocery stores, and there are countless variations between.

One problem with this situation is that it becomes difficult for the casual researcher or enthusiast to distinguish between the well-researched model representing the current state of research and the others. The Santa Maria and Nina that August Crabtree built, and that are now in the Mariners' Museum, most emphatically do not represent the current state of scholarship. They were built sixty years ago or thereabouts, and in any case Crabtree was a far better craftsman than an historian. (In his defense, the text of the little book he wrote about his models does acknowledge that those two are based largely on guesswork.) But many visitors to the museum - and many modelers, I'm afraid - assume those models are accurate representations of the actual ships.

If somebody turns up a model that can be conclusively proven to have been built by one of Columbus's sailors, or if some previously unknown trove of detailed information about Spanish ships of the fifteenth century gets discovered, I'll be fascinated. Otherwise, it would take a great deal to get me interested in one more model of the Santa Maria.

Chapelle wrote another article called "The Ship Model that Should Be Built." I like that one better. His point this time was that there's a great deal of information out there about important, good-looking vessels that hardly ever attract the attention of modelers. I've seen enough good models of the U.S.S. Constitution to last me the rest of my life, but I can't recall ever seeing a serious scale model of the Philadelphia, the Chesapeake, the Wasp, or the Hornet.. I have no inclination to build one more H.M.S. Victory - but how about the Royal Sovereign, which was the first through the line at Trafalgar? For that matter, how about the losers? When was the last time you saw a model of H.M.S. Guerriere, or the Bucentaure, Villeneuve's flagship at Trafalgar? Plans for a couple of dozen beautiful, important American clipper ships are available; why does everybody have to build the Flying Cloud or the Sea Witch? (Three cheers for Bluejacket and its new Red Jacket kit.)

When I picked my own first scratchbuilding subject, the Continental frigate Hancock, I was aware of only a couple of other models of her. Since then - through no doing of mine - she's become a pretty popular subject herself. I think it's neat when that happens. Now, why doesn't some kit company, rather than giving us yet another Constitution or Santa Maria, do a kit for a Revolutionary War frigate?

Sure, we can always use another good, well-researched model of the Santa Maria. But plenty of other good subjects are waiting to be turned into models.

Santa Maria made 1/2 of an important voyage (ran aground in Haiti on Christmas 1492 and was broken up to build a fort for the 40 men left behind) and so never returned to Palos. We do know (surmise?) that she was built in Galacia on the northwestern coast of Spain around the late 1400's so we may use the typical "freighter" of the time as being representative of Santa Maria. A carrack is the accepted form but what's a carrack? One author of note says there are "thousands of models, fine and rough, in museums and toyboxes, but they only share one thing in common; they are all inaccurate." (That was heavily paraphrased) "WA"'s interpretation (WA was a rather prolific ship illustrator of the time) seems to show the fat, round ship we associate with the SM. Since she was the first ship whose name went down in history (maybe the second if you count the Ark) I agree that we should continue to build her, but with the thought in mind that this cannot be a historically accurate Santa Maria. I saw, incidentally, in an old Modeller mag, a builder's interpretation of WA's carrack with the distorted perspective and all. Really interesting.
Best,
Ron

For Rod Millard, I was just reminded about the Trumpeter Mayflower, and was wondering if you could send me a pic or two? I imagine a lot of folks would be interested. Ibemeron@aol.com

Thanks,
Ron

I've built several Imai and Revell Santa Maria kits. I've labeled them as Santa Maria, Carrack or just as 15Th century ship.J tilley and Jammett are correct there's no actual pictures of the real ship.Mostly just written info about the ships and the history.What we know of them today is from artist conception of the ships usally painted years after the event.so I guess when I build a model of them its my so called artist view.

Now they did find a model of a carrack in a church in Mataro ,Spain the model had been there since the mid 15th century.This model is very round and blunt nose.Now the model had only one mast they figure it should have had two.My feelings is that as you go ahead in history that the ship would have gotten more sleeker as time progressed.
And by the late 15th century not as round and blunt. Thats just my opinion.

I mildly disagree with Mr.Chappelle.Ships like the Santa Maria, Mayflower ,Golden Hind,and etc. we don't have clear example of.But we should try and make models of them.And as most ship modelers do alot of research in to there models.We'll find more examples and artist interpretions of the actual ships perhaps getting us close to real designs.Its like and archaeological dig of sorts.
Rod

I'm inclined to agree with jamnett, but I'm not sure - and I don't think anybody else is either. The question of the Santa Maria's appearance is one that ship modelers have been wrestling with for...let's see...513 years. The bottom line is that nobody knows what she looked like. In Columbus's journal he called her a "nao," as distinct from the "caravels" Nina and Pinta. Just what that word "nao" (literally simply "ship") meant has been debated repeatedly. Some scholars do think she was a carrack - but there's plenty of room for argument about that term, too.

Howard I. Chapelle once wrote an article for the Nautical Research Journal called "The Ship Model That Should Not Be Built." His thesis was that there is so little reliable information about some vessels that modelers would be better advised to avoid them. He put the Santa Maria at the top of his list. I'm inclined to agree with him.