As Ron knows from our personal correspondence, I've got a personal love-hate relationship with the Crabtree collection. I worked at the Mariners' Museum from 1980 through 1983, and taking care of those models was one of my more...well, interesting responsibilities.
I agree completely that the carved details on them are spectacular (though somewhat variable - as one would expect in a group of models that were built over a period of several decades). Anybody with any interest in sailing ship models ought to take a good look at them. What modelers should not do, however, is regard those models as good examples of research. In terms of historical accuracy they vary from ok to pretty awful. That's not a criticism. Crabtree built them between the 1920s and the 1940s, long before most of the research materials available to modern modelers were published. To criticize him for failing to meet modern standards of scale accuracy would make about as much sense as criticizing the Wright Brothers for failing to invent the jet engine. But the models are properly regarded as works of art, rather than an indication of what real ships looked like.
The most prominent example of the problem is the model that used to be labeled "Continental Brig Lexington." It was based on a set of plans that were published in Mechanix Illustrated magazine back in the twenties. Those plans are regarded nowadays as a classic example of how not to reconstruct a ship. They contain all sorts of anachronisms in terms of rigging, boat davits, decoration, and heaven knows what else. Furthermore, in the years since the plans were published a couple of contemporary pictures of the real Lexington have been found, and they establish that she looked nothing like that. I was responsible for getting the "Lexington" label removed from the model - to the accompaniment of some pretty loud howls of protest from Crabtree's admirers. The new label I wrote for it called it an "Armed Brig, circa 1810." (Actually that's a mistake too; in the midst of the scuffle I committed a howler of my own. That model isn't a brig; it's a snow. I don't know what the museum calls it nowadays.)
I got thoroughly disgusted with the management of the Mariners' Museum a long time ago, and for the past ten years or so I've made it a point to go nowhere near the place. (My wife says she can sense my blood pressure going up whenever we drive past the entrance.) But I agree that every ship model enthusiast ought to pay it a visit. And by all means admire the Crabtree models for what they are: manifestations of an incredible woodworking talent and, collectively, a landmark in the history of ship modeling. Just don't take them too seriously as scale models.
Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.