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Rigging the Maylower from Heller and some pictures

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  • Member since
    December 2005
  • From: San Diego
Posted by jgonzales on Wednesday, June 28, 2006 9:35 AM

The model and plans appear to be of the Mayflower II - the full-size replica now on display at Plimoth Plantation in Massachusetts. The ship was built in England and sailed to America as a gift. There are other wooden models called "Mayflower" available, but most of those are not based on any known plans - nobody knows what the original Mayflower looked like, but the Mayflower II is a reasonable facsimile of a merchant vessel from the era. If you do a google search using "Mayflower II", you will find lots of pictures of the ship as she sits now.

I have an as-yet-unbuilt Airfix "Mayflower" model (also based on the Mayflower II) which is at 1/96 scale, and is 320mm overall, making the original around 30 meters in length. Your Mayflower running at 490mm would put it at approx. 1/60 scale. The only other Mayflower model I know of at that scale is the new Trumpeter one. Perhaps Heller is selling that same kit relabeled.

Years ago I built the Revell 1/83 Mayflower. Other than the injection-moulded plastic ratlines, the model was great, with a very good rigging plan. (btw the online plans look very much like the ones for this kit, as best I can remember) The model is unfortunately gone, a victim of a spring cleaning/garage sale at my parents' house years ago, but the instructions might have been saved-I'll take a look next time I'm back there.

Jose Gonzales

Jose Gonzales San Diego, CA
  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Wednesday, June 28, 2006 9:17 AM

Those diagrams are highly simplified.  The lines they show are in about the right places, but there are no blocks or other rigging fittings.  I can easily understand why, if you've got even a little experience with rigging ship models, you'd want to go at least a bit beyond what they offer.

The plans Powder Monkey found look pretty reasonable to me.  They're awfully small, though, and try to cram a great deal of information into a couple of diagrams. 

I haven't seen either of the two Revell kits in years.  The larger of the two, oddly enough, was a "quick-build" version with grossly simplified rigging; the smaller was considerably more complicated.  The leads of the lines were shown reasonably accurately in the instructions, though the overall rigging plan was simplified quite a bit to accommodate such things as plastic-coated-thread "shrouds and ratlines" and blocks recycled from the old Cutty Sark kit.  On the basis of the photos, I think this Heller kit is a reboxing of the smaller Revell one - with most of the rigging fittings, such as the blocks, omitted.  If I'm correct, it's one of the best plastic sailing ship kits ever produced.

I can recommend three excellent published sources:

1.  The Mayflower and Other Colonial Vessels, by William A. Baker.  Mr. Baker, a longtime professor of naval architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was the designer of the replica ship Mayflower II, which crossed the Atlantic in (I think) 1956 and is still moored at Plymouth as a museum ship.  The book includes a set of plans for the Mayflower II, including the rigging.  The two Revell kits are in fact excellent, accurate scale models of the Mayflower II.  

2.  The Rigging of Ships in the Days of the Spritsail Topmast, 1600-1720, by R.C. Anderson.  This is the standard reference on the general subject of seventeenth-century rigging.  From the modeler's standpoint, its great virtue is that it's easily obtainable; Model Expo sells a cheap paperback edition for about $12.00, and even cheaper used copies can be found on the web.  Everything you need to rig a model of the Mayflower is in that book somewhere, though it also contains a lot of material that's only relevant to larger ships.  A very similar book, also by Dr. Anderson, is called simply Seventeenth-Century Rigging.  It's a slightly revised version that deletes the references to non-English practice; for a Mayflower project it would be fine.

3.  The Ship Susan Constant, by Brian Lavery.  This is a volume in the well-known Anatomy of the Ship series, from the Conway Maritime Press.  The Susan Constant, of course, was the largest of the three ships that brought the first English settlers to Jamestown in 1607.  Given the extreme paucity of information about such ships, the information about the rigging in Mr. Lavery's book can be taken as just as valid for the Mayflower.  Of the three books, I think this one might be the easiest to use for model-building purposes.  There are lots of rigging diagrams, and the lead of each line is described verbally - and it wouldn't require wading through a great deal of not-directly-relevant information, as either of the two Anderson books would.

Hope that helps a little.  Good luck.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    June 2005
  • From: Walworth, NY
Posted by Powder Monkey on Wednesday, June 28, 2006 7:52 AM
Maybe this will help. It is a free download of plans to the Mayflower. I don't know about their accuracy. Possibly someone else can comment.

http://www.all-model.com/list1/mayflower/mayflower.html

  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, June 28, 2006 3:34 AM
<BLOCKQUOTE><table class="quoteOuterTable"><tr><td class="txt4"><img src="/FSM/CS/Themes/default/images/icon-quote.gif">&nbsp;<strong>Katzennahrung wrote:</strong></td></tr><tr><td class="quoteTable"><table width="100%"><tr><td width="100%" valign="top" class="txt4">

There is also an image posted of the stand. Maybe the stand will hint to the original manufacturer.</td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>

As an addendum: the overall lengths of the ship measures around 19" (49 cm) if I am right. Hence rigging is crucial at such a large ship. Note: 1/50 scale indication on the box is likely a mistake.
  • Member since
    November 2005
Rigging the Maylower from Heller and some pictures
Posted by Anonymous on Wednesday, June 28, 2006 3:29 AM
Hello: Enclosed some far from perfect snapshots of the Heller kit "Mayflower" at the folder "Mayflower" at:

http://de.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/kater_katze_felix/album?.dir=/3f58re2

Please can anyone comment on the first 3 images which show the rigging instruction (you can download the images for better zooming in). I mean the kit costs around $ 60,- and shows more or less no rigging.

It would be fine if anyone could post some images of the rigging section of the manual of other Mayflowers lets say from Revell.

I am not sure whether I will start building the ships since my knowledge is limited. I would like to give my Mayflower some more rigging lines. But how? Zu Mondfeld book is of no help to me. I would actually like to see it in an instruction manual.

There is also an image posted of the stand. Maybe the stand will hint to the original manufacturer.
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