Nice intricate rope work Tim. … I’m having flashbacks to Victory… But yours is soooooo much neater
Thank you, John. There is definitely a bit of rigging, but this simple nao is worlds simpler than HMS Victory… full respect to anyone who takes that ship on!
I reattached the spars/sails; next up will be the fore stays and then the running rigging.
Looking great Tim,
The rigging is coming on very nicely, some real progess whilst I have been away.
Cheers, 
Si
Me too ! I think Tim will be reminded of that detail for all eternity !
Namabiiru
Me too ! I think Tim will be reminded of that detail for all eternity !
Looking great Tim,
The rigging is coming on very nicely, some real progess whilst I have been away.Cheers,
Thanks Si.
Some more progress: the fore stays – those fixed lines that counterbalanced the back stays and served to keep the masts from toppling backward – have now been installed.
So much for the fixed standing rigging that kept the masts in place. Next up will be the running rigging that was used to control the sails.
Tim, really excellent work on the standing rigging. An exercise is patience for certain. Looking forward to the running rigging.
John
Lovely work all round and great attention to detail as well. Super little ship 
Tim, fine work with assembly and build, didn’t know you had on going until this popped up today when I did a search. You always do amazing work, she’s going to look wonderful on display. Mark 
Tim, really excellent work on the standing rigging. An exercise is patience for certain. Looking forward to the running rigging.
John
Lovely work all round and great attention to detail as well. Super little ship
Tim, fine work with assembly and build, didn’t know you had on going until this popped up today when I did a search. You always do amazing work, she’s going to look wonderful on display. Mark
Thanks guys!
Before continuing on with the rigging I took break to prep the anchors – but I wasn’t particularly happy with Pyro’s interpretation of them!
One of Santa María’s anchors has actually been preserved and may be seen at the Musée du Panthéon National Haïtien in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Although it apparently shared the unusual stockless design of Pyro’s Santa María kit anchors, it was clearly much more slender.
Fortunately, the anchor parts provided in Pyro’s Pinta kit come closer to the original, and I had a spare kit on hand. I decided to mount these on Santa María just as I had done on my Pinta build.
Then the Santa María kit boxart caught my eye; contrary to the real anchor in the museum, it showed the anchor as having the usual prominent wooden stock at the top just below the ring.
Curious, I consulted Xavier Pastor’s Anatomy of the Ship: The Ships of Christopher Columbus – and sure enough, the illustration there also showed the anchor to have had a stock! What was going on here? Then I realized… that preserved anchor in the Haitian museum had been recovered in 1796, over three hundred years after it was lost at sea – the original wooden stock had simply rotted away!
Examples of this are not uncommon. When an anchor from Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge, lost in 1717, was recovered 300 years later, it too showed no signs of the wooden stock it was known to have had.
And so I cut the tops off the Pyro Pinta anchors and inserted sheet plastic stocks.
Here is one of the anchors painted up and test fitted.
Two steps forward, one step back…
As I finished the standing rigging and prepared to move on to the running lines, the orientation of the sails began to bother me. I had aligned them with the-fore-and aft molded flags with the ship running before the wind (i.e., the wind directly astern). In this situation, the mainsail should have been hauled up so as not to steal the wind from the foresail (illustration F in this diagram from John Harland’s Seamanship in the Age of Sail):
So I bent the flags and remounted the sails a few degrees to the left to suggest that the ship was heading slightly off the wind, sailing free (illustration D).
The difference isn’t dramatic, but at least it can better explain how both the main and fore sails are full!
Now on to that running rigging…
Tim,
Great catches on the anchor and the sails. My notebook’s getting full. Keep it up Obiwan!
Paduwan John
Tim,
Great catches on the anchor and the sails. My notebook’s getting full. Keep it up Obiwan!
Paduwan John
Thanks John!
I have begun the running rigging – the lines used to control the sails – with the mizzen lateen sail.
The sheet line was attached to the lower corner of the sail with a dot of super glue…
…then the line was set to the boomkin (that little spar sticking out from the stern). I also added the brace line to the lower end of the lateen yard…
…which was then attached it to the aft fife rail. The upper brace was secured to the portside rail.
Finally, I added the horizontal control line (the one with the two bridles) from the mizzen yard to the mainmast just below the crow’s nest. Also added were the lifts, braces, and sheet lines on the mainsail. This may sound like a lot, but it is all actually quite simplified; I’m going for “representational” rather than full rigging so as not to overwhelm this tiny model.
The topsail is has now been remounted at its adjusted angle.
Here the lifts which supported the yard are being attached. The mast still needs a little touch up where the white plastic is showing from when I removed the topsail before… 
After fitting the braces from the topsail yard which converged on the mizzen, the topsail is done. I’m not so sure of Pyro’s kit design here, though; the lookout in the crow’s nest surely couldn’t see forward when that topsail was set!
Some poor dupe was probably sent up to the yard arm above to keep watch…
This build keeps getting better n better, Tim 
Thanks Russ!
Columbus himself claimed to have been the first to spot the New World from the Santa María’s deck on the night of October 11, 1492… so maybe that crow’s nest wasn’t so necessary after all! 
Some lovely work with the rigging and the changes to the flags, sails and anchors are some very clever bits of attention to detail. Top work
Some lovely work with the rigging and the changes to the flags, sails and anchors are some very clever bits of attention to detail. Top work
Thanks John!
The foresail rigging was next with the braces (at the ends of the yard) and sheets (at the lower corners of the sail) all tied off at the fife rail at the base of the mainmast.
Tim, your rigging is really looking realistic. I know you just want a representational look but it sure is looking plenty busy and detailed. Looking forward to your next post.
John
Tim, your rigging is really looking realistic. I know you just want a representational look but it sure is looking plenty busy and detailed. Looking forward to your next post.
John
Thanks John! The final sail, the spritsail at the bow, has now been attached.
Some old books stacked on my desk make a temporary working platform while rigging the ship. I find it easier to bring the model a little closer to eye level as I work on what can sometimes feel like an intricate puzzle!
