HMS Swan: 'Crush those seditious rebels!', Part 2: Making realistic 'set' sails for the HMS Swan diorama

摘要

Ever since model ship builders have been practicing their art and craft, there have been many interesting techniques for replicating sails. This article adds yet another original approach for sailing era ship modelers who would like to add more realistic looking and scale-accurate "set" sails.I refer to the term "set" sails to specifically denote sails that are bent (mounted) to their respective yards and appear to be wind-filled, the way they actually look on a ship underway. Some model makers create sails that simply hang loosely from their yards (or are furled on them), but many fewer ship modelers will show them actually performing their propulsion purpose in a realistic manner. When I decided to create a waterline diorama for HMS Swan, I chose to give my eighteenth-century Royal Navy warship a suit of eight realistic-looking "set" sails to simulate an underway ship in a freshening breeze, traversing the North Atlantic. I then immediately discovered how demanding this modeling task was going to be.