Catchin up

It has been a long time since my last blog, so let's see what has been happening.

First, I have pretty much finished the USS Constitution. There are some tweaks that I might get around to sometime, but I am ready to start on something else.

Constitution trivia: the real Constitution is going into dry dock in 2015 for a 3-year overhaul. They will re-copper her hull, and do some major work on the bow and stern - hopefully to get her closer to the way she looked in 1812. They will also be doing some inspections and repairs as needed.













We have gone on several adventures in the last couple of months.  In October JoAnne and I flew to San Antonio for her Fall break, and drove out again for Thanksgiving. See Vanessa's blog for details about both trips since I don't know when we will get our blogs up to date on those trips. I did get one picture from the flight to San Antonio that I liked. I took it right after taking off from Greenville-Spartanburg airport.

So my next project (which is going very slowly) is the British tea clipper Cutty Sark. Built on the Clyde in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, coming at the end of a long period of design development which halted as sailing ships gave way to steam propulsion. Unlike Constitution which was made entirely of wood, Cutty Sark has an iron frame with wood planking and decking. She is preserved in Greenwich, England. She was recorded as going 17.5 knots which is faster than most of the steamships that replaced her. But she could not use the newly constructed Suez canal so the steamships could make the trip from Shanghai to London quicker. She was used for many years to haul wool from Australia, and spent some time under the Portuguese flag as a tramp cargo ship, then returned to England as a training vessel.  She is now in permanent dry dock for display as a museum ship.

Cutty Sark in Greenwich 1987

The model was a gift for Christmas last year. They don't make the kit anymore so my kids found one on eBay. It is one of the original 1959 versions. The model is in good shape. The decals may be a problem, but I scanned them so I can make new ones if I need to.

I have just started painting the hull. Here you can see the white stripe on both sides, and the copper bottom on the on the starboard side (both sides have been "coppered" now). I also have gotten the decks mostly painted.

 It is a busy time of year so this is going very slowly, but maybe I can get a little more motivated.