Model ship

Last night, just before I went to bed, I suddenly realised there is a huge design flaw in the Nao model. It was such a big problem that I’ve had to pull the model apart and restart it. The flaw lay with the stern, which I had designed tapering like a Viking ship, but which ought to be flat, like a carrack. I sort of knew this, but I was expecting to make the planks to conform to the rudder and as the ship got higher above the ‘water line’ then so the super structure would be formed.

Looking at my old Billing boats catalogue though I saw the image of the Santa Maria’s stern and perceived that the flat back of these ships was much more pronounced, and lower in relation to the water line than I’d realised. This meant I had to remove all the planking and the back three ribs to make way for a new ship form I also decided the bow was way to sharp for the period. Almost every image of a carrack I’ve seen in the last week has had a more or less upright curving stem and not the long forward jutting stem I’d made which better fitted a cog, or maybe a dhow.The problem is the image I’ve been using as inspiration, doesn’t have a clear view of either the bow or the stern so I was left to my own imagination. The ship model was also getting way to long and this was becoming more apparent as the body took shape. By reducing the bow I’m effectively shortening the model by 7cm.