awesome gupi. now on to sails

Exactly! And that's what i've been doing yesterday: making the first sails.

I didn't like the sails that came with the kit. They're thick and heavy and i guess they will get soaked pretty quickly. Furthermore the mizzen and jib were completely wrong in size and shape so i decided to make my own. I'll use the square sails as blueprint and create new mizzen and jib sails.

The leftover cloth i have from the Bruma build isn't perfect for a ship like this (it looks pretty modern and very white) but i did a test dye with black tea and the test sail turned out pretty nice. It won't be noticeable out there on the pond.

I made the sails by glueing a thread around the edges with waterproof white glue. This leaves the edges a bit elastic.

They look awesome i`m always wondering why so man builders strive on making their sails non-white. it`s a model it might as well be the freshest canvas there ever was.

I just read an article on sail cloth, over at the USS Constitution site. Sails were first made from hemp or flax. I don't know how white these bleach out in the sun, but apparently they never got as white as cotton sails.

In the 1820's, American sailmakers started using cotton, both from the US and from Egypt. Cotton sails bleach out as a very nice white; US ships could be identified from a distance just due to the whiteness of their cotton sails. Clipper ships from the US were noted for their white sails, for instance. However, the US Navy, specified flax sails, even after cotton sails were available. Eventually, by the end of the 1800's, the US Navy started using cotton sails. Constitution had cotton sails in 1881; she was not longer used as a warship, but as a training vessel for midshipmen.

So, if one is modeling flax or hemp sails, they were not the pure white of cotton sails.

https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/2016/07/29/sails/

Flax gets gray, which is why I didn't get the tan shades of Supplex for my sails and will being giving them a gray tint with dyes.

I read in my book about building models of historic sailing vessels that the sails where made of unbleached linen and that historic sails where never white but had a rather yellowish tint. The book recommends to dye the sails using tea.

Flax is linen, and I've never seen it "yellow" ever.

i`m looking forward to see how your fabric sails work gupi, so far the only boat i used cloth sails on where my mini America schooner and a footy. The footy sails great, the america well so so.

All my other models, of which somers is a bit larger and my others being quite a bit smaller than yours, all worked extremely well with Tyvek sails and i assume that was due to the stiffness of the material especially on the square sails. having a stiff leach is really a must if you want to have any performance to windwards.

I think if i get back into finishing my HMS Snake (the smaller one) i`ll use again Tyvek sails, but this time with the detailing printed on instead of the pure white i had on Somers.

Headsails are a different matter, especially if self tacking....

Originally Posted by JerryTodd

Flax is linen, and I've never seen it "yellow" ever.

I personally have no experience with unbleached linen whatsoever but Wikipedia tells me that the color is ecru, a brownish grey yellow.

Nevertheless I like the color that came out of my tea dye so I'll use it.

Finally, I began bending sails. I started with the fore and aft sails. Now she starts to like a ship.

Just realized that i forgot to show how I built the yards. I think I have taken pictures, so I'll show them later.

Your ship is looking really nice. The "confusion" of rigging really brings out the complexity of lines on a squarerigger. Very arty shot of the model, too. Thanks for posting.

yep...she's coming alive...........

Well, real life put a couple of things in my way, so modelling had to take a pause.

Now i'm back again and the Endeavour has all of her sails set. Hurray! The RC equipment is all set up and working, too. So she's almost ready to sail. The only critical thing missing is the external ballast.

Captain Cook will soon explore the Danube
Looks good

Great job! Looking forward to the video!