Thank you all for inputs--here and via e-mail.
small update; ships boats....
I did not think I would live long enough (!!!) to scratch-build the numerous - and various boats
==> to a standard I would be satisfied with - and maintain the momentum of the build...
These boats were 3-D printed for me by my French Friend Bruno
They are based on the boats of SOLFERINO ( 1861)
which carried a near identical complement of vessels
Bretagne seems to have carried 6 x whalers, as such I received numerous duplicates
The boats were beautiful--timber strakes , undercut thwarts, knees etc
Alas the ( my ! ) painting diluted the delicacy a little-
-but still a quantum leap from the usual ships boats seen in resin or plastic.
SOLFERINO - being and ironclad and whilst carrying a full sailing rig was already more of a
steamer than BRETAGNE --- hence she definitely carried a steam launch;
This conviction does not seem extend to Bretagne , who it appears was less likely to have had a steam launch ( nor it seems did her contemporary NAPOLEON )
Nevertheless I splashed some paint on mine !
but this may be used at a future date on a future model!
and painted numerous versions of all of the below;
The very large pulling boat ( 41 feet !)
Captains gig ( hence white )
27 ft whalers and 34 ft pulling boats
copious whalers !
All the boats were then furnished with oars, made of beige stretched sprue
Oar blades width for boats are approximately 7 inches wide( or narrower )
hence in 1/700 that translates as 0.25 mm ( which is very small !)
-hence I did not flatten the blades) as that would look over-scale in my view
On deck- -like many large sailing ships, she carried spares, 3 x spars and a topmast section
These were stowed midships adjacent to the central gratings
The deck stowed whalers were stowed in a raised position
to allow the spars to be stowed underneath
This presented a bit of a conundrum-- How did they do it?
plans are not sufficiently clear to show this...
study of photos of near contemporary preserved ships ( HMS Warrior, Jylland )
show the cradles consisting of a ( removable ?) central mono-posts with cradle -- with removable padded side props...
It was important to me for these to be structurally sound in 1/700 , as opposed to exact scale fidelity;
anyhow--with the boats on--only a 1/700 ' Matelot could actually see what is going on underneath!
so a compromise solution was to cut a C shaped pieces of brass....( from old overscale handrail )
this looked -- without boat like this
when whale boat is on board this gives correct height and space for the spare spars to be stowed underneath
I will add side legs of wire after the spars are in place to make it look more convincing !
Oh yes-- and I did remove the name and replace it with a smaller one...
its a little bit bright at the moment--a gentle dark wash should mitigate that I think
These tackles do look great.
) as a result of handling the model
