We all?

Check the thread "Turkish sailors!" below...

Matelot

Yes Giorgio, that's what we'd like to see as well : 16th - 17th century galley slave oarsmen.

https://www.google.ch/search?q=chiourme&rls=ig&biw=1258&bih=693&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIpsmt1P26yAIVhtoaCh2Z3QKz&dpr=0.9#imgrc=T4i11E7ahWcw4M%3A

Would be fun to be able to man the Réale de France (in 1/75):

http://www.heller.fr/en/maquettes/scale-sailboats-model-classic/176-la-reale-de-france-3279510808988.html

The Réale de France had 31 oars to starboard and 60 oars to port (one thwart was omitted to make room for the caboose).

Well, you just need 427 oarsmen, 7 oarsmen in slightly different poses for each oar on the larboard and starboard sides respectively. That is 14 slightly different poses of oarsmen for each pair of oars. If a box contained oarsmen for 3 pairs of oars, i. e. 42 oarsmen, you'd still need 11 boxes to man the Réale de France. Hey, Red Box, that's big business. Don't miss the opportunity!

You are right. Revell’s Spanish Galleon is Disney’s castle afloat. The new box art deceives the buyer. But there are just few plastic model kits available, if you want a vessel from the 16th century in nearly 1/72. (I tried to convert Revell’s Spanish Galleon by altering the masts, shortening the gallion (and the stem), reducing the superstructure (poop deck) by one storey and removing the upper balcony. But that still is more ease the pain rather than a cure. So I didn’t finish that major surgery yet.

On the other hand, some war gamers prefer straight out of the box gaming to extreme modeling (and use unpainted figures). In that case matching scale and easy assembly might be sufficient. Even then, there’s a very exclusive club of vessels available: the Airfix Golden Hind, the oop IMAI/ERTL Golden Hind, the big Revell/Heller Mayflower and the ‘ fictitious fantasy’ Revell Spanish Galleon/English Man O’War caricatures. IMAI’s chebec IMHO is rather 18th century.

Right again, all these are best guesses to reconstruct a generic ship, since no original, even plan did survive. Also most 16th/17th century artists were no sailors themselves and could misapprehend dimensions or details. (Some of the few seadogs was the Dutch artist Zeeman). Personally I visited some of the few survivers like the Vasa, the Victory and the Bremen cog. The latter BTW featured planks running from port to starboard, not lenghthwise as usual. (Zvezda hasn’t noticed that…)

Using the gun port sizes as a lead is a clever idea!

Another way may be scaling up paper craft models. I’ll try that soon. Shipyard does some very decent ones. Like the Revenge (1/96):

http://www.model-shipyard.com/html/images/okladki/42.jpg

Here’s a work in progress pic which I found in a paper modeler’s forum:

http://www.kartonist.de/wbb2/attachment.php?attachmentid=323768

Hallo

The last two sets with english sailors are up to

wery nice

regards

Tommy