Build log · Phase 13, Hammock cranes

The dog ate the drawings

1 January 2025 · Problem and fix

Model building has rather fallen by the wayside lately, but with the new year I have made a start again. I have now reached the hammock cranes, the irons on the bulwark that hold the nettings with the hammocks. Unfortunately the ones from the kit are just about all broken. They come on a photo-etched sheet and are so delicate that most of them are little more than a bent bit of wire. So the plan is to make them myself. The tube for that is already on order.

The hammock cranes from the kit on their etched sheet, mostly bent or broken off
The hammock cranes from the kit on their etched sheet, mostly bent or broken off

And then there is another challenge. Our dog has eaten part of the drawings. It concerns sheet 3, with the masts, topmasts and yards at full size, and sheet 5, with the belaying plan on it. Exactly the two sheets I will be needing shortly. What is left of them lies in shreds on the table. (Postscript, September 2026: at the time I wrote “sheet 5 and the sheet with the belaying plan”, but the belaying plan is on sheet 5 itself; the other chewed sheet is sheet 3.)

Sheet 5, with the belaying plan, or what remains of it
Sheet 5, with the belaying plan, or what remains of it
The belaying plan on sheet 5, 1:64 scale, in pieces
The belaying plan on sheet 5, 1:64 scale, in pieces
Sheet 3, with the masts and yards, chewed
Sheet 3, with the masts and yards, chewed

On the forum I asked whether anyone who has built the Caldercraft model would be willing to email me a photo of these drawings. Scheepshoorn asked whether I had turned the dog inside out yet, as there might still be something to salvage. I fear the worst. Herby63 has the opposite problem: his dog leaves the plans alone but eats the parts. Not much better. But without a plan it is going to be a strange ship, I am afraid.