Diminutive giants This story starts with an approximately 1296mm long, approximately 1:70 scale, model of a four-masted barquentine, based on the sister ships Mozart and Beethoven I built some years ago. Having already built two earlier models at similar scales, she sailed predictably well. What I hadn’t envisaged during her construction, however, was how inspirational and horizon broadening she would prove to be going forward…
Back then, I had a modelling mentor, a friend who had built models of almost everything, from boats, in wood, to working steam locos, made, of course, from metal. Bob had watched me move on from copying his yachts to building square-riggers and, consequently, decided to make his own four-masted barquentine, so asked to borrow my plans. I was delighted to oblige and looked forward…