Hi everyone. My name is Alex Rosas. I live in Houston, and also (second home) in Park City Utah. I've been interested in naval history and model shipbuilding since I was a kid.
I had a great great great...uncle, Octavious Cardew, who was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars. He was a 14 year-old midshipman in HMS Amazon when in 1797 a squadron consisting of the frigates HMS Amazon and HMS Indefatigable, commanded by Captain Sir Edward Pellew fought a French 74 ship-of-the line, THE DROITS DE L'HOMME, in a wild storm at night, all night, near a rocky coast in Brittany and caused the 74 to run aground and broach with great loss of life. Although Indefatigable cleared the rocky coast and survived, Amazon ran aground, but most of the crew survived and were made prisoners. They were exchanged a year later since they had helped to rescue some men from the French 74. This was the only time in naval history when frigates defeated a ship of the line !!! My ancestor survived and served in other famous ships, but died of illness at Portsmouth at age 21. I have a lot of British ancestry, mostly British Army and Navy on my mother's side, and lots of Spanish ancestry on my father's side...No wonder I have inner conflicts!
Anyway, I have been an academic neuroanesthesiologist in Houston for 38 years and will be retiring December 31 ! Now I will have time to build ships ! I build and kit-bash both plastic and wood models. I'll post pictures of some of my builds when I get back to Houston. About 10 yrs ago I started CalderCraft's HMS Snake, but the build stopped halfway thru the second planking of the hull. (I was super-busy with teaching residents, research, and clinical work)
Anyway, after 8 years in dry dock, I started working on HMS Snake again and have completed planking and coppered the hull, and I am now working on the deck armament and furniture. Thanks Bob,. from Lauck shipyards for your wonderful books. Reading them has been really fun and instructive.
Thanks to a thread on this site I learned that Caldercraft is supplying new brass carronade kits in brass to replace the awful white metal ones that came the kits 10 years ago. I got in contact with Caldecraft and I am buying the replacement 18 carronade kits for 60 British pounds (without the discount they would have been 172 British pounds). Meanwhile I'll continue working on the deck. I intend to finish the ship with rigging, etc by the end of March 2020 so I can make mistakes and learn from everyone here before I tackle my next project, The bomb ketch Salamandre ! I already have the Chinese kit (god forbid !), Boudriot monograph and plans, and have been looking at some of the builds here- amazing work...I will learn a lot...I'll post pictures of my current build of HMS Snake next week and probably do a build log of the rest of the build. I am also planning to do a build log of Salamandre when I start it. I may start Salamandre before I finish Snake.
I hope to get to know and learn from you.
Thanks
Alex Rosas
I had a great great great...uncle, Octavious Cardew, who was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic wars. He was a 14 year-old midshipman in HMS Amazon when in 1797 a squadron consisting of the frigates HMS Amazon and HMS Indefatigable, commanded by Captain Sir Edward Pellew fought a French 74 ship-of-the line, THE DROITS DE L'HOMME, in a wild storm at night, all night, near a rocky coast in Brittany and caused the 74 to run aground and broach with great loss of life. Although Indefatigable cleared the rocky coast and survived, Amazon ran aground, but most of the crew survived and were made prisoners. They were exchanged a year later since they had helped to rescue some men from the French 74. This was the only time in naval history when frigates defeated a ship of the line !!! My ancestor survived and served in other famous ships, but died of illness at Portsmouth at age 21. I have a lot of British ancestry, mostly British Army and Navy on my mother's side, and lots of Spanish ancestry on my father's side...No wonder I have inner conflicts!
Anyway, I have been an academic neuroanesthesiologist in Houston for 38 years and will be retiring December 31 ! Now I will have time to build ships ! I build and kit-bash both plastic and wood models. I'll post pictures of some of my builds when I get back to Houston. About 10 yrs ago I started CalderCraft's HMS Snake, but the build stopped halfway thru the second planking of the hull. (I was super-busy with teaching residents, research, and clinical work)
Anyway, after 8 years in dry dock, I started working on HMS Snake again and have completed planking and coppered the hull, and I am now working on the deck armament and furniture. Thanks Bob,. from Lauck shipyards for your wonderful books. Reading them has been really fun and instructive.
Thanks to a thread on this site I learned that Caldercraft is supplying new brass carronade kits in brass to replace the awful white metal ones that came the kits 10 years ago. I got in contact with Caldecraft and I am buying the replacement 18 carronade kits for 60 British pounds (without the discount they would have been 172 British pounds). Meanwhile I'll continue working on the deck. I intend to finish the ship with rigging, etc by the end of March 2020 so I can make mistakes and learn from everyone here before I tackle my next project, The bomb ketch Salamandre ! I already have the Chinese kit (god forbid !), Boudriot monograph and plans, and have been looking at some of the builds here- amazing work...I will learn a lot...I'll post pictures of my current build of HMS Snake next week and probably do a build log of the rest of the build. I am also planning to do a build log of Salamandre when I start it. I may start Salamandre before I finish Snake.
I hope to get to know and learn from you.
Thanks
Alex Rosas
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