Brigantine Maggie Belle

[John Lyle]

I am building a model of the Brigantine Maggie Belle from plans I purchased from Philip Eisnor in Nova Scotia. I have been following the plans and I am ready to fit the deck houses. My problem is tye plans show the forward deck house as being aft of the foremast. However I have two photos aledged to be of the Maggie Belle that show the foremast as coming up through the top of forward deckhouse. I have seen plans of brigantine with the foremast forward of the deck house and others with the deck house at the base of the foremast.
I am wondering if I should follow the plans or follow the photographs?

 

[genius]

Ship plans have a resemblance to holiday plans: They outline the basic goal, but as time progresses, some things may be changed along the way for good reasons (of course!). So the plan will be very accurate for the hull (you can't change that on the fly without making new plans) and the rigg, like mast placement. Deck houses on the other hand were negotiable and easy to be changed on the fly. So I'd recommend for those you take the pictures as the preferred source.

There is another reason to prefer the pictures for that matter: You will most likely show these pictures alongside your shipmodel. A strong resemblance enhances the spectators experience of seeing the thing on the Photographs actually built in 3-D (with the addtitional information of the plans added in).