Mounts Bay lugger “Mystery” 1/32 scale, Scratch built

Joined
Apr 14, 2020
Messages
104
Points
113

Location
Southern Maine
In 1854, the Cornish lugger Mystery from Mount’s Bay in Cornwall left for Australia, with a crew of seven men. One hundred and fifteen days later, the lugger, which had never before been out of the sight of land, arrived in Melbourne after a relatively uneventful trip. I was asked to create a model of the Mystery by a longtime friend whose mother, an Australian native, was a distant relative of the Mystery’s captain, Richard Nicholls. After much searching, I obtained a set of lugger plans from Pete Goss, an entrepreneur and explorer who had built a replica of the Mystery, named the Spirit of Mystery, in order to recreate the original voyage. Using these plans, and with much help from the British National Maritime Museum, I was able to build a reasonably accurate model of this boat as it was at the time of its departure. The captain had added a deck and zinc plate sheathing to protect the boat and crew during the voyage, and I included these modifications in the model. The model is now in the private collection of my friend. The figure at the tiller is Captain Nicholls and the pensive, white-haired figure at the bow represents my father, whose likeness is on many of my models.

James
Maine

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I like the model, I like the history, I like the display case, I like the design and look of this boat, and I like that you have posted it here for us to enjoy.
Congratulations on a very beautiful boat.
Thanks for the kind words, all. The model was fun to research and build. My wife and I visited Mount’s Bay, Penzance, and Newlyn while on a recent trip to southwestern England. It was nice to see the area in person after reading so much about it.
 
Your name and provenance plate in the case is a quality touch. Being new to model building I wish that I had seen your ship's boat inverted before I made cradles for two on opposite sides of the deck for which I will be hanging one for transfer over the side and the other in the cradle but with a canvas cover being rolled back which I did not get into scale
 
Your name and provenance plate in the case is a quality touch. Being new to model building I wish that I had seen your ship's boat inverted before I made cradles for two on opposite sides of the deck for which I will be hanging one for transfer over the side and the other in the cradle but with a canvas cover being rolled back which I did not get into scale
Your name and provenance plate in the case is a quality touch. Being new to model building I wish that I had seen your ship's boat inverted before I made cradles for two on opposite sides of the deck for which I will be hanging one for transfer over the side and the other in the cradle but with a canvas cover being rolled back which I did not get into scale
 
My computer keyboard died before I completed my thought and sentence so this may be a strange sounding annotated first reply echo. . . creating somehow a duplication of the first reply.
I was going to say that I had not thought of placing the hull keel up, more thinking about stacked dories but my ship's boats were not dories and would not stack so I put it keel down with a faux canvas cover, partially rolled back as though getting ready to raise and showing the interior seats, oars, etc. . . Live and learn by watching other builds and listening to what is brought forth. Thanks for your research and work on the lugger, a type that I was not familiar with. PT-2
 
The ship’s boat is actually a carved solid block, because I had always intended it to be mounted upside down over the main hatch. This is what I observed in images of luggers I had collected from the internet. It just seemed easier to do it that way, since the interior detail would never show.
 
The bowsprit and the boom at the stern were removable, allowing for an amazing (to me, anyway) flexibility in rigging the lugger’s sails, for stability in rough weather and speed when bringing the catch back to port. I chose the “plain sail with jib” configuration for my model.

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The bowsprit and the boom at the stern were removable, allowing for an amazing (to me, anyway) flexibility in rigging the lugger’s sails, for stability in rough weather and speed when bringing the catch back to port.

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Thanks for putting the image of various sailing and masting combinations for a lugger. It gives me a better understanding of their use and flexibility. PT-2
 
Hi James
It looked really nice, was also interesting to read the details about the boat and construction
 
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