Thanks Allan and Oldflyer.
The 1832 model has several omissions besides the rigging, including the boarding guns and you noticed. You will notice that there are different flaws in each of the 19th century models of the Sovereign, with possible exception of the Culver's model located in the Annapolis Maritime Museum. Most of them concern the stern castle shape and decorations.
There were many gun on the fore and stern castles pointed at the waist. At first it may not seem to make sense, until you learn the style of ship-to-ship fighting that was prevalent in the 1630's. Back then, the purpose of the main battery of guns was not to destroy the hulls of enemy ships, but to destroy rigging and crew. Hull damage was possible, but of secondary concern to the English. The popular tactic was still boarding ships, hopefully after they were pounded hard enough to make them unable to sail or maneuver. That's why the fore and stern castles in the
Sovereign were still raised high like galleons before them. Enemy boarders were most likely to board at the waist, the more accessible portion of the ship. If the enemy takes the waist, the light boarding guns would turn them to ground hamburger as a last resort to hold the ship.
So far the most informed and best source for information of the features of the
Sovereign is James Sephton's book:
Anyone building the
Sovereign should read this book, and it has lots of information surrounding the ship as well as its construction, since the author sent over 40 years researching this vessel specifically. That means you get almost all the bits of info filtered for historical accuracy in one place, much of it unobtainable from other sources, including the web. I would trust James Sephton's opinion on questionable features over most others, and always above those of John McKay, whose design interpretation is riddled with mistaken assumptions and outright incorrect details owing to ignoring trusted primary and secondary sources (including Peter Pett himself!), and wrongly applying ship construction treatises such as Anthony Deane's c.1670, written many decades later than Peter Pett's
Sovereign of 1635.
I am eager to share what information I have collected with anyone who is attempting to build this
most fantastic of vessels.
As a consummate ship model basher, bordering on scratch builder, I have had to face many decisions on the features of the Sovereign, many of them still the focus of much controversy. My build log contains explanations of some of them. If other builders are curious about any of them, all they have to do is ask. I also have accumulated a lot of pictures and bits of info about these features, some of them from questions on this forum. One of the things I regret in my build was not correcting the DeAgostini hull to increase the height of between the lower and middle gun decks, to match that of the Payne engraving/print. I had to adjust the wales because of that to keep their locations accurate, but the distance from the lower gun deck ports and the wale just above them was visible reduced near midships. The overall proportion of the hull is off a tiny bit as a result. (After all, it's only my second ship model...) Compare the model photo below to the Payne engraving:
