thank you for the comment on my daughter she will fight authority for what is right and she will jeopardize her reputation to make a point. So now she is no longer in the class room she teaches teachers. Takes after her dad i guess.
so getting back to errors in model building, lets break it down. at the top is the actual ship builders they have schools dating back a few hundred years. Their profession is highly skilled and technical. A small error may have big consequences. The very shape of a hull will affect how the ship handles and sails. Every engineering detail is carefully considered. There is no room for errors. In the days of sail wars were won and lost depending on the naval architects skills to design for speed, fire power and maneuverability of the ship.
next is marine archeology where every detail is uncovered, photographed, measured and recorded for future students to refer to and study. In the academic world errors are kept to a minimum and procedures are followed to the letter. Models built are based on the facts and only the facts, if there is missing data it is stated, and reference are quoted as to how and why a missing part was added. Errors or questionable data is reviewed by other in the field. peer reviews.
model building as an art form where highly skilled craftsmen build a fine art representation and collected by royalty and high society in the early days. In modern times there still exist craftsmen and collectors of fine maritime art. As an art it does not have to follow the rules as the above two categories arts very nature is freedom of expression. I got an Email the other day inviting me to take part in a zoom conversation on the errors and mistakes of Harold Hahns work. I hit delete because to me that is silly there are no errors or mistakes in his art. In the words of Salvador Dalí's "art is whatever the artist says it is" painting outside the lines is acceptable. an artist will reshape, transform and reimagine subjects.
at the bottom of the list is the modern day hobby of building model ships. There are no rules it is at the whim of the manufacture to the point of creating kits of ships that never existed. Kits are nothing like the actual construction of how ships were built. Ship were not built with a center profile and bulkheads. ship did not use wooden treenails to hold planking, ships were not double planked. Hobby builders will kit bash a subject to achieve "historical accuracy" when in fact the kit itself is far from historical accuracy so why try to add a part or two and call it historically accurate?
each of the above categories have their own paradigm, their own set of rules and standards. Trying to apply the top catagory to the bottom one does not work. none of them are interchangeable. A serious student of naval architecture would not go to the bottom catagory for information they would go to the top two, knowing darn well the bottom is riddled with errors and make believe.
Kit manufacturers sell to a different market and have a different obligation. If their advertising says that the kit builds a model that is an artistic representation of a given vessel, that’s ok. The manufacturers of these highly engineered POB kits, however, advertise them as being “museum quality.” At prices beginning at $500 and going up from there customers have a right to get what’s advertised.
there is no real definition of "museum quality" it differs from museum to museum so this comes down to let the buyer beware. This is what a forum such as this is for. to inform.
The designer of the above longboat who apparently was not a sailor, did make an honest mistake in locating the mainsheet traveler. When he decided to produce a larger scale longboat model kit, he repeated the mistake despite knowing that it was wrong.
i am not defending the designer i am defending the catagory of "hobby kit" that has no rules just the goal to make money off the kit. It does not matter how refined a kit is or if a builder builds from a kit or scratch. A hobby kit by any other name is still a hobby kit at the bottom of the categories. So you can not apply real world sailing or naval architecture rules and standards to a hobby kit that has no real world function other than a past time hobby.
it may bug the crap out of you that an error continues, and it bugs others Hahn took artistic liberties but at the end of the day it is just a big so what! Those who know see beyond the errors pointing it out is enough. i bet 99.9% of all model ship in the bottom catagory have errors. Just put a wooden dowel in a plank and your wrong. Iron planking spikes were used not wood.
in the words of my daughters lectures. Ego, authority and power grabbing over rules what is right and wrong. blunt force rarely changes anything.
A smart approach is making changes without anyone being aware of it.
