Weathering Sails - Why?

[Masters Mate]

You may reconsider as back then as well as now, the captain made the crew repaint everything and bent on perfectly clean if not new sails to impress the owners upon their ship's condition thus promoting a future voyage.
Just a thought for your consideration of merchant vessels as well as naval. A good reading novel upon this is Dana's Two Years Before the Mast in the closing chapters. Rich (PT-2)

Hi Rich.
At the point of my proposed diorama of HMS Medea, she was returning to Britain from the Indies where she had been involved in four heavily contested battles with French ships and shore barrages. Based at Madras where there was only an exposed anchorage but no port, maintenance was difficult and materials scarce. Captain Gower WAS keen on painting and keeping everything shipshape but during wartime it was especially difficult. Following his journals indicates he suffered from lack of new stores and opportunity to obtain them.
But I take your point on board.

 

[Namabiiru]

This discussion reminds me quite a bit of many of the debates raging on plastic armor modelling sites regarding the appropriate level of weathering to apply to AFVs. There seem to be three schools of thought: Do what's realistic; do what looks good; do what makes you happy.

If you are building a museum piece, do what's realistic. If you want to impress your friends, do what looks good. If you don't have any friends to impress (like me ) do what makes you happy.

Just my $0.02...

 

[Mash]

This discussion reminds me quite a bit of many of the debates raging on plastic armor modelling sites regarding the appropriate level of weathering to apply to AFVs. There seem to be three schools of thought: Do what's realistic; do what looks good; do what makes you happy.

If you are building a museum piece, do what's realistic. If you want to impress your friends, do what looks good. I you don't have any friends to impress (like me ) do what makes you happy.

Just my $0.02...

Recently there was a long discussion about "museum quality". The bottom line is without any real success, because that has nothing to do with realism