allan sib

I have been looking at the topic when ships were first put in bottles.I joined the lightship Tongue in Jan Feb 19-75 and was told by my lightship master when talking about this that lightshipmen had been putting ships in bottles for a good 200 or so years the first manned lightship was the Nore in 17-31,and what better position to be in to observe the many types of sailing craft than being swung around an anchor for 6 weeks at a time,at the time I joined we did 4 weeks on and 4 off,and was told that many lightsmen supplemented their income by putting ships in bottles,sadly with the advent of TV aboard the ships in about early 60s the hobby rapidly declined,and when I started on what was called the south relief there was only one other lightsman making them he also made them for sale and he never deviated from 1 type of model he must have made scores of them all the same over the years,as when I joined he was nearing retirement,on the lightship you had lots of time on your hands.There was one well known pub in Harwich which had a model of every lightship in round gallon bottles and I believe they were made by the same lightsman over the years the models sat on a high shelf around the bar.

This is my Ganges model fully rigged,though I have to confess that I blundered when adding the gun ports before the chain plates so they did not line up,so had to strip them off and add them after adding the chain plates ,lesson learned pay more attention to detail,now for sails and some deck fittings,I think I will keep her as a training ship with her deck guns removed.