Love this ship Rob. I'm a big fan of the Great Republic and found a huge amount of info on her in a book called "The American Built Clipper Ship" by William L Crothers. He covers every Clipper built in America from 1850 to 1856 including the GR. If you haven't seen this book it really deserves your attention if your into the Clippers and there're lots of details for the Great Republic. I'm enjoying your work here very much. It's beautiful. Pete
Thank you Norgate for your fine compliments and reading suggestion.
Crothers fine book is in my library, along with his works on The Masting of American Merchant sailing ships of the 1850's. I possess an exhaustive library on the subject of the Great Republic (and clippers in general)...to include the home workshop series, the Great Republic published in the Popular Science Monthly of 1935.
I also have the complete construction plans based on the works of E Armitage McCann..
However, some discrepancies due exist with these plans..namely...McCann depicts his version with Forbes Rig, with the doublings of the tops with the top mast aft of the main mast. Though Forbes himself claimed his rig was used on the GR..it was modified to place the top mast forward of the main mast doubling.
Second glaring error is, many assume the GR was rigged with sky sails set on all masts... this is true after her rebuild after her fiery destruction, but she was originally rigged with nothing higher then royals on all masts.
In my build....I have attempted to depict her as Donald McKay originally built her. Many contemporary paintings show her with all manner of errors...such as Forbes rig with skysails set and her sporting bulwarks. She received Howes rigging after the fire and the weatherdeck was destroyed in the fire...so Palmer reduced her to a 3 decker, creating the bulwarks. Some paintings show her with Howes rig, skysails and with her original weather deck railing. Even Crothers shows her in drawings with skysails, with a modified Forbes rig and railings around her weather deck.
Research, research, research.......
First hand accounts describe her with only royals as the highest sail set on the mast. Forbes himself declared she was rigged with a modified version of his design, and historical lithographs depict her in this fashion.
I believe the painting I provided of her is the most accurate depiction of her....and is the depiction of her I,m attempting to model.
Sorry for the lengthy blovinating....of the subject, but I Love Donald McKay clippers and researching them is as much a passion of mine as is building scratch scale models of them.
Again...thanks for your fine comments and encouraging suggestion. I hope we can converse on the subject further if you have a mind too.
Rob