The Fruit and Flowers Anniversary

 My calendar informed me that March 8 was the anniversary of the blog.  I've now been doing this since 2017, so this is our 4th anniversary.  According to the anniversary sites I've looked at, the traditional gift in the US are flowers and fruit.  This is because they are symbols of renewal, and sticking together.  If you're in the UK, apparently the traditional gifts are linen and silk.  In lieu of sending me gifts, go out and buy something for yourself; I'm just generous that way. 😁 If you prefer more modern anniversary traditions, apparently the appropriate gift is an electrical appliance of some sort.  So maybe I'll buy an electric paint shaker this month. 

Gifting jokes aside, it has been an interesting four years.  In that time, I've made 73 posts (not counting this one, of course) that have 45,323 views and have generated 426 comments as of March 7.  That is an average of 1.5 posts, 8.8 comments and 944.2 views a month.  On average, I almost sound like a responsible blog owner.  Loyal readers will know that those average statistics mask a multitude of sins, though. 😬  

One thing that is interesting is the sailing ship count.  On 3/8/2017 there were 97 completed sailing ships in the collection.  As of 3/6/2021, there are 111 completed sailing ships.  In four years I've completed 14 ships, or one every 3.42 months.  Hmmmm.  OK, that number is not as interesting as I first thought it was going to be. 😞 Back then, there were 5 ships under construction. They were USS Pennsylvania, USS North Carolina, a Russian 50, a Russian 46 and a Spanish 74.  Currently, there are 6 ships under construction.  They are USS Pennsylvania, a Russian 46, a Spanish 74 (not the same one!), a French 74, USS Franklin, and a French 80.  Doesn't look like a lot of progress there either, at first. . . . 

Several of those under construction ships will be joining the fleet shortly, though.  Take a look at this picture of the workbench:

That's pretty well organized for my painting desk.

All six sailing ships are in this photo
(along with some other projects too).

The Canberra seen in the background is going to be converted to her Falklands troopship appearance for my Falklands air games that I mentioned in another post. (https://mymodelsailingships.blogspot.com/2020/05/love-in-time-of-coronavirus-part-2.html) She was in Bomb Alley for a couple of days while she offloaded troops, so had the potential to be a target.  It will also be a fun conversion, and one that isn't seen very often in the model ship world.

One good thing about these anniversary posts is that they make me go back through the Blogger log, and see which posts I started but never finished.  That's how I discovered that I have never taken any pictures of my unrated ships to put on the blog.  Expect those in the near future.

There has been one gift to myself that is useful, but I am still less than enthused about.  What is that, you ask?  Well, it's this:

Yep, an Optivisor.  Or the cheap Harbor Freight version of one, anyway.  My wife bought me a good one about 15 years ago or so, but I didn't need any such thing back then.  Wellllll, apparently I do now, and when I went looking for mine I couldn't find it.  So now I have this one.  Actually, it's not that bad. It has a fixed lens of 1.8X, and an inside fold-down lens that makes it 2.3X.  The loupe folds out of the way, and will increase magnification to either 3.7X or 4.8X when the inside lens is in place.  Of course, when using the loupe you have to get so close that it's impossible to work, but it might be useful sometime.  Best of all, it was only $4.99 at the local store.  Even if I weren't happy with it (and I am), it costs less than a set of sails from Langton.  It's definitely a reminder that anniversaries mark the passage of time though. 

In case you should go looking for them, there are no posts for the second and third anniversaries of the blog.  No good reason, other than I just didn't do them.  I promise to try and be better going forward.

A Quick Update, and an Upcoming Anniversary

I'm sorry that I haven't posted anything this month.  As we all know, Real Life™ has a way of occasionally interfering with hobbies, and that has sort of been the case this month.  Between the usual inconveniences of life like failing appliances, and the attempt to improve my health by being more active, I'm just not spending as much time blogging or painting as I have been.  Now, this doesn't mean I'm not doing anything, as the picture below should demonstrate.

Yes, the masts are finally in my North Carolina, and it's only taken from September of 2014 to get here, so 3 years and 5 months.  Given that the original was started in 1818, launched in 1820 and commissioned in 1824, I think I'm comfortably ahead of schedule!

My first post on this blog was March 8, 2017 so the one year anniversary is coming up soon.  There will be an anniversary post, looking at the usual stuff: How many posts, how many visitors, and etc.  For the five people who follow this blog, thank you and there will be more frequent postings in the future (I promise!).

Unicorn Hunting

This is not, unfortunately, a blog about visiting HMS Unicorn in Dundee, Scotland. (http://www.frigateunicorn.org/).  Instead, it's a post about some ships that have been on my "being built" list for a long time, and my plans for finally getting something done with them.

I started keeping track of my sailing ships miniatures with a spreadsheet in September of 2014.  In that first spreadsheet there is a page entitled "Under Construction" where I kept track of ships being built.  That first page listed the USS Pennsylvania, USS North Carolina, a Russian 46 gun frigate, a Russian 50 gun frigate, and 2 French 74 gun ships of the line.  Well, the latest version of the spreadsheet, which is dated 12/27/17 lists the following ships as "Under Construction":  The USS Pennsylvania, USS North Carolina, a Russian 46 gun frigate and a Russian 50 gun frigate.  After almost 3 and 1/2 years on the under construction list, I've taken to calling these ships "the unicorns."  One of my resolutions for this year is to reduce the size of this herd of unicorns.

All four of these ships were ordered for projects that did not materialize, or were not what I needed.  The two Russian frigates were bought in order to do an 1806 Black Sea campaign that is one of my favorite forgotten wars from the Age of Sail.  After buying them, I later bought the excellent reference book Russian Warships in the Age of Sail 1696-1860: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates by John Tredrea and Eduard Sozaev.  While a fantastic English language reference on the subject, it also let me know that all of the 46 gun frigates were out of service by 1800 in the Black Sea.  Along with that, the 50 gun two deck frigates were nearly extinct by the 1806 war.

If you're interested in the Russian navy during the Age of Sail,
then you MUST have this book.

So, the two Russian frigates, while needing only masts and rigging, became members of the unicorn fleet.

The 46 gun frigate

The 50 gun frigate, painted in the post-1801 scheme.

The Pennsylvania and North Carolina were bought for a "what-if" project, where war breaks out again between the US and UK in the 1820s or 1830s.  I don't know why this project went dormant but it did, and did so fairly quickly.  In fact, Pennsylvania is still on the painting stick, and is a long way from being finished.  North Carolina, however, is much like the Russian frigates where completion is concerned.

A little touch up here and there, some base work, and it will be time to put in the masts
(well, after I repaint them).  Maybe North Carolina is not as finished as I first thought.

Clearly then, this is the USS Pennsylvania. She's obviously a long way from
the water.

Part of the reason my "what-if" 1820s-30s project faltered is that the US ships really have a very limited usage outside of that.  As the pictures show, the hull shapes are very distinctive.  With their rounded bows and sterns along with other design features, they would look completely out of place in a line of battle with older ships.  With the black/white paint job and distinctive hull features, I suspect that these ships will spend most of their career fighting under Russian colors and not American ones.  However, no matter what their future careers may take them, I'm determined to cut down on the size of the unicorn fleet.