Need tips for more historical correctness.

[Lucky Jack]

Hello alltogether,

here you can see my last project, the HMS Goliath.
Normally I only paint the sails, because the hull looks good enough, but now I realised, that I did some mistakes.
So for my future projects I want to do better.

Mistakes:
1. The flags don`t go with the wind.
2. I don`t know, if the burgees realy had the english flag.
3. Yes, I could add the riggs

Maybe you have some more hints for me.

Thanks,

Lucky Jack

[Kentop]

Very good work. But do not paint the horizontal lines on the sails. Only the small vertical lines (which you painted perfectly) are there. They are the reefing nettles, or reef lines used for shortening the sail. The horizontal line, I'm guessing is supposed to be a batten pocket sewn into the sail and (in olden times) wood would have been inserted into the pocket so that it would have been completely covered with sailcloth. Most square rigged ships I have seen do not have batten pockets on their square sails. But when they do, they kinda look darker than the sail because they are opaque whereas the sail lets light filter through and you get a "line" across the sail where the reef lines are. With the sun behind you, the battens do not show up. With the sun behind the sail, they look like what you see, dark horizontal lines.

[Kentop]

The horizontal lines could also be just reinforcement cloth where the reefing lines attach to the sail so that they do not tear. Here's a better view with light behind sails and in front of sails:



Here's a better picture of the reefing lines on the USS Constitution: