Building The West India Trader 1760 (category C8)
Nice article about building a C8 category model written by Ondřej Mráz, who is nominated to represent the Czech Republic at the upcoming World Championship in Jablonec nad Nisou.
I used to build wooden sailboats before my military service, back then there was only spruce wood, glossy varnish, bad plans... After about 25 years I came back to modeling again and decided to get a cheap kit just to look around. This was the start of project "West India Trader".
Building the model
On the internet, I have chosen the "Frigate President" kit from Sergal. After studying the contents of the box, I found that the model was neither true enough to the type of ship nor to scale. However, it was very suitable as a starter kit to learn all the modeling techniques. I started building it back in 2012, without any machinery. Gradually I tried to make the details as authentic as possible, which I started to draw on the internet from available books and documents. In addition, I subscribed to modeling forums, where I learned a lot from more experienced modelers. This luxury did not exist before, and surely this is why the overall standard of models has visibly risen in recent years.
During the build, I kept searching the internet for a model plan and found one amongst historical drawings of ship plans. My ship actually existed, it was a "West India Trader," a merchant frigate of the English West India Company, i.e. a merchant frigate of about 1760. After this discovery, I started building as closely as possible to this model, and according to other documents, I refined the deck fittings and the entire masts and rigging with sails to make the ship as close as possible to what it might have looked like in 1760. I tried to gradually work out as many details as possible, making my own equipment for the ship already using machine model equipment. For example, I replaced the carvings with my own. In this way, the construction of the ship took 5 years and 3 months.
Competitions
Before the end of the building, I decided to enter my boat in a modelling competition. Only a member of a modelling club can compete in a national competition, so I entered the nearest modelling club, which is the ADMIRAL Jablonec nad Nisou Ship Modellers Club. In the team of the best Czech modelers, you get a lot of experience, modeling wisdom, and the desire to move higher on the ladder of your own diligence and skill. I took part in the first competition of the Czech Republic Championship of NAVIGA "C" category in 2018, which coincidentally was also held in Jablonec nad Nisou. The model was entered in category C8, which is a category added a few years ago according to NAVIGA rules. These are models from kits that can be modified and added to, but the basis of the kit must be preserved. At this competition the model scored a total of 91.67 points out of 100 possible, thus achieving a silver medal.
Furthermore, I also participated in the Open Championship of Poland 2022, wherein the competition of kits the model got 96 points and thus even a gold medal. The biggest success for the model, however, was participation in the NAVIGA World Championship category "C" in 2020 in Rijeka, Croatia, where in front of a strict international jury in competition with other models the model was awarded 87.67 points, which was enough for a bronze medal. Here, unexpectedly for me, it was required to be in full compliance with the plans, which is one of the award criteria according to the international NAVIGA organization, up to 10 points out of 100. My non-conformity of the model with the plans from the kit was due to the total rebuilding of the "imaginary ship President" kit. At that time, I did not know how to create the corresponding documentation of the new model, matching the model and documents gradually obtained from the Internet and other sources. Still, it is evident that even a consistently built model from a weak kit can succeed in an international competition. By rebuilding this kit, I have moved closer in my modelling career to building a model (only) based on a plan. In English the term Scratch build is used, which means that the modeler builds all the parts of the model himself only from basic materials.
Text: Ondřej Mráz
Photo, Video: Ondřej Mráz, Martin Tomášek
Building process in seven minutes, enjoy!