FUCK YEAH AUBREY-MATURIN!

spiffingsailor:

HMS Surprise, by Geoff Hunt.

spiffingsailor:

Plans for HMS Surprise.

spiffingsailor:

Yeah… so that thing about me doing more personal posts? No bad feedback on that, I simply haven’t had the time. Barely finding the time to reblog something or post a photo. I want to do some more historical posts, but haven’t had a chance to put anything together.

I’ve been working at the Maritime Museum Wednesdays through Sundays, doing three one-hour harbour tours on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Californian’s been taking the place of Pilot while she’s being worked on in the yard. And while Californian can carry more passengers than Pilot, she needs at least three crew compared to Pilot’s one. It’s good fun to be out on the water, even though we’re not setting any sails. And I get to act as mate, which is a step up. But they really make me appreciate the Friday-Sunday four-hour sails. As fun as motoring in circles around the bay is, it is nothing compared to setting every sail and doing manoeuvres out in the ocean. Anyway. That was a rather long way of saying that I’ve been a tad busy lately.

So, I figured I’d share the scrimshaw on my knife handle that I did a bit ago. I chose Surprise for the front because she was the first ship I sailed as Sail Crew. And, well, it’s Surprise. I added a rose to her name to acknowledge her time as the Rose, of course. The compass rose on the other side was my very first scrimshaw. I wanted a design that would be simple to do and contained mostly straight lines, so that I couldn’t mess it up too badly. There is a fairly obvious mistake on there, but it’s hard to catch unless you stare at it for a while. I added the anchor a bit after that to fill up the empty space. Hold Fast we all know from Master and Commander, and it had a legitimate meaning of clapping on tight to a line. The rest of the edge was looking rather bare, so I included a rope pattern, which I may or may not attempt to shade in the future. This was all done by hand with a sailmaker’s needle. First I come up with a design on paper, then copy that onto the knife handle with a pencil before scratching it in with the needle. Instead of searching for white or silver India ink, I used a fabric marker I had lying around and it’s worked out pretty well. It was a lot of fun to do, and now I want to get another knife just to do more scrimshaw!

So, there’s a blog post for you. Hopefully I’ll be able to come up with some more interesting things to post about in future.

spiffingsailor:

fuckyeahaubreymaturin:

“HMS Surprise”

© 2010 Tuggerdave of Flickr. Taken less than a month ago - don’t she look good?

I AM FINALLY ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT THIS, HUZZAH!!

I was aboard Surprise when this picture was taken. When was this picture taken? Why, last summer when Surprise had a role in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (coming to a cinema near you on 20 May). Even though we all rather hate pirates at the Maritime Museum, Surprise (supposedly) played a privateer… Or something. With a pirate captain and Navy crew? I don’t know what we were supposed to be, but we were clearly British. As you can tell by that ginormous flag (of the wrong period). Aside from the long hours, wearing harnesses under costumes, and Very Uncomfortable Shoes, it was a rather fun experience. Surprise now joins the Real Ships Used in the Pirates Films Club, along with HMS Bounty and Lady Washington.

Goodness, thanks so much for sharing! :D Cannot wait to see the lovely lady in the context of another Captain Jack…!

Could we all just bow our heads and respect herself for a moment.

leighway:

• oh, yes.
• she did.
• 

Reblogged from fainauriel.

LOOK AT THIS GQMF.

HMS Surprise Night Attack by Geoffrey Hunt.

WHAT GUYS I WANT FIC THIS IS JUST TOO REAL.

By tootsiemuppet of DeviantArt.