Thursday, September 2, 2010

Recreating The Flying Cloud

K's Sail Ship

K just finished reading a really great novel called 'All Sail Set' by Armstrong Sperry which is a fictional story peppered with the true facts of the famous clipper 'The Flying Cloud' built in 1851 by Donald McKay. It is a beautiful ship with all of its billowing sails and K being completely obsessed with any kind of boat has set to work recreating it :)

Ship Plans

Throughout the book are quite a few diagrams showing the layout and shapes of each of the sails....

Ship Plans

as well as all of the intricate ropes that covered each of the masts.

K's Sail Ship

Using scrap wood, wool from my yarn stash and scraps of muslin fabric he started building.

K's Sail Ship

Each of the sails he carefully cut to fit and then hand sewed them onto the ropes :) I just love watching him work on it and I can hardly wait to see it finished. He's taking a bit of a break though as I think all of the hand sewing was a bit more work than he had anticipated *grin*. At least he knows his way around a needle and a thread! LOL

If you know of any great novels about ships that would be appropriate for an 11 year old I would love to know :)

~ Rosina

3 comments:

Sandpiper said...

Wow! That's really amazing! He's got patience. We read "Carry On Mr. Bowditch" last year. It's not really about boats, but more about sailing & navigation & of course the life of Nathaniel Bowditch.

Laura said...

Serious attention to detail! What great skill for someone so young. Very impressive!

Jennifer Hoots said...

I remember that book! Wow, I am impressed. Very nice. Maybe you should submit a picture to Sonlight?