With the completion of the rigging, followed by the creation of a new flag (see Making an American Flag Using Adobe Illustrator), I went on to add the finishing touch to my American galley gunboat model, which are the oars. It is a “galley” gunboat after all. The model is now complete, and I’m quite happy with the way it turned out, especially given that it took me years to finally get around to completing the model.
As a reminder, this was built from the American Gunboat Arrow kit produced by Amati Model of Italy. It is a roughly 1/55-scale wooden ship model measuring just under 19″ long. I bought the kit from Ages of Sail many years ago (2014!), partially built the hull, worked on it off and on, then set it aside until early 2021. Even with all my other projects in the works, I decided to make an effort to finish up this model before the end of this year, 2022.
Marine Archaeology
Recently, I learned that at an NRG conference some years back, there was a presentation given by Kevin Crisman, a professor at Texas A&M, and expert on excavated ships of the War of 1812. Apparently, in this talk, he was discussing his findings on the American galley gunboat Allen, remnants of which were found in 1981. There was apparently some talk about similarities and differences of the Amati gunboat kit and the Allen. But, as I see it, the Amati kit doesn’t appear to be related to this find. It is a straight reproduction of the boat shown in the drawings reproduced by Howard Chapelle in his book The History of the American Sailing Navy.
Chapelle’s drawing of a galley gunboat showing mediterranean influence.
Click on any image in the media gallery below to enlarge the images.
Ship Modeler 
Reblogged this on Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights and commented:
Completed at last is this American Galley Gunboat from the War of 1812 built by HSPMS member Clare Hess. This model is based on the Amati kit American Gunboat Arrow.
Very little modification was done to the kit, mostly hand-made sails and use of some pear wood blocks. He also made a correct American flag for the period of the War of 1812.