Published Ship Modeling Article by Clare Hess

From 2012 to 2017, I was pretty active with not just building ship models, but writing ship modeling related articles for Seaways’ Ships in Scale and the Nautical Research Journal. In that time, I must have written 4 build articles, a book review, and 3 or 4 out of the box kit reviews.

Of course, this was before I created this blog or my wasen modeler blog, so the magazines gave me an outlet for my need to write. They also gave me a bit of pocket money to maintain this sometimes expensive ship modeling habit. And, before anyone jumps on me about how low the per-hour cost of ship modeling can actually be, when you spend as many hours as I have on ship modeling, the per-hour cost may be low, but the per-month cost starts to really add up!

In any case, I have pdf copies of many of the articles, sent back to me by the publisher as digital proofs for my review prior to publication. Since I get questions from time to time about models I’ve built, for which I’ve also written articles, I figured I should finally put these together in one place so that others might be able to get something from them, even it’s nothing more than a laugh.

So, I created a new page on this site, listed under the Resources menu, called Articles. Just select that page and you’ll find links to my Mary Taylor, Higaki Kaisen, and Tosa Wasen articles, as well as a couple others. Note that many articles are missing, as I never received proofs from the publishers for these. Also, a couple articles I’ve written, but never submitted. Perhaps I will in the future. And, at some point, I may post the submitted drafts of the missing articles.

Regarding copyright, they have reverted to me after the initial publishing. You have my permission to use them as you see fit for your own personal, non-commercial use. If you want someone else to read them, please send them a link to this site to download the articles for themselves. Anyway, it drives traffic to my site, and it’s always nice to see more people visiting here. Ω

 

Seaways’ Ships in Scale Ceases Publication

Sad news for ship modelers everywhere. Seaways’ Ships in Scale has apparently ceased publication. This, according to the Nautical Research Guild, whose own Journal will be working to pick up some of the void left behind by the long time periodical. The last issue sent out was the Spring issue, 2018, which is still listed on their website, and no official announcement has been posted or been mailed out to subscribers.

If you recall, it was exactly a year ago that the publication went from bi-monthly to quarterly. To my knowledge, the issue was primarily one of time involvement of the publisher, and as recently as a month ago, they were still accepting advertising.

Speaking strictly for myself, this is sad news in that the magazine was a great way for me to get written material out to a wide audience. I’ve personally had five articles published in Ships in Scale over the years, but no more.

Still, this is an opportunity for the Nautical Research Guild to expand the Nautical Research Journal and to hopefully pick up some of those Ships in Scale subscribers to reach a larger audience.

Seaways’ Ships in Scale Goes Quarterly

If you haven’t looked too closely at you latest copy of Seaways’ Ships in Scale, you might take note that it’s not the expected July/August issue. Instead it’s the Summer issue, as the magazine has officially gone quarterly.

There was some speculation on ship modeling forums as to how this might be a cost cutting measure, or maybe a lack of material to publish. But, according to the Editorial and other sources, it’s simply the publisher, Michael Kosten, has been doing this for many years and is busy with other things. So, this is more of an attempt to reduce work load.

For the ship modeling community, it just means two fewer issues per year, making it like the other major ship modeling magazine, the Nautical Research Journal. The bad news is that you’ll get less ship modeling content per year. But, the good news is, that means the domestic subscription rates have gone down to $26.95 per year instead of $36.95.

So, is the change a big deal? In effect, probably not. More people get their ship modeling information from Internet forums these days, and the magazine serves mostly to spotlight certain works.

My Writing Plans – March 2016 Update

Tosa Wasen

For those interested in the Tosa Wasen kit, I’ve basically finished writing my article. I know this wasn’t part of my post back in December when I last wrote about my writing plans. But, now that the model is done and I’ve had a chance to really think about the importance of the kit, I figured it deserved a write up.

In January, I contacted Paul Fontenoy, who is, among other things, the editor of the Nautical Research Journal, so he knows the article is coming. I’ve also had the benefit of getting a read through by Douglas Brooks, who has been a great help to me in better understanding Japanese watercraft.

Now, I just have to take a few better photos of the model and it the article will be ready to send out.

Book Review

When I mentioned the Tosa Wasen article to Paul Fontenoy, he realized that there was no review in the Nautical Research Journal yet of Douglas Brooks’ book Japanese Wooden Boatbuiding. He asked me to write one and I agreed. Having never written a book review or anything of this kind for the Journal, I’m not sure how it’s going to turn out. Also, while I’ve read through various important section of the book, I hadn’t read it cover to cover.

Well, that’s the first thing I had to do, and I’m really glad I did – Not just to be able to write an accurate book review, but also because this is a very interesting book, filled not only with lots of details on building traditional Japanese boats, but with some great narrative of the author’s experiences in Japan, some quite humorous and some quite moving.

I just sent in my draft of the book review. If it doesn’t need revision, it should be appearing in the near future.

Hacchoro

About a month ago, I finally reached the end of the instruction book in my translation and notes on this kit from Woody Joe. This isn’t an article to be published, but rather something that I’m making available to anyone who’d like to have it. The notes are now available here as a 17-page downloadable PDF file. I’m also sending copies off to Woody Joe and to Zootoyz and they will see if they want to do anything with it.

For the future, I am considering building a more detailed version of the Hacchoro based on the Woody Joe kit, and I may write that up as an article. I managed to recently make contact with someone in Japan who is connected with the modern Hacchoro boats in Yaizu. He’s been sending me some information and, now that I’m planning to make a research trip to Japan, I’m making arrangements to meet him and to see a Hacchoro first-hand.

Higaki Kaisen

I’ve been dragging my feet on this simply because I want to include background information, and I want that to be as accurate and as interesting as possible. With the Tosa Wasen article and the Hacchoro notes done, I think it’s time to push this up to the front and get it finished and in print.

The problem is, every time I turn around, I learn more about bezaisen (the general term for this type of ship), and find challenges to my current understanding of the ships. Sadly, I haven’t had a chance to see one up close. While I’m making arrangements to see the replica ship Hakusan-Maru in the Fall, that won’t really help me with this article, which I’m ready to send off soon.

This will be going to Seaways’ Ships in Scale, though the amount of background detail I’m putting together is probably better suited to the Nautical Research Journal. I’ve seen other authors split up their material between the two publications, but I don’t think I’m going to go that far.

I’m hoping to see this delayed article get published late this year or early next year. It will definitely be a multi-part article.