From looking at the pictures, it looks as if he accidentally mounted one of the yards so that it was horizontally aligned rather than vertically aligned.

See here:


The top arm looks to be horizontal.

What an idiot I was to make this my first build (I don't count the few cardstock buildings I cut out with scissors years ago). What can you do, though, when inspiration strikes, and a manufacturer puts up a frickin' movie, fer cryin' out loud? I was helpless, Your Honor!

It's been a blast. I've been pretty much obsessed for at least the last week.

To answer Pelthar, I deliberately mounted those yards horizontally, thinking that that's what the instructions said. I'm allowing for plenty of boneheadedness on my part, but if you glue the white rectangle on the yard to the white rectangle under the crow's nest, horizontality seems inevitable...I think. Have I just missed something that should have been obvious? As a work-around on the third mast I built, I Sharpied the yard's white rectangle brown, and turned that face astern (against the mast) to get the yard oriented vertically.

The picture above is in between--I had just cut out a new lower yard (minus the box), and pasted it (vertically) to the box already in place. After this picture was taken, I did the same thing with a new upper yard, and then cut away the horizontals. The same picture shows a yard printout, and the white rectangle is clearly in the same plane as the rest of the yard. Glue it underneath the horizontal crow's nest, and you wind up with a horizontal yard.

Unless I'm mistaken, of course, and I've been mistaken quite a few times already in building the Maiden.

Sorry to post at such length; I'm just trying to express myself clearly on the off chance that I've got a valid point. I may be constructing another soon, and would like to understand what I've done wrong.

It's a sweet model, and has our GM excited without his actually having seen it in person...

Jah, that is what I figured happened Orsini. I had meant to add to my message that I think that is where the issue in the instructions was. But I was running late for work and did not think about it again.

The maiden was one of my very first WWG builds and I will probably sent the build to a fiery doom when I do it over. Can you imagine seeing video of the maiden burning on a body of water? Very Viking!!

On the yard arms there are some purple lines on two ends of the white gluing area. Did you cut those? If not, then I can see how the box would wind up with the yards horizontal.

I think you are doing a marvelous job on the build. Keep it up!

Oh...Welcome to the boards!

I see that Karen asked a similar question this spring in the Modeling Tips forum, and that she, too, was pointed to the mysterious purple lines. I will look at the sheet again today. The answer might be right there. Thanks!

And, yeah, I've seen the Horatio Hornblower "Fire Ships" episode. I'm misting the Maiden with Krylon polyurethane as I go, so it'll be veeeery flammable.

Honest, Officer. It was just for added strength.

Yes the purple lines are easy to miss.

I have to say in general the Masts were the part that have caused me the most trouble in my maiden build....

Still after you build the maiden, most everything else from WorldWorks doesn't seem all that hard.

Heh. Thing is, the Maiden is gonna look great even if I screw it up. As long as I make the pieces fit, it's gorgeous. Little credit to me, other than for perspiration!

I'm lusting after more WWG stuff. I'll build for fun (and deciding which kit will be tough), but the buildings and such might not be well suited to our current game situation. Eleven people gather around three tables shoved together, so none of us can really look down inside things. The ship, though, will be pretty accessible, not being very wide and being set up high--and of course it's one of the most beautiful game pieces I've ever seen.

My wife just called me again to say how amazed she is--she was out of the country for a week, and saw it only as a nekkid hull before returning last night to the nearly finished boat.

I'm not interested in miniatures games per se, so I've deliberately built the Maiden without any grid lines. My only use for minis besides the fun of painting is to enhance role-playing, and I love, love, love seeing things represented on the tabletop. Not everybody feels this way; for months we got along fine with just the pictures in our heads. I've made character portraits, though, and wanted a good-looking mini available for everybody for when those battles get complicated.

Wheee! I've just downloaded the Watchtower, and now my wife's got the fever; she's trying to pick a project for herself.

Here it is! Finished looking, though I could fiddle with it for months.

bravo,
Nicely done Orsino!