My models of the Flying Cloud

I first worked on a model of the Flying Cloud when I was a teenager. My family doctor gave me a model he had made but which had been pushed off a fireplace mantle by the family cat. I put it back together and it traveled around with me for a few decades before it had been in too many accidents to be salvaged.

A long time later my wife gave me a Mamoli plank-on-bulkhead kit for the Flying Cloud which started me on the path I am currently on. I started building the hull part of the kit and, at the same time, started researching what could be found out about the ship itself. The research is still ongoing and this website is a result of that research.

Just about the time I finished the hull it became clear that there were some significant issues with the design of the kit itself. For example, the sheer of the deck was not proper, making the space under the forecastle far too low to house a watch of the crew. Another example, the keel and the bulwark stanchions were far too thick. I decided to finish off the hull, including the deck furniture, add stub masts and then put the model aside in order to start on a fully scratch-built one. The following are some photos of the result. Note that the only parts of the Mamoli kit that I used were the keel and bulkheads. As an aside, the Mamoli plans are very detailed and easy to follow but, as far as I can tell, are mostly based on the Magoun plans, photographs of the Boucher model and a whole lot of conjecture.