You may have seen my post about adding a different boat to the reworking of the Atlantis Black Falcon plastic model ship kit. The challenge lies in the size of the boat.

If you use the itty-bitty boat supplied in the kit (that’s it, just ahead of the boat with the crew in it), it fits aboard beautifully, but is laughably out of scale. The boat in the rework was kitbashed from boats from two other kits.  She looks to be of adequate size, but how to bring her aboard? And where to stow her?

Over the stern, of course! You can’t bring her inboard, and there be no law against hanging her outboard, is there now?

The two pieces that became the davits began life as supports for the mizzen chainwale of the ill-fated Soleil Royale. They were attached at one time, but somehow came off… it’s a long story.

Flipped 90 degrees, however, the length of the shorter arm almost exactly matches the height of the Black Falcon’s transom. And they’re handsome pieces – much better than what I was planning to fashion out of Popsicle sticks!

A piece of thin tan thread passes through the drilled-out hole in the block, supplied by the Soleil Royale, and ties in a simple knot on top. That simple knot is then tied against the bottom of the ersatz davit with another simple knot, this one on top of the davit so that the block is centered underneath.

They are too close together to accommodate the length of the boat, and are too short to keep her safely away from the stern windows when the wind blows, but let’s not talk about that. Neither should we talk about how difficult it must be to fish the boat lifts through those blocks, way out there at the ends of the davits. Nor shall we talk about where the tackle is to lift the boat. Duh. That’s what’s in those blue lockers!

The davits are the last puzzle to be solved in the reworking of the Black Falcon kit. There are no mysteries left to solve, beyond those things I foolishly omitted.

Tales of the Black Falcon is part of the John D Reinhart content family. Writer, illustrator, videographer, and accidental filmmaker — find the whole story at JohnDReinhart.com.

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