“Now was the perfect time [for Kydd] to make his acquaintance with the lovely creature.Teazer was a galley-built craft, one continuous deck running fore and aft...This was his home...”

	Follow highlights of British modeller John Thompson's progress over the twelve months of his project to build a model of Kydd's first command, the little brig-sloop HMS Teazer. HRH Princess Anne viewed the completed model, on loan to the Ivybridge Library

Law Costs Draftsman, John says he took up wooden ship modelling as a sort of “lazy man’s fishing” as he found that it was an extremely good way to relax from his pressurised job. He is happy to answer any questions about the model, and can be contacted via email draftsman@btinternet.com You can view more pictures of the final model here.

John explains how the project came about:

In late March 2007, I contacted Julian to tell him how much I enjoyed his Kydd series of books. There were a number of e-mail exchanges between us, following which, to my huge surprise and joy, I received in the post early one Saturday morning a piece of rope from HMS Invincible (captured from the French in 1747 and sank off Selsey Bill in 1758) beautifully mounted and engraved.

I was so touched by Julian’s generosity to a complete stranger that I pondered how best I could return his kindness – and the idea of this build of HMS Teazer germinated.

THE WAY AHEAD So, how would I go about this build? There were no pre-existing wooden model ship kits (Teazer being a composite vessel based on several real ships of the time), but to scratch build her would have taken up to two years or more. After research to glean further details of her origins, I deduced (and Julian confirmed) that HMS Teazer was based loosely on the “Cruizer Class” brig rigged sloops in operation from 1797 onwards. The Cruizer class were in fact the most common type of vessel operated by the British Navy and in effect were the real workhorses – and the backbone – of the Navy.

Fortunately, I had already built HMS Cruizer (the name ship of the class) as a commission for a large Maritime Law firm from a high quality kit produced by Jotika. Their kit is scrupulously researched and drafted from the Admiralty plans still in the National Maritime Museum archives; they also utilised high quality materials such as walnut, lime wood, Tanganyika, etc.

I decided that the HMS Cruizer kit would form the basic structure of Teazer and that I would scratch build the many differences that set her apart from the basic Cruizer Class sloop. This allowed me to build a unique model but within a more reasonable time frame.

Julian patiently answered all my initial questions and provided details from his own notes on her background together with archive drawings and photographs as well as Geoff Hunt's research drawings and notes (a precursor to his painting which adorns the cover of COMMAND). I also contacted Joseph Muscat who is an authority on Maltese built vessels, and Robert Squarebriggs in Canada, an experienced ship modeller and wood carver. They provided me with further invaluable detail and encouragement.

THE CHALLENGE Not only does Teazer have some challenging aspects to model and difficulty in making the scratch elements blend in with a manufactured kit, but I also realised that Julian and his whole readership would have perfectly formed ideas about how she would look!

It was only at this stage that I started to realise the task and responsibility that I had let myself in for!

THE NEXT TWELVE MONTHS What will now unfold will be my best efforts to reproduce the vessel that Kydd attained for his first command. It will be a long process (perhaps 12 months or so) and will no doubt not be without triumph and disaster along the way. I do hope that you enjoy following the build and that my eventual representation of Teazer will not be wholly dissimilar from the Teazer of yours and Julian's imagination.

17 August 2007: THE KIT ARRIVES : With the kit safely arrived, my first task was to check the materials and plans to ensure the quality and completeness of the materials.

All such models begin with their basic structure and the false keel and bulkheads are the backbone upon which every thing else will sit.

The basic skeleton of Teazer is starting to take shape!

18-23 August 2007 FIFTEEN HOURS IN... It is quite odd writing about the process of building a model ship and it is amazing how steps that often take many hours to complete only take a line or two to write about. To this point I have spent about 15 hours to complete these few very basic steps!

So far I have been occupied in preparing the basic skeleton of the ship and essentially this is the preparatory work for beginning the hull planking. Whilst at this stage it is nothing much to look at, it is perhaps the most important work that you will do in building a model ship and you will be amply rewarded for extra care and attention taken at this stage despite its lack of glamour.

Next I will fit the false main deck and the gun port patterns, at which stage I will be ready to begin the slow process of planking the hull.

24 August 2007 THE MAIN GUN DECK In considering Teazer’s main gun deck a little re-organisation has to occur from the standard layout of a Cruizer Class vessel. In order to accommodate Kydd's cabin I will have to move the ship's wheel forward as well as lose one of the several aft gratings. You can see from the photographs that the rear grating and the companionway hatch will now be planked over. The grating will have to be removed altogether as there is not enough room on the deck to re-locate it. The companionway however, has been moved forward to just in front of the capstan as this is one item that we cannot do without otherwise Kydd’s crew would not be able to get below!

By looking at the deck plan (from the bow to the stern) the circular hole most forward is for the fore mast, then there will be two gratings followed by the companionway. The second circular hole is for the capstan followed by another grating. The third circular hole is for the mainmast followed by the final rearmost grating. Then we will have the binnacle, ship’s wheel followed by the bulkhead to Kydd’s cabin and the upper aft deck.

The deck plan is a good example of how you must think ahead as to how the more individual details of Teazer will affect the build and concomitantly what you need to modify before you glue things into place.

Next up is to cut out the gun port patterns.

TWO ARMS ARE NOT ENOUGH! Fixing gun port patterns onto place is one of those instances where you need more arms than an octopus! The really tricky part comes in aligning the second gun port pattern on the opposite side of the ship to ensure that they are entirely symmetrical.

6 September 2007 The hull planking goes on; the first layer in Lime wood, the second will be Walnut....