Jaureguiberry II: Hull Issues

Hello and welcome back! When this kit was first produced the plans that are currently available from the French archives had not yet been made available. I am not sure what plans the pattern maker used but (if the Marine Nationale plans are correct) to have been wrong in a few major areas. I am not meaning to bash or insult the pattern maker that created the kit in the first place, I really applaud his effort and thank him for even doing it, but it seems that the resources available to him at the time let him down. The hull is definately inaccurate and many of the deck details are wrong or missing entirely. Once again I highly doubt this is the fault of the master who created the kit but rather the fault of the lack of good drawings. Let's see what we have here.
Master Modeler Jim Baumann was kind enough to inform me that the length-over-all (LOA) of this vessel was, in 1/700 scale, around 156mm or 356' in real life. The Marine Nationale plans that I used were drawn in a variety of scales that looked to be around 1/100 for some and 1/200 or 1/196 for others. Reducing one particular sheet of plans to 1/700 from an original estimated to be 1/196 gave an overall length for the ship of 155.5mm...close enough for me. This measurement was taken from the furthest projection aft on the stern to the furthest projection forward on the bow, in this case being the tip of the ram. This is where the first major problem popped up. When overlaying the kit's hull on the drawings it looks as though the kit is too long. When measuring the waterline length the drawings show a measurement of approximately 153mm whereas the kit has a measurement of approximately 158mm. 5mm may not seem like much but it is definately noticeable when placed next to plans. In scale that would make the model 11' longer than it should be. Additionally, the hull appears to be badly misshapen on the waterline at the bow:
Luckily from the cutoff portion of this scan aft the hull matches the drawing well enough in terms of its shape. The builder has two choices, one easy and one not so easy. The easy choice is just to ignore the problem. 99% of people out there are not going to notice the error and even fewer will probably really care. The second choice is to try and fix it. At the moment I think I will opt for the latter and try and fix it. Until next time...