Mayflower

If printed, the image below can be used to make three paper models of the "Mayflower". Cut out, fold round and glue. Place bit of styrofoam inside hull, push in sticks for masts, adjust with blue-tack.
LINK TO SAIL PLAN OF "MAYFLOWER"
If you use something flexible to represent the sea, like a bit of blue kitchen wipe you can squash the ship up enough for it to fit through the neck of a bottle, then use tweezers to fit the masts inside the bottle. This is a pair of tweezers made from a paperclip & a narrow drinking straw



The cotton runs inside the straw, the tweezers are operated by pulling the cotton



Use a bottle with a large neck, like a pasta sauce jar or a fruit juice bottle. If you use a plastic bottle, you can simply cut a flap on one side and insert the ship through the flap. Then close it with sellotape, desguise it by positioning the ship on top of it.



This one was made using the tweezers method. Rather a heavily-scuffed bottle, I've been using it as a water bottle for about six months. I made sockets for the masts out of little bits of drinking straw, a very loose fit which is why the foremast is crooked.

















ships in bottles


my email is davidvwilliamson@hotmail.com
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But when you’re threshing, crippled, with broken bridge and rail,
At a drogue of dead convictions to hold you head to gale,
Calm as the Flying Dutchman, from truck to taffrail dressed,
You’ll see the old three-decker for the Islands of the Blest.

You’ll see her tiering canvas in sheeted silver spread;
You’ll hear the long-drawn thunder ’neath her leaping figure-head;
While far, so far above you, her tall poop-lanterns shine
Unvexed by wind or weather like the candles round a shrine!

Hull down—hull down and under—she dwindles to a speck,
With noise of pleasant music and dancing on her deck.
All’s well—all’s well aboard her—she’s left you far behind,
With a scent of old-world roses through the fog that ties you blind.

Her crew are babes or madmen? Her port is all to make?
You’re manned by Truth and Science, and you steam for steaming’s sake?
Well, tinker up your engines—you know your business best—
She’s taking tired people to the Islands of the Blest!