Now place the other rails, which fan back and down from the figurehead.
In this basket'like space were set seats of ease for the crew. Smaller
ships did not bother with these appointments, offering use much like a
hen roost. By mid 19th century, loss of this head structure caused the
trend toward waterclosets.
The Head Rails, Main, Middle and Lower, were supported by
vertical curved timbers called HEAD TIMBERS, but these are best omitted
unless the scale of the model permits you to make them. Alternatively
you could fake them by gluing a strip of card across the face of the
rails.
The little semicircular structures each side of the bulkhead in Fig. 32
are spaces for the officers' lavatories. Notice also in Fig. 32 that
the knightheads are two stout posts each side of the bowsprit below the
forecastle deck level. This is the old style bow of large ships.
Smaller vessels carried the topsides right around to the stern post and
the knightheads were then at the deck level as you can see on the
clipper ship Fig. 28. The larger 2 and 3 deck warships did this also
after about 1800, when the old style square front forecastle was closed
in.
Note that a CABI.E BOLSTER is fitted to the anchor hawse
to give radius and bearing for the large anchor cable. This is simply
an extra thickness of timber. They occur port and starboard, Fig. 32.
The FIGUREHEAD, Fig. 33. The figurehead is worth a little
study in itself as it can so easily spoil a good model. It should be
made to fit in gracefully with the sweep of the stem. It can be made a
full length human figure, male or female Fig. 33A; a half figure or
bust Fig. 33B, usually with arms cut short; а Э/4 length figure with
the lower body merging in the dress or drapery into the stem 33F;
a coat of arms, a crest or shield, Fig. 33G, or a symbolic animal. Some
workaday merchant ships omitted the figure altogether and had either a
fiddle head Fig. 33C, which was a curved scroll, like the head of a
fiddle curling over backwards, or a scroll head curling forward, or
else a billet head Fig. 33E which was simply the top of the stem
curving forwards (derived from the word bill or beak as for a bird).
The billet was the simplest form of all with the minimum fancy work,
usually a simple curved line cut into the stem timber.
