Trumpeter Chengho Sailing Ship

John Hughes
The spars are moulded into the sails. Useful from an assembly point of view, but a pain for masking!

James Davidson
I did some research with the chinese embassy's help, and some very obscure references. Althought the depiction of the vessel is conjecture, the details of construction remain in expense reports-[various dimensions] so the approximate scale of the kit would be 1/244 or close to that. Best of luck, and the picture is impressive! The only remaining artifact from the actual ships [ther were several built] is a 50 + foot long rudder shaft found in the mud of the drydock that was built for these monsters!

John Hughes
I first heard of these ships from reading 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, by Gavin Menzies. There is plenty of info on these vessels in there, although, as you say, there is a lot of conjecture too as all records of the voyages of the ships were destroyed after they returned home and China became isolationist.

James Davidson
Hello Mr. John! just for your information; There is a very good book about the voyages of admiral Zheng, called 'When China ruled the seas" by Louise Levathes- and Captain Menzies wrote a sequel to his- Many people have said that a wooden ship of the described size was not possible [with the methods of the time]- i contend that it WAS, because the size limits of european ships were mostly for military vessels, and Sir Robert Seppings methods set an upper limit to those. The Yankee lumber schooners were enormous, and wooden! If you maintain a box like shape it can be huge, while retaining good structural strength to weight/size ratio. As to Cpt. Menzies ideas of where they went, i think the best argument centers around the time length of the voyages. There are clear dates of departure, arrival at know ports, and returns from same. They just did not have the time/supplies to go futher with their known speed of advance. Again, best of luck with the kit, i have one as well- i am debating replacing the spar/sail combo with scratchbuilt. There are some foil wrap papers that look good at this scale, for the sail cloth.