Pic 84:    The foremast is now fully rigged, and the biggest yard of all, for the mainmast, is being prepared in the foreground. The lower sail is furled - it makes the model look more interesting and exposes the deck fittings for better viewing. I eventually furled the larger sail under the bowsprit, so that you can see the front of the hull and figurehead from head on.

As you proceed with the square sails, you can start to get their running rigging finalised. Run the threads through the correct holes in the pinrails and push the pins in until they bind gently. See Pic 95 for more details on this.

The route from top of mast to pinrail can be pretty torturous and there's no guidance on which route to take through the maze of superstructure. I generally try to take the route which offers the straightest line, so that in real life there would be minimum chafing on the lines. However, in some instances that would make the running rigging cross through the lower shrouds. To avoid this I pass the relevant threads through the appropriate holes in the platforms. This keeps the threads running parallel down most of the mast so the running rigging stays neatly inside the shrouds.

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