Ships, Folk Art, and Whimsey in Bottles

This is a model of the "Novelty" an 1885 seining fishing boat. The ship is built as a whole hull model showing the keel, rudder, and ship's propeller. The hull is dark brown on the bottom half and natural wood on the upper half. The hull is individually planked. There are two anchors on the bow of the ship. The deck is also planked and has a large passenger cabin with an upper pilots cabin. The cabins have dark deck roofs are very detailed showing individual port windows, doors and more. There is a large single smoke stack in the center of the lower cabin that is black with tow thin red rings. The smoke stack is secured with black rigging. There are two black funnels behind the smoke stack and a small hatch between the funnels. To one side of the cabin are davits with a white life boat suspended from the davits. The ship has two well proportioned masts There are two sails on the forward mast and a large single sail on the back mast. Each sail has stitch and reef lines drawn on. The ship has both standing and running rigging and shroud and ratlines go up each mast. The ship is mounted on a small plinth block secured to the bottom of the bottle. There is a plaque on one side of the block that reads: "Novelty - 1885 Steve Moseley 2002." The bottle is sealed with a cork.