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About a year ago, I mentioned to Captain Green Hair during a drunken conversation that I was thinking about building a replica of the Golden Hinde. With Brickworld coming up, Pandora and I needed to build a ship, so this seemed like the perfect opportunity... Admittedly, some things changed along the way: the original plan was to brick-build the hull, but with the release of the Black Pearl and its black hull pieces, it gave us somewhere to start. And here's the result!
The Golden Hinde was the flagship of Sir Francis Drake's fleet, which circumnavigated the globe between 1577 and 1580. Originally called the Pelican, she set sail with the patronage of Queen Elizabeth I, with a mission to navigate the Strait of Magellan and cause trouble for the Spaniards. This she did: engaging and capturing the Spanish Galleon Nuestra Señora de la Concepción in 1579.
We've based this upon the Golden Hinde which is currently sitting in drydock on London's South Bank, itself a replica. It's doubtful whether the original would have sported this colour scheme.
The ship was built using the hull of the Black Pearl, which we had to extend by 4 studs, and add a custom brick-built stern. There are still some of the brown pieces from the original BP sitting hidden at the bottom! The sides are tilted using CGH's jumper plate and hinge technique, but we've used SNOT wedges and slopes to smooth the gradient at the bottom.
The rigging is strung to mirror the original as much as possible. It's made from cotton, which has a degree of stretch, and it actually does help tension the masts. We've used technic half-bushes as pulleys to allow differential tension on each; it's incredibly difficult to get them the same length which is why they aren't lined up desperately well! Apologies to SlyOwl for borrowing his flag design - cheers mate!
Here's a shot from aft high:
The sails are hand-made from unbleached calico, which is a dense cotton and (hopefully) resembles canvas. Its disadvantage is its tendency to crease, as you can see from the triangular mizzen sail.
The thin black cotton threaded through the sails allows them to be furled. There's a lot of excess string currently: we need to dismantle this for her voyage across the Atlantic, and the string will be cut to its final length when she arrives! If we can remember how she's built. 
Here's a close-up of the hull, showing how we've contoured the sides:
She's designed to resemble the Hinde, without being an exact replica, but retaining scale to minifigures. She'll get a crew later. The overall size is dictated by both the hull pieces and the arched windows; if we had included the correct number of windows, she'd be enormous!
Sadly, there's no interior detail, or gun deck.
Galleons always look dramatic from the stern!
The plain blue rear now has a decal, which we'll see later.
She's a display model, so we've included as much detail as possible on the visible deck. Here's the main deck and fo'c'sle:
The capstan raises the anchor (which is at the port bow). In reality, the anchor would be raised by a capstan inside the fo'c'sle, but hey.
The mizzen sail obscures the poop deck, unfortunately ...
... but you can see the ship's wheel, which sits (true to life) in front of the captain's cabin. We could rig the wheel to move the rudder, but it would mean losing the hatch.
The two crow's nests proved a headache! Thank goodness for flex-tubes:
You might notice we've used the 'old' mast platforms, which don't connect too well at the base, with round bricks and new-style mast pieces. A technic axle secures it in place.
The extra bow piece never arrived, so we had to improvise a little:
Here you can see the brick-built Hinde figurehead.
Finally, we'll take a look at the rear balcony, and the aft panel with the decal in place (it's hard to colour-match medium blue
):
We've taken considerable licence with the balcony design! But it looks smarter this way. Conscious of the effect the rigging and sails might have on the LEGO purists among you, the 'ER' logo is brick-built. Thank LEGO Friends for the very helpful rose piece!
Here's the real thing for reference:
She's currently undergoing restoration for the Olympics, which is why the yards have been lowered.
And a closer view, showing the figurehead:
Thanks for looking! We hope you like the ship.
Pandora & Rufus
Great design and poses! 
I'm impressed! This is extremely realistic and you clearly spend a lot of time on even the smallest details 
