About

My name is Glen McGuire and I’m from Austin, Texas.  I’m probably the last person anyone would suspect of having an interest in making ship in bottle projects.   I have lived virtually my entire life in Texas, never closer than a couple hundred miles to the nearest salty sea.  In addition, I have never set foot on a large sailing ship, unless you count a Hawaiian dinner cruise with an all-you-can-eat buffet and free flowing mai tais.  So how in the world did a Texas landlubber start making ships and putting them in bottles?  They say that necessity is the mother of invention but I think boredom is a close second.  

In May of 2020, I was looking for something different to do and decided to buy a wooden ship model kit.  Why?  I'm not exactly sure, but I do like building things and always thought that old sailing ships looked so majestic with their tall sails stretched by the wind and proud bow cutting through the sea.  I had no clue what it took to build a model of one, but I figured with a kit, how hard could it be?  What a dope!  So I bought a kit for the CSS Alabama from Mamoli.  It did not take long to figure out I was in waaaaay over my head.  Turns out a wooden ship model “kit” is mostly just a box full of sticks and strings and you’ve got to cut, sand, bend, shape, twist, mold, and contort everything in the box to end up with a ship that somewhat resembles the picture on the box.  So 8 months and 800 hours later, I was exhausted and finished with the Alabama.  But I was also enthralled.  It was such a challenge and so much fun, I knew I had to do another. 

While looking around for another kit, I stumbled across one of those gotcha ads “others who bought this product also bought this…”.  It was a small kit for a ship in a bottle – The Hannah Continental Schooner from Amati.  Hmmmm.  It looked like an interesting project and also one that would not take too long.  So I bought it, finished it, and was completely hooked!  As with all other addictions, I craved more.  So I decided I'd try and build the next project from scratch rather than a kit.  And things just got worse and worse to the point where I’m now setting up this website dedicated to my ships in bottles! 

Thank you for stopping by and taking a look around.