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.