Stay tuned for updates on the Matthew Project.
The Matthew was the ship on which explorer John Cabot sailed to the new world in 1497.
Although a little later than Cristopher Columbus' initial voyage, it is hotly debated among the scholors that John Cabot landed on mainland North America ahead of Colubmus. If fact a full 14 months earlier. If my understanding is correct it wasn't until Columbus' third voyage that he made landfall on the main continent.
In 1997 a replica, believed to be representative of the type of ship that John Cabot sailed, again made the voyage from Bristol England, to Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland to celebrate teh 500th anniversary of his landing. In attendance in Newfoundland for the celebrated landing was Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.
While I wasn't fortunate enough to be in Bonavista for the landing I was fortunate enough to be in St. John's Harbour when the Matthew made her visit there and had the opportunity to board the small ship.
I learned that another replica had been built. This one was to remain in Bonavista where people can visit her to this day. It is mainly on the information acquired from this replica that our modeling plans of the Matthew is based. Using both pictures and a copy of the original set of plans the replica was built from we began our quest.
In early editions of the MSB Journal we covered the development of the proto-type hull construction of this model. All the information has been compiled into a single document (see below).
The Matthew Project was then put on the shelf for various reasons.
After almost a year of idleness, now that time permits it has been taken down off the shelf and is under final development and will/is presented below as a complete set of modeling plans that will allow you to build a POB model of the Matthew.
It is not our goal to run a complete online build in the forum area for this project. However, we have set up a forum where you can discuss this project with others who are building it. In fact, if you would like to run a complete online build from start to finish we are not adverse to that idea. Contact us and we'll discuss the idea.
The Matthew Project Discussion Forum
The Matthew Photo Gallery
The first section that I've setup for this project is a Photo Gallery. The pictures were taken in Bonavista Newfoundland of the replica built there. I was fortunate enough when home on vacation in 2007 to be able to visit the Matthew replica there. Naturally I had my camera with me so I tooks some pictures.
The first few photos on the page were submitted to me from various people. The remaining pictures are the ones that I took while on my visit.
If you happed to visit the Matthew and take any pictures, we'd love to have copies of them to post here. On hind sight there are a lot more pictures I wish I would have taken so any you have would be greatly appreciated. Just contact me through the contact form here on the site and I'll let you know where to send them.
Click Here to go to the Gallery