Price : 72  Euros

This monograph is devoted to the tartane, a fishing ship and coastal trading vessel found in the Mediterranean for over three centuries but little known today. Artist's renderings of tartanes abound, but technical information on their construction is rare, especially for the period before 1800.
We found copious information in the Naval Archives in the port of Toulon and in the National Archives on La Diligente, a tartane built in Toulon for the Royal Navy by Laurent Marchand, a shipwright from Agde. Happily enough, the ship's plans were also preserved in the Toulon archives.
Gérard Delacroix conceived and designed this monograph on the basis of Hubert Berti's archival research. Both men relied on Jean Boudriot's principles, advice and guidance.
The monograph includes a full set of plans for building the model at 1:36, 1:48, and 1:72 scale. In other words, it allows for three varying degrees of difficulty in construction. Rigging and fitting out are elegant but simple and the decoration of the hull is fairly easy to do. A careful beginner at model building would be able to take on this ship as his or her first project. A more experienced model builder would be able to assemble a first-rate piece with a closed hull based on the completeness of the documentation. The framework is particularly difficult to execute because of the lightness of the ribs. The most skillful model builders will therefore be able to display their talent.
The Diligente had a fascinating career due to the variety of her missions: large and small coastal trading, races, transportation of personnel or official dispatches, and the protection of convoys. The imagination can run full course if one should choose to present this charming small ship in one of those historical situations.