Today, I just added a couple new items to my Downloads page, including the full pdf files of the Higaki Kaisen article that I wrote for Seaways’ Ships in Scale. The magazine, now defunct, included my article as a 3-part series on the building of Woody Joe’s 1/72-scale Higaki Kaisen kit.

I wish the magazine were still around, as I would most certainly still be writing articles for them. They were very easy to work with and I thought they compensated authors pretty well.

The three files are actually the proofs that I got from the publisher prior to print, but that’s all I have. There were very few corrections that needed to made, and they were pretty minor, so anyone following these articles shouldn’t run into any issues.

At the same time, I went ahead and added a link to the Japanese text on the building of the cormorant fishing boat, which was written by Douglas Brooks and company. Again, it’s all in Japanese, but hey, it’s a free download.

Website Organization

Meanwhile, I’m thinking I need to better organize my blog material, so I can write more often. I do a lot from day to day, and I need to be writing about it more. Meanwhile, I want to keep specific topics easily accessible and uncluttered. So, that’s something to work on. Please feel free to email me if you have any ideas.

Taru Kaisen (樽廻船)

And, as long as I’m just doing some general blogging, I thought I’d put out a request for any information that you all may have found on Taru Kaisen. For those that don’t know, these are coastal transports specifically used for transporting barrels of sake. They actually started off transporting other high value foods from the locations that were best known for them. However, by the late Edo period, they were carrying only sake, and lots of it.

I found a website showing the making of this beautiful 1/35-scale model of a Tarukaisen. You can click on the image to link to the site.

There’s a great article in a past issue of the Sake World Newsletter from January of 2007 that has some interesting information about Tarukaisen and sake in pre-modern Japan.

http://www.esake.com/Knowledge/Newsletter/SW/SW2007/sw2007_0.html

This doesn’t answer the big question for a wasen modeler, which is if there is any visible characteristics that identify a bezaisen (Japanese coastal transport) as a Tarukaisen. I’m reviewing the Tokyo Museum of Maritime Science publication about Higakikaisen and Tarukaisen now. But, if you know of any good information on the subject, please let me know. You can comment on the blog or just send an email to info@wasenmodeler.com. Ω