By Erin Rossiter
For Coastal Senior

If you go What: Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays How Much: Museum rates are $5 for adults, $4 for students older than 7, free for children younger than 7, $4 for seniors and military. Tour groups pay special rates. More information: www.ships ofthesea.org

The Civil War fleet has arrived - at least in miniature. An ironclad, a sloop of war, a gunboat and racing boat turned blockade runner are among the vessels that defended, blocked and called on the port more than 130 years ago - and now reside in Savannah.

The new models are at the Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum, where they were installed last month. But the five vessels, with two more to arrive in a month, will be tall in the tales they'll weave about the city's nautical history during that time period.

"If we are going to tell the complete story of Savannah's maritime history, we have to include the Civil War in it," said Jeff Fulton, the museum's executive director.

The Confederate naval forces in and around Savannah were nothing more than a collection of tugs, gunboats, blockade-runners and coastal steamers. Josiah Tattnall assembled the vessels, nicknamed the "mosquito fleet," following President Abraham Lincoln's call for a Union blockade of the Southern port in April 1861.

"Georgia's modest navy was the most formidable force created by any of the Southern states," reads an excerpt from "Savannah and the Civil War at Sea." The newly released book, with text by Mills Lane, coincides with the arrival of the Civil War collection at the museum.

A Richmond-class ironclad named Savannah, blockade runners named Rattlesnake, Savannah and the Camilla - made famous when it was named America and won the first British sailing race known today as the "America's Cup" - are all represented in the exhibit room at the Scarbrough House museum.

Later this month, two more models will be added. Both depict Montauk, a Union monitor.

Stacked on top of each other, one will be a cutaway and the other will show off the bodywork of the then-modern craft.

"We tried to include the more interesting and different types of vessels that would have been found in and around the port of Savannah," Fulton said. Ask Mark Wilkens what's "interesting." The model maker might tell you about the frigate - strike that - sloop Savannah that he spent months researching and building.

"We thought it was a frigate," the Massachusetts resident said, looking at the model.

He planned the replica according to original Navy drawings, and even started building it, before uncovering another source that reported the ship was modified prior to its launch. National Archives in Washington confirmed it.

The 40-plus gun frigate was actually a 24-gun sloop, one used by Union forces to blockade Savannah. "It's like a treasure hunt," Wilkens said.

After piecing together the puzzle of the ship's history, piecing together the details of the model was easy.

With surgical, tailor and dental tools, Wilkens and his fiance, Michele Insley, glued itsy-bitsy coils of "line" to the ship's railing Wednesday. They restrung some of the sail rigging with sewing needles, used by Insley, a jewelry maker by trade. And they rearranged some of the cannon-like guns on the model's deck. They weren't the only ones putting on finishing touches.

Michael Wall, proprietor of American Marine Model Gallery in Salem, Mass., used Q-tips to dab glue on the deck of a model built by his contract artist, William E. Hitchcock. Hitchcock has created many of the Savannah museum's models including the full cutaway Kansas City - the last to be installed there about a year ago.

"It's really a monumental effort," Wall said. "The museum has come a long way because it's taken the focus of Savannah and its wonderful maritime history," Wall said.

"Savannah and Charleston are a lot like Massachusetts, New York and Virginia. (The history) transcended so many eras - Colonial, Revolutionary, 1812, Civil War and World War II."


Talented model maker began pursuit as stroke rehabilitation

According to a December 2000 story in the Boston Globe, model building began as a way for William Hitchcock to help himself recover from a stroke that had left one side of his body weak.

"An avid boater, Hitchcock decided to build a model ship on a card table. Then, over the course of the two years it took him to regain the use of his right side, he made the decision to turn the hobby he loved - and first taught himself as a young boy - into a profession. Rather than return to the family business of making artificial limbs for people, Hitchcock would make his living building and selling ship models."

"Today, more than two decades later, not only has the 72-year-old Hitchcock never regretted the decision, he has started his own family tradition - joined first by one son and then another - and earned himself a worldwide reputation as one of the top marine model artists in the United States."

His replicas range in length from 21/2 inches to 101/2 feet, are on display all around the country, as well as in Belgium, England and Australia.

''I feel sorry for people who don't have some all-compelling interest in one subject, whatever it is,'' Hitchcock told the Globe. ''Some people can't wait until Friday night; I can hardly wait for Monday morning.''

''He is certainly considered one of the leading American 20th-century artists in his field,'' said Michael Wall, director of the American Marine Model Gallery in Salem, Mass. ''He is one of the key marine model artists.''

Although there are hundreds of professional model makers, Wall said, those of Hitchcock's caliber are able to command prices ranging on average from about $6,000 to $7,500 for a clipper ship, to $20,000 to $30,000 for a museum piece. For more information on the Wall model building business, visit their Web site at www.hitchcockmodels.com/. On the site, there are also extensive links to other information on the Hitchcock.