What does Shipwreck do when on shore leave from the Joes? He works on restoring this Restoration-era tall ship, which he's christened the "Mara." Most folks don't know what that refers to, but a few other Joes know of a past adventure and a lost love. Occasionally, Shipwreck gets to sail the Mara out in a regatta or other special event. Usually, however, he keeps the Mara to relaxing trips along the bay in which he's donated the vessel. For the remainder of the year, a local non-profit maintains the Mara, and houses a small museum at its pier which details the ship's storied merchant marine history.

RL Note: Part of my inspiration for the Mara is the USS Elissa, a merchant marine tall ship housed in Galveston Bay and which currently celebrated its 130th anniversary.

I'd intended this baby to be my third entry into the "In the Navy" GP, however time kept me from completing this. That, and I flailed over how to do the repaint. In the end, I picked up some Rust-o-leum plastic-bonding spray paint, masked off the decks, rudder, and that front keel piece, and covered the rest. The trim I hand-painted in Citadel's Graveyard Earth, including the undersides of the three platforms.

For the sails, I cut off the plastic sails with my Dremel to preserve the upper spars. To make sails, I found a canvas apron and the hole/brad-making equipment at Hobby Lobby. Each of the four sails are held by 6 rings, the brads done in red, white and blue. (At least, I hope they're all blue. My colorblind eyes had trouble with the blues vs greens.)

On the flag -- I took a photo of the plastic flag, then resized it in Corel to be the 'correct' dimensions. The 13 stripes are hand-drawn (mouse-drawn?), with the blue triangular field blocked in. Last, I messed with the object distortion tool to get a ripple effect to the GI Joe logo, and had to do it again for a different pattern on the reverse. I forgot to stretch the picture horizontally to account for the true ripple in the plastic, so there is more gray 'border' on the end than anywhere else. :(