Join us for a conversation with Ed Tosti, the SeaWatch Books author of the two-volume Naiad Frigate and the three-volume Young America series. Those books were written while the models were underway. Ed is a graduate mechanical engineer who spent his working years as a project engineer in the chemical industry. He did not build ship models then.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• How an uncle’s 1920s modeling, the whaling bark Wanderer in his grandfather’s workshop, and tools his father gave him at about five pulled him toward ships
• HMS Victory, started in 1976 and finished around 2009, seven or eight years after retirement: thirty-some years, mostly Christmas vacation until a couple of years full-time at the end
• Naiad, one of three frigates at Trafalgar: a 1:60 framed model drafted in CAD from period methods, and a two-volume SeaWatch book written during the build
• Young America, an American extreme clipper in 1:72, a series that grew to three volumes, and homemade rope
• Drafting as the part he likes most, and his advice that you do not have to start simple and level up

The Young America model is at Mystic Seaport, on display about two years; Ed has not seen it there yet. Naiad is upstairs at home, in a case.

Learn more about Ed’s books at https://seawatchbooks.com/collections/edward-j-tosti

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