How to create your own HMS Pride

Create your own ship inspired by the National Maritime Museum's collection to celebrate Pride.

Your ship can be colourfully decorated with lots of rainbows and bunting. You can choose to simply make the hull and decorate it as you wish using toilet rolls for masts, adding bottle lids, smaller boxes and other recycled items. You can keep to the scale suggested or scale it up!

Who would you choose to sail with, what is your ship called, can you think of a wish to add to the decoration and who or what would you have as your figure-head?

You could also kitchen foil to make parts of it look like real silver. Have a look at these images of City Boxes which were used to hold the keys of the city given to famous sea-captains in honour of their voyages. They sometimes had beautiful silver ships on top.

An engraving of the City of London coat of arms with the motto 'DOMINE DIRIGE NOS' covers the lid of the box, within a scrolled border with scallop shell design at the corners and classical figures of Hercules on the left and Victory on the right. Inscribed above the arms is: 'NEC PLURIBUS IMPAR.', and below: 'MAJORA MANENT'. The front of the box is inscribed 'IASPER CUNST LONDON'.

Or look at the silver model of the Golden Hind on top of Drake’s Coconut cup.

You will need:

Cereal box

Scissors

Glue

Ruler

Pencils

Coloured pens or paints

Wrapping paper to decorate your ship – optional

Step 1

Carefully open up the cardboard box and use some scrap paper to draw and cut out a paper template for the hull of your ship. Place the template on the inside of the box, draw around it and carefully cut it out.

Cut some long strips of card 6cm wide and also paper strips for the sides of your ship.

Keep any spare cardboard to make figures etc.

We’re going to assemble the boat first and add the paper afterwards so that you can paint without worrying about not being able to paint over tape.

Step 2

Tape the cardboard strips onto the base using tape.

Step 3

Decorate the paper strips, checking their length first, wait for them to dry then glue them to the sides of the ship.

You can decorate the ship’s base template and glue this into the bottom of the ship.

You can also add silver foil on the inside to reflect the colours.

Step 4

Make masts, a prow and a boom using long strips of card folded along their length, rolled up and taped.

You can cover these in foil.

Carefully cut the bottom of the mast and spread out the strips like a palm tree so that you can stick these down securely with tape into the bottom of the ship.

Step 5

Tape the boom onto the mast securely. Make a triangle of paper, cut to fit, decorate it then tape it onto the mast and boom.

Step 6

Make a prow for the front then make a second sail.

Step 7

Now you can add a flag and bunting made with coloured triangles stuck to thread. You can use spare card to add people to sail in your ship.

Try modelling a foil figurehead (have a look at the National Maritime Museum's amazing collection) add flags, an anchor and some string at the front to pull your ship along.

Congratulations

Why not share your HMS Pride with us on social media?