Hi Geoff,
Still planning on a winch...always have. I agree with you about sticking to the scale....it's what I'm aiming for. The original plan was to have the winch below the foredeck...the only space big enough for all three of them......and a closed loop within that space. The main sheet would come from there and be shepherded down the length of the hull, below the floors, to emerge at the stern in a scale like position......possibly from within one of the stanchions so that a false knot around the same would make it look like it's a real sheet tied-off. Is everybody following me so far? The sheet would then go to a block on the traveller which I'd probably have fixed in the middle for simplicity. From there, to the boom.
That's where it goes wrong as I don't have enough travel available in the standard sheeting to get the boom more than about half way out. My thought was to have a second block. This would be slung between the sides of the cockpit on "ropes" in a scale-like way. The main-sheet would go through this and up to the middle of the boom......thus giving enough boom movement. Phew! To quote the annoying meerkats; "Simples!?"
However, the larger drum and original sheeting arrangement is sounding good right now.
Having said which, I've just found a video on YouTube (
http://youtu.be/8cUjkANFfJw) from Waverley models where Mike uses a bit of Action trickery to increase the number of turns available on a hitec winch to seven! That'd meet the drum size half way.