OP
Holy smokes, you're a hero. I have a little fly tying experience, and that alone was testing me out in those days. I sure wasn't about to build a model like that.
By the way, "The tragedy of the Essex" is a hair raising whaling novel, written from the original diary of a survivor. Essex was struck and sunk by a whale, off the west coast of South America,and the men in the whaleboats were subjected to what hell must be like.
I have read the saga, very sad but amazing.