Steve-
Looking forward to the new pics and your work with the masts and rigging. For my Ambrose project, I built a jig to create the rope ladders (sorry, I have ZIP ship vocabulary
ops: ) that connect to the masts and deck. I intend to just attach them with CA (super glue). After that is the rigging and I'll be curious to see how you do this step.
Boy, this topic really generated a lot of good discussion, huh? In Alvar Hansens
Card Modelling Basic and Advanced Techniques, he builds a lighthouse as an example and VERY BRIEFLY described using a "fibre-glass"(?) optics assembly, a 60mm tube with reflecting tape the runs the full height of the lighthouse tower, with a mirror at the top. Perhaps it would be easier to rotate this reflecting tube instead of the lighsource in the top of the structure? Just throwing it out there.
By the way, it's a great book.