Ok friends! Time to post some updates... some very significant updates!
...or to put that another way, after 2 weeks of furious activity I finally have a chance to catch my breath!
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Ok, so we have a problem. The waist hatch coaming consumes all of the space at the base of the cubbridge arch. In order for the crew to access the forward part of the hatch, they would have to walk over the grating itself... which is possible, unless the grating is raised for loading the hold, or damaged in combat. This is an unacceptable situation and needs a remedy. Here's what I settled on:
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Access doors built into the face of the cubbridge on either side, this would give crewmen an additional way into the forward part of the ship. It's not totally implausible as some illustrations show carracks with 2 or even 3 cubbridge arches. The door frames themselves are made from IJN door frames with the bases cut out. This makes them a little short for a proper scale door by our standard, but as deck height in the Age of Sail was as little as 5 ft even up to the 1830s, this is not an unreasonable situation. I was a little unhappy with this solution as it would be better to drill out the cubbridge structure and make two real doorways, rather than simply painting the doorways black, but I was running out of time and needed to press on, also, such an operation would have been very difficult under the circumstances, and might even have resulted in damage to the masts & yards. At any rate, the instillation of the waist canopy wound up obscuring almost all of this detail anyway, so the problem eventually was solved for me.
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Figures! An officer standing in the archway atop the grating. Difficult to make out here is a crewman tending the cannon mount on the port side of the waist deck.
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Two officers having a discussion at the base of the main-mast, with two crewmen tending the cannon mount.
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Waist Deck Anti-Boarding Net-Canopy in place. I thought I would put a catwalk running down the center of the canopy, as is sometimes seen in illustrations. My intention was to put a figure on top of it, but I began by putting a little fellow sitting at the end of it. Bending his legs made him look as if he is sitting and having a conversation with the officer in the archway. He is partially painted to represent someone stripped to the waist for work. Perhaps his hands are outstretched in a plea of innocence, while the officer is pointing out some infraction? Of course, the fellow sitting atop the canopy might himself be an officer... who knows?
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I wanted to make a comment about these crows' nests. They are very difficult to construct. I have asked Bruno to re-design them, and he has agreed. The radial design I originally came up with (a-la-Peter Hall) was very difficult to work with and did not produce good results. The only way I was able to work with this kind of part was to place the trimmed part on a bit of cardboard taped with double-sided tape (very useful) and then attempt to glue the top-rail-ring to the upturned stanchions. After that, it is necessary to flip the part over by carefully prying it loose from the tape with a knife to fit the middle ring over the upturned base of the part. The effort was challenging, and the results were mediocre at best. You can see the mis-shapen appearance of it here. I determined at this point to partially hide the structure of the tops with livery shields. This wound up working well, as it exposed enough of the transparent radial structure of the part to be seen, but interrupted it enough to hide the asymmetries in the shape. Is that cheating?
I don't know, but it worked out.
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FAQ
so, no progress on my carrack! 
Trying very hard not to rush, skimp or skip anything important. Ok. Here goes.
