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Been a while since my last update, my apologies if this post becomes too long. The main cause of my delay was a self-inflicted problem. The instructions tell us to make sure the eyebolt openings in the spirketting patterns line up with those in the inner bulkheads (parts 32 and 33, L & R). Thing is, these parts fit the hull very nicely, and I didn't think about the holes until it was too late. This left me with eyebolt holes very much out of line. Sorting that out involved several iterations of filling holes and using a jig to line up and drill new holes. This is, essentially, the jig I wound up with; a simpler style would be better. Holes are now drilled, gun wales and rails have been added, along with a small colour change. The starboard looks fine, but I have some fettling to do port stern timer (sp?) Oh, and that starboard bulkead, at the bow, is now filled. Don't think I'll try to correct that colour, it takes some looking to see the issue.

Interestingly, Bill Edgin’s build, mentioned above, has the green wood chips, and it doesn’t look bad. However, there doesn’t appear to be much detail about his method.

Also, see photos on pages 11 and 13.

A little more progress today, putting the framework together. Lots of this goes together dry, and then diluted PVA is added later to fix the whole together. Even without the glue, it's very solid. The only potential gotcha I'd point out is step 17, where a doubling part is glued in place, but you'll want to make sure it's lined up well, because in step 19, you'll insert a positioning tab (32?) that will rely on that glued piece being in the right spot. Having built another Vanguard fishing boat I spotted that coming, and so, although I took a break between these steps, it didn't catch me out. Anyway - we're spoiled by the quality of these instructions! And if you're setting out to get started, you could do much worse than just reading through the whole instruction booklet a few times and getting familiar with the sequence before you start out. It'll help you see these things coming, and prepare you for the kits you may move onto, where your hand will not be held in the same way Thanks for looking in, and happy building Rob

Your planking is exemplary! The only thing that looks a bit different is there are no wales. I am guessing you will put a third layer of planking to represent the wales so you may find the following information on planking from the contract for Perseus (20) and Unicorn (20) 1776 interesting. Allan Plank of the Bottom The plank of the bottom to be 3 in thick of English, the best of its kind from the light draught of water up, cut regular & well seasoned no plank to be wrought less than 23 ft in length between the fore & after shifts to have 3 strakes between every 2 butts on the same timber & none less than 5 ft 9 in scarph but in general to be 6 ft & the plank to run 24 ft in length. Main Wales The main wales to be in breadth from the upper edge to the lower edge 2 ft 10 in & in thickness 5 in to be worked in 3 strakes of such lengths & the butts properly disposed so as to give the strongest shifts to the ports & to each other. Thickstuff under the Wales To have two strakes of thickstuff under the main wales, the upper edge of the upper strake to be 3 ¾ in thick, the lower edge of the second to be 3 in in thickness. Thickstuff upon the Wales To have one strake upon the main wales of 3 ¾ in thickness & 10 in broad the lower edge of the strake upon that to be 3 in thick & to wear off to 2 ½ at the lower sill of the upper deck port and at the top of the side or lower edge of the sheer strake 2 ¼ in.

Update: First belt on one side complete...gave it a little sand to remove the really strong edges sticking up etc. but nowhere near a finish. I have a bit of doubt how I executed the planking at stern side. The lines seem a bit strong there ( maybe a seam here and there). But we will see how the end result turns up, when I give it a final sand and varnish....just going step by step

Since I'm back at the workbench, I'm more or less on schedule to finish this topic and continue on my real in-progress work. Here is a better view on the lay-out of the caps that were below the masking. Some details were then also coloured, a nice distraction from all the white. Forward and aft some red winches, those are the fire wires. Two wires that were hung over the side and made fast on bollards. The eyes are normally kept about 1m above the water, so that in case of a fire, tugs could grab the wires and pull the tanker from the jetty. You have to take into consideration that it takes about 1 hour to get a tanker's engine ready, so they can't move on their own power on short notice, even if they wanted to (not much you can do without tugs though). Nowadays this practice has been discontinued. Only a few ports still require it. It was found that hanging these wires caused quite a few accidents, while in reality the tugs would probably either break the wire or destroy the bollards if they really had to pull a ship off the quay like that. The added value didn't add up against the disadvantages. The yellow details are the emergency towing gear. Any tanker has two Smit brackets on the bow, basically very strong points to connect tugs to. The box in front contains the chafing chain, a chain that's normally made fast to these Smit brackets for the towing. Chains can handle immense forces and are resistant to chafing and fire, therefore they chose a chain for this purpose. This gear is there to tow the ship on high seas, sometimes for longer voyages in case the engine would be disabled. She ship and tow can move considerably during such oceanic tows, so the chain has its purpose. On the aft there is a big reel with a pretty big wire on it. The yellow box in the back contains a buoy with light and a messenger line connected to the wire. In case a tanker would want to assist another vessel in distress, the buoy and messenger are released into the water to be picked up by the other vessel. The wire is rolled out fully until it catches a strong point. Once the wire is connected on the other vessel, the tanker can tow it. This could also be used by tugs to tow the vessel. The aft system is only required from a certain size of tanker. And then came the helo deck markings. I very rapidly found out I should have tried to mark this before adding the piping around it. I couldn't really put the masking in a decent way. I didn't have a stencil cutter back then neither. All in all it ended up becoming a bit of a weak point on this vessel. Nowadays I'd do it better. In below picture it was only started, more lines (and more difficult ones) still had to be added, going through that piping too. I did correct it a bit afterwards, but still something I'm not proud of. Due to my lack of stencil/decal ability, I also didn't add the name of the vessel. 1/700 is too small to actually paint it. However, since I do have a stencil cutter nowadays, I may revisit it and see what I can do with the stencil machine.

It looks very good to me Martyn

Update the upper forecastle portholes are mounted after plating this area, and the Stb waist reling is dry fitted. Also the area for the sprit bumpkin and its fastening eyebolts and stays. Aft deck the template for the breakwater is being estimated for fit. I am eager to get all the hull-related plating complete in order to continue with the painting job and the ELBE 1 name decals. For making the decals I got a great support from another MSW fellow builder. Here credit and thanks go to "Retired Guy", Richard for all his help. That gave me confidence to try and make my own decals instead of using larger sticker letters ( problems with the structured hull surface ) Nils The Railing is from Aronaut- Modellbau in brass and nickel plated. the wooden fastening rail underneath is to get the correct hight the aft breakwater will be mounted in this area. The blank space in the plating ( aft round between the rails ) will take up the 5mm small sticker-letters for the name "Bürgermeister Oswald" and the homeport "Cuxhaven" after painting.

Hi Micha! There are plans of Japanese ship/boat types in Admiral Paris Souvenirs de Marine 1882 - 1892. I think that with a little searching you can also find his plancollection in digital form on the Internet. Joerg

An accurate build is a good looking build. When it comes to ships, usually accuracy equates to beauty pretty well.

Hello everyone, thank you for the likes. The deck is finished with the planks, I don't want to add anything else to give a good view of the interior. Testing the various structures, anchor winch holder, etc. everything is in place and fits perfectly. Next up is the nails, two rows are already done.

Ouch, hope you have a really great outcome without too much pain along the way.

Maybe you can try to find more informations and books related to this floating replica that was made more than 20 years ago in Japan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naniwa_Maru I remember I read an article about the technics of construction of this vessel, since they used the same ancient technics to build it.

It's a great story John. I'm definately curious where this will go. I'll be following this build.

Have I over done the weathering? OC.

Hi Keith, yes there is, not a real pad though. It's simply an area marked on deck. The area is also kept mostly free of piping and the railing on the side can be folded down. Anything sticking out from the deck is also highlighted. Of course there is no helicopter landing officer onboard, but the crew have a bit of training on these things as well.

A (very) long introduction to my latest project – the repair and completion of a model of the barque ‘Herzogin Cecilie’ for the Australian National Maritime Museum. I will be working on the ‘Duchess’, as she was known, in my time at the museum, while the ‘Meteor’ model will come home, to be worked on when I can. The Story Of The Ship The four masted barque ‘Herzogin Cecilie’ was built in 1902 at Bremerhaven by Rickmers Schiffbau AG as a cadet ship for the prestigious German shipping company Norddeutscher Lloyd. She was built to the very highest standards as she was designed to not only be a cadet ship for Germany’s most prestigious shipping company, but also a floating ambassadress and showpiece for the German Second Empire. She was met with great excitement and media acclaim wherever she went. Her name, Herzogin Cecilie, is from the German – Duchess Cecilie – as she was named for Herzogin (Duchess) Cecilie Auguste Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who was later to become the fiancée and wife of Crown-Prince Wilhelm of Germany. The ‘Duchess’ as she was affectionately known, engaged in the wheat and later nitrate trades to the Americas prior to World War I sometimes with salt, timber, or coke as the outward cargo. She found herself isolated in the port of Coquimbo, Chile, when war broke out. This put her in a difficult position as she would certainly have been taken as a prize of war if she had attempted to return to Europe from her neutral port. She remained at Coquimbo until June 1920 when she loaded nitrate at Celata Colosa and sailed for home. As soon as the cargo was discharged at Ostend she was handed over to the French Government as part of war reparations. The French didn’t want the ship and decided to sell her. She was finally purchased by the well-known Åland Islands owner Gustaf Erikson on the advice of his most experienced captain – Reuben de Cloux. Thus began the final, and probably most well recorded, era of the ship’s career. Erickson sent her to Australia looking for wheat cargos – cargos that could be loaded slowly and cheaply in the small Gulf ports of South Australia – cargos that could survive the long, slow voyage back to Europe without damage and without losing value. His Master of choice for the ‘Duchess’ was the same Captain de Cloux who had inspected the ship at Ostend, a man who sailed the ship hard (and somewhat expensively as he was prone to carrying canvas too long and losing sails in strong winds). She made twelve voyages to Australia in all, mostly to the South Australian Gulf ports, but also to Melbourne – usually with outward bound cargos of timber. In between her Australian voyages she also made several nitrate voyages to South America. Reuben de Cloux stayed in command of the ‘Duchess’ until the middle of 1929, when he went into retirement as a Ship Master and handed over command to his First Mate, Sven Eriksson, a distant relation of the owner, Gustaf Erikson. Gustaf was evidently not too happy about offering command of the world’s most famous and best loved sailing ship to the inexperienced Sven, however the very tight-knit network of Åland Islands family connections is thought to have forced his hand. During the period when Sven was in command the ‘Duchess’ continued to regularly win the so called ‘grain races’, with the fastest voyages home from Australia, but this may say more about the speed of the other ships involved than the ‘Duchess’ as there are several extant letters from Gustaf Erikson to his Captain reminding him to always take in sail early and not on any account to risk losing sails in strong winds! As the 1930’s advanced, luck began to run out for the ‘Duchess’. In June 1935 her donkey boiler exploded while she was discharging grain in Belfast, killing two of her crew and injuring several other people including the Second Mate. Considerable damage was also caused to the ship’s structure and rigging. Only essential repairs were carried out at Belfast, the remainder being completed in Erikson’s own shipyard in Uusakaupunki, Finland, and the ‘Duchess’ sailed on her final voyage around the world on 29th September, 1935. The bad luck continued as she sailed up the Kattegat on her way to the North Sea. She sailed straight into the stern of the German trawler ‘Rastede’, causing heavy damage to the trawler, which had to be towed into port. The ‘Duchess’ was held entirely responsible for this collision, and it later cost her owner dearly. After the collision, Sven simply continued his voyage to Australia. She sailed from Port Lincoln, in South Australia on 28th January, 1936, arriving at Falmouth, for orders, on 23rd April and on the 24th she sailed for her discharge port of Ipswich on what was to be her final, very brief, voyage. At 0350 on the 25th April, in heavy fog, she struck the Ham Stone in Soar Mill Cove and, leaking badly forward, settled to the bottom with her poop still above water. Several attempts were made to get her off, but it was not until 19th June that she was finally refloated and towed to Starehole Bay near Salcombe, where she was once more allowed to settle on the bottom. On 19th July Sven Eriksson wrote to Gustaf Erikson that several seams had burst and a bulge in the plating was noted on both sides near the mainmast. Her back was broken. The ‘Herzogin Cecilie’, the beautiful ship, was now a total loss! Her rusted remains can still be seen in the sand at Starhole Bay to this day. The Story Of The Model The model of the ‘Duchess’ has a long and complex history. Back in 2007, one of the museum’s model makers, Col Gibson, was asked by two friends if he would be interested in seeing a model of the ‘Duchess’ that was owned by their neighbour. Of course, Col said, “Yes”, and in February 2008, while he was having lunch with his friends, they introduced him to their neighbour, Vera Grainger, and her model of the ‘Duchess’. Vera’s husband Malcolm, the builder of the model, had passed away and Vera expressed an interest in donating the model to our museum however the model couldn’t be accepted into the National Collection unless complete, and thus the “Duchess” model’s long association with the Australian National Maritime Museum and the museum model makers began. Work on the model had commenced in South Africa prior to the Grainger family migrating to Australia in 1978 and had continued here up to the time of Malcolm’s retirement, however after he retired the model languished with the hull and most of the deck fittings completed, and some of the spars completed but quietly resting in a box. Vera expressed an interest in the model going to the National Maritime Museum, and wrote a letter and report to the museum concerning her gift. The model as received by the museum Nothing further happened for about two years, when Col had an unexpected visit to the model makers’ bench by then Senior Curator Dr. Stephen Gapps, who was enquiring about the fate of the model described in Vera’s letter and report. This visit finally resulted in the model being collected from Vera’s home and taken to the home workshop of another of the museum’s model makers, George Bambagiotti, as he had agreed to complete the model. George Bambagiotti holding the stripped down model Malcolm Grainger had commenced the model using plans for the ship as she was originally built, but many major and minor alterations had been made to her structure over the years, even when still under the ownership of Norddeutscher Lloyd. It was finally decided that the model should be altered and completed to show her as she was when she was engaged in the grain trade to Australia, as that was the most relevant period of her life for Australian maritime history, and the way most of the world remembered her. George started cleaning and disassembling the model while Col started on the required research. Researching such a well-known ship sounds easy – there are literally hundreds of photos of her and many books; but the books usually don’t mention alterations to the ship, and almost all the photos are undated, so trying to find out exactly what the ship looked like in early 1936 was no joke. Progress was much slower than anticipated due to many factors, sadly including George’s increasing bouts of ill health, but he was not easily put off. I remember sitting on his bed at a Rehabilitation Hospital together with Col as we tried to work out exactly how various parts of the ship actually looked at the time of her final departure from Port Lincoln. As time started to drag on, Janos Nemeth and I were asked to contribute to the build. Janos, because of his well-known expertise with small carvings, was asked to make a new figurehead for the model, and I was asked to build a new suite of boats. I was also asked to consider rigging the model, with Janos asked to assist with this if needed. The two final blows were the closure of the museum due to Covid in March of 2020 and, far worse for his colleagues and friends, the death of our dear friend George on 27th February, 2020. George’s death was a shock to all his friends at the museum, but most especially to the team working on the ‘Duchess’! While we coped with our grief at the loss of our friend, we also had to consider the future of the model, as the ever-worsening Covid pandemic with its threats of lockdowns made future actions uncertain. We also had to consider relieving Lyn Bambagiotti of the worry of having the model stored in her garage. Fortunately, the museum was able to arrange to have the model moved to the museum prior to everything locking down, but we then lost track of our lovely ‘Duchess’. She had been sitting dreaming on one of the museum store shelves while Col and I wondered what had happened to her until a recent visit to the modelmakers’ desk by one of the museum curators. Not only was the safe ‘Duchess’ in the model store, but the museum wanted the model’s status to be resolved! Things then started moving quicky. Several of the museum’s senior staff became involved, and the project was suddenly moving again. Our beautiful ‘Duchess’ is now on the upper gallery of the museum in her own secure display case and work table, and will be starting to sort our the mess on the model and the mass of possibly relevant bits and pieces that were collected from George’s home starting next Monday. Sorry for it being such a long introduction, but it's been a pretty complex story!! John

Well, in a funny twist, bluejacket sent it to my brother in the USA, who came for a visit. He opened the envelope to check it when it arrived, then put it in his baggage… but didn’t realize until he got here that it had fallen out of the envelope while packing. Oops. 😆

You had me check. Yep, real McCoy. Made in USA

QuadHands are "finestkind." You'll love them. Nobody should waste their money on those near useless ball-jointed "helping hands" that you have to adjust by tightening wing-nuts. They are really junk. (And, like so many others years ago, I bought one, too! ) One thing to be careful about, though, is to make sure you buy the real QuadHands fixtures. There are "carbon copy" Chinese knockoffs all over the internet, but they aren't the same quality at all. The QuadHands uses high quality alligator clips for one thing. Cheap alligator clips are a dime a dozen, and they don't hold well at all. Don't subsidize intellectual property theft. Buy the real McCoy!

Seen the main guy on tv buying restoring and selling the real versions - Wayne Carini (Chasing Classic Cars) Looking forward to following this build. OC.

I gave up on VPN since Disney+ stopped ESPN and took away the NCAA football games of me. Can´t see the point in paying for a service I don´t need or not use anymore. I was using Cyberghost for more than 6 yrs, to watch the NCAA football games of my favorite team. Unfortunately Disney (owner of ESPN) stopped the service last year here in Europe. Therefore I can´t watch any games since then, so there was no need for me anymore to use a VPN host since I don´t use streaming services and especially not foreign streaming services. Micha

Hi All Thanks for the likes.... Just a quick post setting out the bow area for planking. This isn't the way I've done it in the past but seeing as how I'm experimenting in how I can use a paper model as the basis of a wooden version I've stuck with the way the paper model is done. From left to right shows the process First I extended the formers (red lines) above the deck level with sacrificial tabs to aid in the planking around the bow above the level of the deck Next shows them fitted and I've added some 6mm ply against the spine that follows the curve of the stem post and in line with the rabbet piece i fitted in post #1 Finally I've filled between the formers with Jelutong wood. This sands quite easy but takes nails better than balsa should I need to More functional than pretty Thanks for looking in Mark

Belated happy birthday and get well soon. Micha