shipmodel

A sad tale with many misteps.  It's a great build Dan. Congratulations.   And also thanks for filing in the story that too many don't know.

Dan, congratulations! Nicely done. 

Well done, Dan!
 
Roger

Hi again to all, and thanks as always for the likes and compliments. 
 
This will be the last segment of the build log, although I plan to edit it down a bit and turn it into an article for the Nautical Research Journal.  Although all ships have their own stories, the history of the Mayaguez is more exciting and tragic than most, so I will go into it in a bit more detail than usual for a build log.  Some of it was set out in the first segment of the log, leaving off with the capture of the ship.  Here, as they say, is the rest of the story.
 
Let’s go back to that fateful day of May 12, 1975.  The SS Mayaguez is heading from Hong Kong to Sattahip in Thailand carrying 107 containers of routine commercial items and 77 containers for the US military of non-military supplies such as mail and PX items.  Although in a recognized and heavily travelled sea lane, she was only 6 miles from the small island of Koh Tang, claimed by both Cambodia and Vietnam.  The communist Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia, which had recently captured power, started enforcing a 12 mile limit off the island and had already seized a number of ships from several countries and had fired on several others.  Despite this, the American military command had not issued any warnings to commercial ships to avoid the area.
 
At 2:18 in the afternoon the captain was called to the bridge by the third mate on watch.  A gunboat carrying a red flag was approaching fast.  A few seconds later there was a burst of machine gun fire over the bow.  Captain Miller decided to continue to see what they would do.  A sailor on the gunboat raised an RPG to his shoulder and fired over the forecastle.  Unable to outrun them the captain stopped the ship and it was boarded by more than a dozen soldiers from two small Cambodian armed boats. 

Here is a close up photo of one of the boats which was used to detail these elements on the model.  The text on the side reads in part: “A Cambodian gunboat nestles alongside the American container ship SS. Mayaguez off Koh Tang Island as its Cambodian Khmer Rouge crew take over the U.S. freighter.  This picture was made by one of the crew.

The crew was swiftly taken captive and the ship directed to the nearby Koh Tang Island.  The Captain and radio operator did an extraordinary job of getting off a series of SOS messages with the ship’s status and position.  These were relayed to US military command in the Phillipines and an Orion P-3 reconnaissance aircraft flew over, but was fired on.  Despite the danger, overflights were continuous after that, although repeatedly fired on.

In Washington an emergency meeting of the National Security Agency was taking place between President Gerald Ford and his team of well-known advisors, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller, Donald Rumsfeld, Brent Scowcroft, William Colby, James Schlesinger, and the full Joint Chiefs of Staff.  With that lineup it is not surprising that the final decision was to make a “strong statement” that would be recognized by the Koreans, the Chinese, and the American public.  The reaction of the Khmer Rouge was impossible to calculate and that of the ship’s crew was not important.  American naval elements including the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea and the frigate USS Holt were directed to steam to the area and await further orders.     

Over the next two days American jets from nearby bases sank several Cambodian gunboats but failed to prevent the crew being taken off the ship onto a fishing boat and ferried to Koh Tang Island.  The ship itself was not taken into a Cambodian port, but that was mostly because the Captain exaggerated the depth of the hull and said the radar would not work, so the ship would ground.  Meanwhile, Marines and other personnel from several bases were assembled nearby by helicopter and also told to stand by.  Tragically, during the moves a helicopter crashed, taking the lives of these 23 USAF Security Police and the flight crewmen pictured here.  This helicopter crash would not be the last.

Back on the model the ship was complete and had to be set into its seascape.  I will not go into detail here as to my method for sculpting and painting a sea.  I have set it down in my build logs of the USS/SS Leviathan and the whaleboat James B Colgate. In fact, I did not photograph this part of the build of this model.  Here, though, is a photo from the Leviathan build of the Plaster of Paris sea with waves and swells molded in with a damp sponge.

The same method was used, but since photos show a calm sea and the ship was to be pictured at anchor after being captured, the surface was only lightly textured and only very small patches of foam were shown around the hull.

One thing that I have found that increases the realistic look of a model far beyond its small size is the waste water discharge towards the stern of the ship.  I made this by bending a small length of styrene rod over a candle flame.  After trimming to length it was inserted into small holes in the hull and the plaster sea.  The rod was textured with gel cyano dabbed on with a toothpick, heavier at the lower end where the stream would have broken up a bit.  Then it was colored with flat white acrylic paint along with the small disturbance on the ocean’s surface.

 With some additional research it was discovered that the Cambodian gunboats were US made “Patrol Craft Fast” PCFs.  Nicknamed “Swift Boats” they had been used in the rivers and coastal areas of Vietnam and also given to the Cambodians when they were our allies during that fight.

An Internet search turned up a low resolution plan of the boats so I was started planning to carve and detail two of them for the diorama.  This would not have been easy with a scale length just over two inches each.   

I then turned to Shapeways, Inc. to see if their designers had something that could be used as a starting point.  To my happy surprise there was a set of two Fast Boats already in the right scale.  They were molded in fairly smooth frosted plastic with the topsides molded separately from the lower hull.  After cutting away the sprue framework the sections were separated and the interior was found to be filled with unhardened resin powder.  This was removed and the topsides glued down to the hull.

The propellers and rudders were removed as were the stern railings which were too thick.  After sanding the boats were painted light grey before detailing.  The guns on the stern deck and on top of the wheelhouse were painted, as were their mounts.  Life rings were added from my spares box along with hull numbers.  The stern railings were replaced with PE trimmed to size and the boats were finished with small paper flags painted with the flag of communist Kampuchea, a yellow temple on a red field.  Hollows were cut into the plaster sea and the boats set in with a bit of plaster to fill any gaps.   Paint and gloss finish melded them into the diorama.

After a few touch-ups of paint the model was complete and ready for delivery to the museum at the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY.


So here is a side-by-side comparison of the finished model with the photograph that started it all.  I think that I achieved a “compelling evocation of the actual ship.”  Others must think the same, because the model was honored with the Jim Roberts’ Craftsmanship Award at the 2022 Northeast Joint Clubs Show.  My gratitude goes out to all of the judges.

To finish, we return to the tragic and poignant Mayaguez Incident.  By the evening of May 14 the ship had been seized and the crew had been taken off to Koh Tang Island.  President Johnson authorized military action and several Kampuchean gunboats have been sunk.  Naval ships and Marine units were being hurried to the area so a “strong statement” could be made.  By the early morning hours of May 15 the pieces were in place and the order was given to seize back the ship and rescue the crew on Koh Tang Island.  Approaching cautiously, the USS Holt came alongside the Mayaguez.

At 06:13 in the morning, after a bombardment with tear gas, armed Marines in gas masks stormed the ship, only to find that it had been deserted.

With no opposition, the American flag was once again raised above the bridge.

At about the same time a communique from the Kampuchean government was broadcast which blamed the US for the incident and described the Mayaguez as a “CIA spy ship”, but which announced that both the ship and the crew were being released.  This was received in Washington an hour later, but was initially disbelieved.  Nonetheless, it was true and the crew was put on a captured fishing trawler and released.  However, confirmation of this was not established until several hours later.

Without this confirmation the assault on Koh Tang Island went ahead.  Unfortunately, there were two major pieces of information that President Johnson and the Marines did not have.  The first was that during the previous day the crew had all been moved from Koh Tang Island to nearby Koh Rong Sanloem Island.  This was observed by American planes, but it was still believed that some of the crew were on Koh Tang.  The second was that the Khmer Rouge had a much larger and more heavily armed force on Koh Tang which was meant to defend against the Vietnamese who also claimed the island.   
 
In the early morning hours of May 15 eight large helicopters, mostly CH-53 Sea Stallions, with 175 Marines began arriving at Koh Tang.  Of these, three were shot down and two became disabled from mechanical problems.  Nonetheless they landed 109 troops on three landing zones.  This aerial photo shows two of the downed helicopters on East Beach.

A running gun battle across the island continued throughout the day, even after the release of the Mayaquez’ crew was confirmed.  By mid-afternoon the order to withdraw was given and the rest of the day was spent in several attempts to extract the landing force, with additional helicopters shot down and more US troops killed and wounded.  This continued into the night, with confusion abounding amid the increasing fog of war.  Ultimately, the bodies of a number of Marines and four live troops were left behind after all the others were evacuated.  The Khmer Rouge, angered at the deaths aboard the gunboats that had been sunk and the 20 or so troops killed on Koh Tang, ultimately executed all four.
 
The final US death toll for the unnecessary assault on Koh Tang was 18 troops killed and 50 wounded.   Although the Mayaguez Incident did not occur in Vietnam, it is commonly referred to as the last battle of the Vietnam War.  The names of the Marines and other personnel who were killed in combat are inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.  This does not include the 23 USAF Security Police and flight crew who were killed in the helicopter crash during the troop movements prior to combat.   They were not so honored.

What lessons can be taken away from this poignant tragedy?  Not many, other than that assaults by slow, loud, fragile helicopters are rarely successful – see, e.g., the Iranian hostage rescue mission, ‘Blackhawk Down’ in Mogadishu, and even the successful killing of Osama Bin Laden.
 
Here’s hoping that it may never be necessary to mount another such military action.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Hi again to all, and thanks as always for the likes and compliments. 
 
This will be the last segment of the build log, although I plan to edit it down a bit and turn it into an article for the Nautical Research Journal.  Although all ships have their own stories, the history of the Mayaguez is more exciting and tragic than most, so I will go into it in a bit more detail than usual for a build log.  Some of it was set out in the first segment of the log, leaving off with the capture of the ship.  Here, as they say, is the rest of the story.
 
Let’s go back to that fateful day of May 12, 1975.  The SS Mayaguez is heading from Hong Kong to Sattahip in Thailand carrying 107 containers of routine commercial items and 77 containers for the US military of non-military supplies such as mail and PX items.  Although in a recognized and heavily travelled sea lane, she was only 6 miles from the small island of Koh Tang, claimed by both Cambodia and Vietnam.  The communist Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia, which had recently captured power, started enforcing a 12 mile limit off the island and had already seized a number of ships from several countries and had fired on several others.  Despite this, the American military command had not issued any warnings to commercial ships to avoid the area.
 
At 2:18 in the afternoon the captain was called to the bridge by the third mate on watch.  A gunboat carrying a red flag was approaching fast.  A few seconds later there was a burst of machine gun fire over the bow.  Captain Miller decided to continue to see what they would do.  A sailor on the gunboat raised an RPG to his shoulder and fired over the forecastle.  Unable to outrun them the captain stopped the ship and it was boarded by more than a dozen soldiers from two small Cambodian armed boats. 

Here is a close up photo of one of the boats which was used to detail these elements on the model.  The text on the side reads in part: “A Cambodian gunboat nestles alongside the American container ship SS. Mayaguez off Koh Tang Island as its Cambodian Khmer Rouge crew take over the U.S. freighter.  This picture was made by one of the crew.

The crew was swiftly taken captive and the ship directed to the nearby Koh Tang Island.  The Captain and radio operator did an extraordinary job of getting off a series of SOS messages with the ship’s status and position.  These were relayed to US military command in the Phillipines and an Orion P-3 reconnaissance aircraft flew over, but was fired on.  Despite the danger, overflights were continuous after that, although repeatedly fired on.

In Washington an emergency meeting of the National Security Agency was taking place between President Gerald Ford and his team of well-known advisors, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller, Donald Rumsfeld, Brent Scowcroft, William Colby, James Schlesinger, and the full Joint Chiefs of Staff.  With that lineup it is not surprising that the final decision was to make a “strong statement” that would be recognized by the Koreans, the Chinese, and the American public.  The reaction of the Khmer Rouge was impossible to calculate and that of the ship’s crew was not important.  American naval elements including the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea and the frigate USS Holt were directed to steam to the area and await further orders.     

Over the next two days American jets from nearby bases sank several Cambodian gunboats but failed to prevent the crew being taken off the ship onto a fishing boat and ferried to Koh Tang Island.  The ship itself was not taken into a Cambodian port, but that was mostly because the Captain exaggerated the depth of the hull and said the radar would not work, so the ship would ground.  Meanwhile, Marines and other personnel from several bases were assembled nearby by helicopter and also told to stand by.  Tragically, during the moves a helicopter crashed, taking the lives of these 23 USAF Security Police and the flight crewmen pictured here.  This helicopter crash would not be the last.

Back on the model the ship was complete and had to be set into its seascape.  I will not go into detail here as to my method for sculpting and painting a sea.  I have set it down in my build logs of the USS/SS Leviathan and the whaleboat James B Colgate. In fact, I did not photograph this part of the build of this model.  Here, though, is a photo from the Leviathan build of the Plaster of Paris sea with waves and swells molded in with a damp sponge.

The same method was used, but since photos show a calm sea and the ship was to be pictured at anchor after being captured, the surface was only lightly textured and only very small patches of foam were shown around the hull.

One thing that I have found that increases the realistic look of a model far beyond its small size is the waste water discharge towards the stern of the ship.  I made this by bending a small length of styrene rod over a candle flame.  After trimming to length it was inserted into small holes in the hull and the plaster sea.  The rod was textured with gel cyano dabbed on with a toothpick, heavier at the lower end where the stream would have broken up a bit.  Then it was colored with flat white acrylic paint along with the small disturbance on the ocean’s surface.

 With some additional research it was discovered that the Cambodian gunboats were US made “Patrol Craft Fast” PCFs.  Nicknamed “Swift Boats” they had been used in the rivers and coastal areas of Vietnam and also given to the Cambodians when they were our allies during that fight.

An Internet search turned up a low resolution plan of the boats so I was started planning to carve and detail two of them for the diorama.  This would not have been easy with a scale length just over two inches each.   

I then turned to Shapeways, Inc. to see if their designers had something that could be used as a starting point.  To my happy surprise there was a set of two Fast Boats already in the right scale.  They were molded in fairly smooth frosted plastic with the topsides molded separately from the lower hull.  After cutting away the sprue framework the sections were separated and the interior was found to be filled with unhardened resin powder.  This was removed and the topsides glued down to the hull.

The propellers and rudders were removed as were the stern railings which were too thick.  After sanding the boats were painted light grey before detailing.  The guns on the stern deck and on top of the wheelhouse were painted, as were their mounts.  Life rings were added from my spares box along with hull numbers.  The stern railings were replaced with PE trimmed to size and the boats were finished with small paper flags painted with the flag of communist Kampuchea, a yellow temple on a red field.  Hollows were cut into the plaster sea and the boats set in with a bit of plaster to fill any gaps.   Paint and gloss finish melded them into the diorama.

After a few touch-ups of paint the model was complete and ready for delivery to the museum at the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY.


So here is a side-by-side comparison of the finished model with the photograph that started it all.  I think that I achieved a “compelling evocation of the actual ship.”  Others must think the same, because the model was honored with the Jim Roberts’ Craftsmanship Award at the 2022 Northeast Joint Clubs Show.  My gratitude goes out to all of the judges.

To finish, we return to the tragic and poignant Mayaguez Incident.  By the evening of May 14 the ship had been seized and the crew had been taken off to Koh Tang Island.  President Johnson authorized military action and several Kampuchean gunboats have been sunk.  Naval ships and Marine units were being hurried to the area so a “strong statement” could be made.  By the early morning hours of May 15 the pieces were in place and the order was given to seize back the ship and rescue the crew on Koh Tang Island.  Approaching cautiously, the USS Holt came alongside the Mayaguez.

At 06:13 in the morning, after a bombardment with tear gas, armed Marines in gas masks stormed the ship, only to find that it had been deserted.

With no opposition, the American flag was once again raised above the bridge.

At about the same time a communique from the Kampuchean government was broadcast which blamed the US for the incident and described the Mayaguez as a “CIA spy ship”, but which announced that both the ship and the crew were being released.  This was received in Washington an hour later, but was initially disbelieved.  Nonetheless, it was true and the crew was put on a captured fishing trawler and released.  However, confirmation of this was not established until several hours later.

Without this confirmation the assault on Koh Tang Island went ahead.  Unfortunately, there were two major pieces of information that President Johnson and the Marines did not have.  The first was that during the previous day the crew had all been moved from Koh Tang Island to nearby Koh Rong Sanloem Island.  This was observed by American planes, but it was still believed that some of the crew were on Koh Tang.  The second was that the Khmer Rouge had a much larger and more heavily armed force on Koh Tang which was meant to defend against the Vietnamese who also claimed the island.   
 
In the early morning hours of May 15 eight large helicopters, mostly CH-53 Sea Stallions, with 175 Marines began arriving at Koh Tang.  Of these, three were shot down and two became disabled from mechanical problems.  Nonetheless they landed 109 troops on three landing zones.  This aerial photo shows two of the downed helicopters on East Beach.

A running gun battle across the island continued throughout the day, even after the release of the Mayaquez’ crew was confirmed.  By mid-afternoon the order to withdraw was given and the rest of the day was spent in several attempts to extract the landing force, with additional helicopters shot down and more US troops killed and wounded.  This continued into the night, with confusion abounding amid the increasing fog of war.  Ultimately, the bodies of a number of Marines and four live troops were left behind after all the others were evacuated.  The Khmer Rouge, angered at the deaths aboard the gunboats that had been sunk and the 20 or so troops killed on Koh Tang, ultimately executed all four.
 
The final US death toll for the unnecessary assault on Koh Tang was 18 troops killed and 50 wounded.   Although the Mayaguez Incident did not occur in Vietnam, it is commonly referred to as the last battle of the Vietnam War.  The names of the Marines and other personnel who were killed in combat are inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.  This does not include the 23 USAF Security Police and flight crew who were killed in the helicopter crash during the troop movements prior to combat.   They were not so honored.

What lessons can be taken away from this poignant tragedy?  Not many, other than that assaults by slow, loud, fragile helicopters are rarely successful – see, e.g., the Iranian hostage rescue mission, ‘Blackhawk Down’ in Mogadishu, and even the successful killing of Osama Bin Laden.
 
Here’s hoping that it may never be necessary to mount another such military action.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Hi again to all, and thanks as always for the likes and compliments. 
 
This will be the last segment of the build log, although I plan to edit it down a bit and turn it into an article for the Nautical Research Journal.  Although all ships have their own stories, the history of the Mayaguez is more exciting and tragic than most, so I will go into it in a bit more detail than usual for a build log.  Some of it was set out in the first segment of the log, leaving off with the capture of the ship.  Here, as they say, is the rest of the story.
 
Let’s go back to that fateful day of May 12, 1975.  The SS Mayaguez is heading from Hong Kong to Sattahip in Thailand carrying 107 containers of routine commercial items and 77 containers for the US military of non-military supplies such as mail and PX items.  Although in a recognized and heavily travelled sea lane, she was only 6 miles from the small island of Koh Tang, claimed by both Cambodia and Vietnam.  The communist Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia, which had recently captured power, started enforcing a 12 mile limit off the island and had already seized a number of ships from several countries and had fired on several others.  Despite this, the American military command had not issued any warnings to commercial ships to avoid the area.
 
At 2:18 in the afternoon the captain was called to the bridge by the third mate on watch.  A gunboat carrying a red flag was approaching fast.  A few seconds later there was a burst of machine gun fire over the bow.  Captain Miller decided to continue to see what they would do.  A sailor on the gunboat raised an RPG to his shoulder and fired over the forecastle.  Unable to outrun them the captain stopped the ship and it was boarded by more than a dozen soldiers from two small Cambodian armed boats. 

Here is a close up photo of one of the boats which was used to detail these elements on the model.  The text on the side reads in part: “A Cambodian gunboat nestles alongside the American container ship SS. Mayaguez off Koh Tang Island as its Cambodian Khmer Rouge crew take over the U.S. freighter.  This picture was made by one of the crew.

The crew was swiftly taken captive and the ship directed to the nearby Koh Tang Island.  The Captain and radio operator did an extraordinary job of getting off a series of SOS messages with the ship’s status and position.  These were relayed to US military command in the Phillipines and an Orion P-3 reconnaissance aircraft flew over, but was fired on.  Despite the danger, overflights were continuous after that, although repeatedly fired on.

In Washington an emergency meeting of the National Security Agency was taking place between President Gerald Ford and his team of well-known advisors, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller, Donald Rumsfeld, Brent Scowcroft, William Colby, James Schlesinger, and the full Joint Chiefs of Staff.  With that lineup it is not surprising that the final decision was to make a “strong statement” that would be recognized by the Koreans, the Chinese, and the American public.  The reaction of the Khmer Rouge was impossible to calculate and that of the ship’s crew was not important.  American naval elements including the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea and the frigate USS Holt were directed to steam to the area and await further orders.     

Over the next two days American jets from nearby bases sank several Cambodian gunboats but failed to prevent the crew being taken off the ship onto a fishing boat and ferried to Koh Tang Island.  The ship itself was not taken into a Cambodian port, but that was mostly because the Captain exaggerated the depth of the hull and said the radar would not work, so the ship would ground.  Meanwhile, Marines and other personnel from several bases were assembled nearby by helicopter and also told to stand by.  Tragically, during the moves a helicopter crashed, taking the lives of these 23 USAF Security Police and the flight crewmen pictured here.  This helicopter crash would not be the last.

Back on the model the ship was complete and had to be set into its seascape.  I will not go into detail here as to my method for sculpting and painting a sea.  I have set it down in my build logs of the USS/SS Leviathan and the whaleboat James B Colgate. In fact, I did not photograph this part of the build of this model.  Here, though, is a photo from the Leviathan build of the Plaster of Paris sea with waves and swells molded in with a damp sponge.

The same method was used, but since photos show a calm sea and the ship was to be pictured at anchor after being captured, the surface was only lightly textured and only very small patches of foam were shown around the hull.

One thing that I have found that increases the realistic look of a model far beyond its small size is the waste water discharge towards the stern of the ship.  I made this by bending a small length of styrene rod over a candle flame.  After trimming to length it was inserted into small holes in the hull and the plaster sea.  The rod was textured with gel cyano dabbed on with a toothpick, heavier at the lower end where the stream would have broken up a bit.  Then it was colored with flat white acrylic paint along with the small disturbance on the ocean’s surface.

 With some additional research it was discovered that the Cambodian gunboats were US made “Patrol Craft Fast” PCFs.  Nicknamed “Swift Boats” they had been used in the rivers and coastal areas of Vietnam and also given to the Cambodians when they were our allies during that fight.

An Internet search turned up a low resolution plan of the boats so I was started planning to carve and detail two of them for the diorama.  This would not have been easy with a scale length just over two inches each.   

I then turned to Shapeways, Inc. to see if their designers had something that could be used as a starting point.  To my happy surprise there was a set of two Fast Boats already in the right scale.  They were molded in fairly smooth frosted plastic with the topsides molded separately from the lower hull.  After cutting away the sprue framework the sections were separated and the interior was found to be filled with unhardened resin powder.  This was removed and the topsides glued down to the hull.

The propellers and rudders were removed as were the stern railings which were too thick.  After sanding the boats were painted light grey before detailing.  The guns on the stern deck and on top of the wheelhouse were painted, as were their mounts.  Life rings were added from my spares box along with hull numbers.  The stern railings were replaced with PE trimmed to size and the boats were finished with small paper flags painted with the flag of communist Kampuchea, a yellow temple on a red field.  Hollows were cut into the plaster sea and the boats set in with a bit of plaster to fill any gaps.   Paint and gloss finish melded them into the diorama.

After a few touch-ups of paint the model was complete and ready for delivery to the museum at the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY.


So here is a side-by-side comparison of the finished model with the photograph that started it all.  I think that I achieved a “compelling evocation of the actual ship.”  Others must think the same, because the model was honored with the Jim Roberts’ Craftsmanship Award at the 2022 Northeast Joint Clubs Show.  My gratitude goes out to all of the judges.

To finish, we return to the tragic and poignant Mayaguez Incident.  By the evening of May 14 the ship had been seized and the crew had been taken off to Koh Tang Island.  President Johnson authorized military action and several Kampuchean gunboats have been sunk.  Naval ships and Marine units were being hurried to the area so a “strong statement” could be made.  By the early morning hours of May 15 the pieces were in place and the order was given to seize back the ship and rescue the crew on Koh Tang Island.  Approaching cautiously, the USS Holt came alongside the Mayaguez.

At 06:13 in the morning, after a bombardment with tear gas, armed Marines in gas masks stormed the ship, only to find that it had been deserted.

With no opposition, the American flag was once again raised above the bridge.

At about the same time a communique from the Kampuchean government was broadcast which blamed the US for the incident and described the Mayaguez as a “CIA spy ship”, but which announced that both the ship and the crew were being released.  This was received in Washington an hour later, but was initially disbelieved.  Nonetheless, it was true and the crew was put on a captured fishing trawler and released.  However, confirmation of this was not established until several hours later.

Without this confirmation the assault on Koh Tang Island went ahead.  Unfortunately, there were two major pieces of information that President Johnson and the Marines did not have.  The first was that during the previous day the crew had all been moved from Koh Tang Island to nearby Koh Rong Sanloem Island.  This was observed by American planes, but it was still believed that some of the crew were on Koh Tang.  The second was that the Khmer Rouge had a much larger and more heavily armed force on Koh Tang which was meant to defend against the Vietnamese who also claimed the island.   
 
In the early morning hours of May 15 eight large helicopters, mostly CH-53 Sea Stallions, with 175 Marines began arriving at Koh Tang.  Of these, three were shot down and two became disabled from mechanical problems.  Nonetheless they landed 109 troops on three landing zones.  This aerial photo shows two of the downed helicopters on East Beach.

A running gun battle across the island continued throughout the day, even after the release of the Mayaquez’ crew was confirmed.  By mid-afternoon the order to withdraw was given and the rest of the day was spent in several attempts to extract the landing force, with additional helicopters shot down and more US troops killed and wounded.  This continued into the night, with confusion abounding amid the increasing fog of war.  Ultimately, the bodies of a number of Marines and four live troops were left behind after all the others were evacuated.  The Khmer Rouge, angered at the deaths aboard the gunboats that had been sunk and the 20 or so troops killed on Koh Tang, ultimately executed all four.
 
The final US death toll for the unnecessary assault on Koh Tang was 18 troops killed and 50 wounded.   Although the Mayaguez Incident did not occur in Vietnam, it is commonly referred to as the last battle of the Vietnam War.  The names of the Marines and other personnel who were killed in combat are inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.  This does not include the 23 USAF Security Police and flight crew who were killed in the helicopter crash during the troop movements prior to combat.   They were not so honored.

What lessons can be taken away from this poignant tragedy?  Not many, other than that assaults by slow, loud, fragile helicopters are rarely successful – see, e.g., the Iranian hostage rescue mission, ‘Blackhawk Down’ in Mogadishu, and even the successful killing of Osama Bin Laden.
 
Here’s hoping that it may never be necessary to mount another such military action.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Hi again to all, and thanks as always for the likes and compliments. 
 
This will be the last segment of the build log, although I plan to edit it down a bit and turn it into an article for the Nautical Research Journal.  Although all ships have their own stories, the history of the Mayaguez is more exciting and tragic than most, so I will go into it in a bit more detail than usual for a build log.  Some of it was set out in the first segment of the log, leaving off with the capture of the ship.  Here, as they say, is the rest of the story.
 
Let’s go back to that fateful day of May 12, 1975.  The SS Mayaguez is heading from Hong Kong to Sattahip in Thailand carrying 107 containers of routine commercial items and 77 containers for the US military of non-military supplies such as mail and PX items.  Although in a recognized and heavily travelled sea lane, she was only 6 miles from the small island of Koh Tang, claimed by both Cambodia and Vietnam.  The communist Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia, which had recently captured power, started enforcing a 12 mile limit off the island and had already seized a number of ships from several countries and had fired on several others.  Despite this, the American military command had not issued any warnings to commercial ships to avoid the area.
 
At 2:18 in the afternoon the captain was called to the bridge by the third mate on watch.  A gunboat carrying a red flag was approaching fast.  A few seconds later there was a burst of machine gun fire over the bow.  Captain Miller decided to continue to see what they would do.  A sailor on the gunboat raised an RPG to his shoulder and fired over the forecastle.  Unable to outrun them the captain stopped the ship and it was boarded by more than a dozen soldiers from two small Cambodian armed boats. 

Here is a close up photo of one of the boats which was used to detail these elements on the model.  The text on the side reads in part: “A Cambodian gunboat nestles alongside the American container ship SS. Mayaguez off Koh Tang Island as its Cambodian Khmer Rouge crew take over the U.S. freighter.  This picture was made by one of the crew.

The crew was swiftly taken captive and the ship directed to the nearby Koh Tang Island.  The Captain and radio operator did an extraordinary job of getting off a series of SOS messages with the ship’s status and position.  These were relayed to US military command in the Phillipines and an Orion P-3 reconnaissance aircraft flew over, but was fired on.  Despite the danger, overflights were continuous after that, although repeatedly fired on.

In Washington an emergency meeting of the National Security Agency was taking place between President Gerald Ford and his team of well-known advisors, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller, Donald Rumsfeld, Brent Scowcroft, William Colby, James Schlesinger, and the full Joint Chiefs of Staff.  With that lineup it is not surprising that the final decision was to make a “strong statement” that would be recognized by the Koreans, the Chinese, and the American public.  The reaction of the Khmer Rouge was impossible to calculate and that of the ship’s crew was not important.  American naval elements including the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea and the frigate USS Holt were directed to steam to the area and await further orders.     

Over the next two days American jets from nearby bases sank several Cambodian gunboats but failed to prevent the crew being taken off the ship onto a fishing boat and ferried to Koh Tang Island.  The ship itself was not taken into a Cambodian port, but that was mostly because the Captain exaggerated the depth of the hull and said the radar would not work, so the ship would ground.  Meanwhile, Marines and other personnel from several bases were assembled nearby by helicopter and also told to stand by.  Tragically, during the moves a helicopter crashed, taking the lives of these 23 USAF Security Police and the flight crewmen pictured here.  This helicopter crash would not be the last.

Back on the model the ship was complete and had to be set into its seascape.  I will not go into detail here as to my method for sculpting and painting a sea.  I have set it down in my build logs of the USS/SS Leviathan and the whaleboat James B Colgate. In fact, I did not photograph this part of the build of this model.  Here, though, is a photo from the Leviathan build of the Plaster of Paris sea with waves and swells molded in with a damp sponge.

The same method was used, but since photos show a calm sea and the ship was to be pictured at anchor after being captured, the surface was only lightly textured and only very small patches of foam were shown around the hull.

One thing that I have found that increases the realistic look of a model far beyond its small size is the waste water discharge towards the stern of the ship.  I made this by bending a small length of styrene rod over a candle flame.  After trimming to length it was inserted into small holes in the hull and the plaster sea.  The rod was textured with gel cyano dabbed on with a toothpick, heavier at the lower end where the stream would have broken up a bit.  Then it was colored with flat white acrylic paint along with the small disturbance on the ocean’s surface.

 With some additional research it was discovered that the Cambodian gunboats were US made “Patrol Craft Fast” PCFs.  Nicknamed “Swift Boats” they had been used in the rivers and coastal areas of Vietnam and also given to the Cambodians when they were our allies during that fight.

An Internet search turned up a low resolution plan of the boats so I was started planning to carve and detail two of them for the diorama.  This would not have been easy with a scale length just over two inches each.   

I then turned to Shapeways, Inc. to see if their designers had something that could be used as a starting point.  To my happy surprise there was a set of two Fast Boats already in the right scale.  They were molded in fairly smooth frosted plastic with the topsides molded separately from the lower hull.  After cutting away the sprue framework the sections were separated and the interior was found to be filled with unhardened resin powder.  This was removed and the topsides glued down to the hull.

The propellers and rudders were removed as were the stern railings which were too thick.  After sanding the boats were painted light grey before detailing.  The guns on the stern deck and on top of the wheelhouse were painted, as were their mounts.  Life rings were added from my spares box along with hull numbers.  The stern railings were replaced with PE trimmed to size and the boats were finished with small paper flags painted with the flag of communist Kampuchea, a yellow temple on a red field.  Hollows were cut into the plaster sea and the boats set in with a bit of plaster to fill any gaps.   Paint and gloss finish melded them into the diorama.

After a few touch-ups of paint the model was complete and ready for delivery to the museum at the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY.


So here is a side-by-side comparison of the finished model with the photograph that started it all.  I think that I achieved a “compelling evocation of the actual ship.”  Others must think the same, because the model was honored with the Jim Roberts’ Craftsmanship Award at the 2022 Northeast Joint Clubs Show.  My gratitude goes out to all of the judges.

To finish, we return to the tragic and poignant Mayaguez Incident.  By the evening of May 14 the ship had been seized and the crew had been taken off to Koh Tang Island.  President Johnson authorized military action and several Kampuchean gunboats have been sunk.  Naval ships and Marine units were being hurried to the area so a “strong statement” could be made.  By the early morning hours of May 15 the pieces were in place and the order was given to seize back the ship and rescue the crew on Koh Tang Island.  Approaching cautiously, the USS Holt came alongside the Mayaguez.

At 06:13 in the morning, after a bombardment with tear gas, armed Marines in gas masks stormed the ship, only to find that it had been deserted.

With no opposition, the American flag was once again raised above the bridge.

At about the same time a communique from the Kampuchean government was broadcast which blamed the US for the incident and described the Mayaguez as a “CIA spy ship”, but which announced that both the ship and the crew were being released.  This was received in Washington an hour later, but was initially disbelieved.  Nonetheless, it was true and the crew was put on a captured fishing trawler and released.  However, confirmation of this was not established until several hours later.

Without this confirmation the assault on Koh Tang Island went ahead.  Unfortunately, there were two major pieces of information that President Johnson and the Marines did not have.  The first was that during the previous day the crew had all been moved from Koh Tang Island to nearby Koh Rong Sanloem Island.  This was observed by American planes, but it was still believed that some of the crew were on Koh Tang.  The second was that the Khmer Rouge had a much larger and more heavily armed force on Koh Tang which was meant to defend against the Vietnamese who also claimed the island.   
 
In the early morning hours of May 15 eight large helicopters, mostly CH-53 Sea Stallions, with 175 Marines began arriving at Koh Tang.  Of these, three were shot down and two became disabled from mechanical problems.  Nonetheless they landed 109 troops on three landing zones.  This aerial photo shows two of the downed helicopters on East Beach.

A running gun battle across the island continued throughout the day, even after the release of the Mayaquez’ crew was confirmed.  By mid-afternoon the order to withdraw was given and the rest of the day was spent in several attempts to extract the landing force, with additional helicopters shot down and more US troops killed and wounded.  This continued into the night, with confusion abounding amid the increasing fog of war.  Ultimately, the bodies of a number of Marines and four live troops were left behind after all the others were evacuated.  The Khmer Rouge, angered at the deaths aboard the gunboats that had been sunk and the 20 or so troops killed on Koh Tang, ultimately executed all four.
 
The final US death toll for the unnecessary assault on Koh Tang was 18 troops killed and 50 wounded.   Although the Mayaguez Incident did not occur in Vietnam, it is commonly referred to as the last battle of the Vietnam War.  The names of the Marines and other personnel who were killed in combat are inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.  This does not include the 23 USAF Security Police and flight crew who were killed in the helicopter crash during the troop movements prior to combat.   They were not so honored.

What lessons can be taken away from this poignant tragedy?  Not many, other than that assaults by slow, loud, fragile helicopters are rarely successful – see, e.g., the Iranian hostage rescue mission, ‘Blackhawk Down’ in Mogadishu, and even the successful killing of Osama Bin Laden.
 
Here’s hoping that it may never be necessary to mount another such military action.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Hi again to all, and thanks as always for the likes and compliments. 
 
This will be the last segment of the build log, although I plan to edit it down a bit and turn it into an article for the Nautical Research Journal.  Although all ships have their own stories, the history of the Mayaguez is more exciting and tragic than most, so I will go into it in a bit more detail than usual for a build log.  Some of it was set out in the first segment of the log, leaving off with the capture of the ship.  Here, as they say, is the rest of the story.
 
Let’s go back to that fateful day of May 12, 1975.  The SS Mayaguez is heading from Hong Kong to Sattahip in Thailand carrying 107 containers of routine commercial items and 77 containers for the US military of non-military supplies such as mail and PX items.  Although in a recognized and heavily travelled sea lane, she was only 6 miles from the small island of Koh Tang, claimed by both Cambodia and Vietnam.  The communist Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia, which had recently captured power, started enforcing a 12 mile limit off the island and had already seized a number of ships from several countries and had fired on several others.  Despite this, the American military command had not issued any warnings to commercial ships to avoid the area.
 
At 2:18 in the afternoon the captain was called to the bridge by the third mate on watch.  A gunboat carrying a red flag was approaching fast.  A few seconds later there was a burst of machine gun fire over the bow.  Captain Miller decided to continue to see what they would do.  A sailor on the gunboat raised an RPG to his shoulder and fired over the forecastle.  Unable to outrun them the captain stopped the ship and it was boarded by more than a dozen soldiers from two small Cambodian armed boats. 

Here is a close up photo of one of the boats which was used to detail these elements on the model.  The text on the side reads in part: “A Cambodian gunboat nestles alongside the American container ship SS. Mayaguez off Koh Tang Island as its Cambodian Khmer Rouge crew take over the U.S. freighter.  This picture was made by one of the crew.

The crew was swiftly taken captive and the ship directed to the nearby Koh Tang Island.  The Captain and radio operator did an extraordinary job of getting off a series of SOS messages with the ship’s status and position.  These were relayed to US military command in the Phillipines and an Orion P-3 reconnaissance aircraft flew over, but was fired on.  Despite the danger, overflights were continuous after that, although repeatedly fired on.

In Washington an emergency meeting of the National Security Agency was taking place between President Gerald Ford and his team of well-known advisors, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller, Donald Rumsfeld, Brent Scowcroft, William Colby, James Schlesinger, and the full Joint Chiefs of Staff.  With that lineup it is not surprising that the final decision was to make a “strong statement” that would be recognized by the Koreans, the Chinese, and the American public.  The reaction of the Khmer Rouge was impossible to calculate and that of the ship’s crew was not important.  American naval elements including the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea and the frigate USS Holt were directed to steam to the area and await further orders.     

Over the next two days American jets from nearby bases sank several Cambodian gunboats but failed to prevent the crew being taken off the ship onto a fishing boat and ferried to Koh Tang Island.  The ship itself was not taken into a Cambodian port, but that was mostly because the Captain exaggerated the depth of the hull and said the radar would not work, so the ship would ground.  Meanwhile, Marines and other personnel from several bases were assembled nearby by helicopter and also told to stand by.  Tragically, during the moves a helicopter crashed, taking the lives of these 23 USAF Security Police and the flight crewmen pictured here.  This helicopter crash would not be the last.

Back on the model the ship was complete and had to be set into its seascape.  I will not go into detail here as to my method for sculpting and painting a sea.  I have set it down in my build logs of the USS/SS Leviathan and the whaleboat James B Colgate. In fact, I did not photograph this part of the build of this model.  Here, though, is a photo from the Leviathan build of the Plaster of Paris sea with waves and swells molded in with a damp sponge.

The same method was used, but since photos show a calm sea and the ship was to be pictured at anchor after being captured, the surface was only lightly textured and only very small patches of foam were shown around the hull.

One thing that I have found that increases the realistic look of a model far beyond its small size is the waste water discharge towards the stern of the ship.  I made this by bending a small length of styrene rod over a candle flame.  After trimming to length it was inserted into small holes in the hull and the plaster sea.  The rod was textured with gel cyano dabbed on with a toothpick, heavier at the lower end where the stream would have broken up a bit.  Then it was colored with flat white acrylic paint along with the small disturbance on the ocean’s surface.

 With some additional research it was discovered that the Cambodian gunboats were US made “Patrol Craft Fast” PCFs.  Nicknamed “Swift Boats” they had been used in the rivers and coastal areas of Vietnam and also given to the Cambodians when they were our allies during that fight.

An Internet search turned up a low resolution plan of the boats so I was started planning to carve and detail two of them for the diorama.  This would not have been easy with a scale length just over two inches each.   

I then turned to Shapeways, Inc. to see if their designers had something that could be used as a starting point.  To my happy surprise there was a set of two Fast Boats already in the right scale.  They were molded in fairly smooth frosted plastic with the topsides molded separately from the lower hull.  After cutting away the sprue framework the sections were separated and the interior was found to be filled with unhardened resin powder.  This was removed and the topsides glued down to the hull.

The propellers and rudders were removed as were the stern railings which were too thick.  After sanding the boats were painted light grey before detailing.  The guns on the stern deck and on top of the wheelhouse were painted, as were their mounts.  Life rings were added from my spares box along with hull numbers.  The stern railings were replaced with PE trimmed to size and the boats were finished with small paper flags painted with the flag of communist Kampuchea, a yellow temple on a red field.  Hollows were cut into the plaster sea and the boats set in with a bit of plaster to fill any gaps.   Paint and gloss finish melded them into the diorama.

After a few touch-ups of paint the model was complete and ready for delivery to the museum at the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY.


So here is a side-by-side comparison of the finished model with the photograph that started it all.  I think that I achieved a “compelling evocation of the actual ship.”  Others must think the same, because the model was honored with the Jim Roberts’ Craftsmanship Award at the 2022 Northeast Joint Clubs Show.  My gratitude goes out to all of the judges.

To finish, we return to the tragic and poignant Mayaguez Incident.  By the evening of May 14 the ship had been seized and the crew had been taken off to Koh Tang Island.  President Johnson authorized military action and several Kampuchean gunboats have been sunk.  Naval ships and Marine units were being hurried to the area so a “strong statement” could be made.  By the early morning hours of May 15 the pieces were in place and the order was given to seize back the ship and rescue the crew on Koh Tang Island.  Approaching cautiously, the USS Holt came alongside the Mayaguez.

At 06:13 in the morning, after a bombardment with tear gas, armed Marines in gas masks stormed the ship, only to find that it had been deserted.

With no opposition, the American flag was once again raised above the bridge.

At about the same time a communique from the Kampuchean government was broadcast which blamed the US for the incident and described the Mayaguez as a “CIA spy ship”, but which announced that both the ship and the crew were being released.  This was received in Washington an hour later, but was initially disbelieved.  Nonetheless, it was true and the crew was put on a captured fishing trawler and released.  However, confirmation of this was not established until several hours later.

Without this confirmation the assault on Koh Tang Island went ahead.  Unfortunately, there were two major pieces of information that President Johnson and the Marines did not have.  The first was that during the previous day the crew had all been moved from Koh Tang Island to nearby Koh Rong Sanloem Island.  This was observed by American planes, but it was still believed that some of the crew were on Koh Tang.  The second was that the Khmer Rouge had a much larger and more heavily armed force on Koh Tang which was meant to defend against the Vietnamese who also claimed the island.   
 
In the early morning hours of May 15 eight large helicopters, mostly CH-53 Sea Stallions, with 175 Marines began arriving at Koh Tang.  Of these, three were shot down and two became disabled from mechanical problems.  Nonetheless they landed 109 troops on three landing zones.  This aerial photo shows two of the downed helicopters on East Beach.

A running gun battle across the island continued throughout the day, even after the release of the Mayaquez’ crew was confirmed.  By mid-afternoon the order to withdraw was given and the rest of the day was spent in several attempts to extract the landing force, with additional helicopters shot down and more US troops killed and wounded.  This continued into the night, with confusion abounding amid the increasing fog of war.  Ultimately, the bodies of a number of Marines and four live troops were left behind after all the others were evacuated.  The Khmer Rouge, angered at the deaths aboard the gunboats that had been sunk and the 20 or so troops killed on Koh Tang, ultimately executed all four.
 
The final US death toll for the unnecessary assault on Koh Tang was 18 troops killed and 50 wounded.   Although the Mayaguez Incident did not occur in Vietnam, it is commonly referred to as the last battle of the Vietnam War.  The names of the Marines and other personnel who were killed in combat are inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.  This does not include the 23 USAF Security Police and flight crew who were killed in the helicopter crash during the troop movements prior to combat.   They were not so honored.

What lessons can be taken away from this poignant tragedy?  Not many, other than that assaults by slow, loud, fragile helicopters are rarely successful – see, e.g., the Iranian hostage rescue mission, ‘Blackhawk Down’ in Mogadishu, and even the successful killing of Osama Bin Laden.
 
Here’s hoping that it may never be necessary to mount another such military action.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Hi again to all, and thanks as always for the likes and compliments. 
 
This will be the last segment of the build log, although I plan to edit it down a bit and turn it into an article for the Nautical Research Journal.  Although all ships have their own stories, the history of the Mayaguez is more exciting and tragic than most, so I will go into it in a bit more detail than usual for a build log.  Some of it was set out in the first segment of the log, leaving off with the capture of the ship.  Here, as they say, is the rest of the story.
 
Let’s go back to that fateful day of May 12, 1975.  The SS Mayaguez is heading from Hong Kong to Sattahip in Thailand carrying 107 containers of routine commercial items and 77 containers for the US military of non-military supplies such as mail and PX items.  Although in a recognized and heavily travelled sea lane, she was only 6 miles from the small island of Koh Tang, claimed by both Cambodia and Vietnam.  The communist Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia, which had recently captured power, started enforcing a 12 mile limit off the island and had already seized a number of ships from several countries and had fired on several others.  Despite this, the American military command had not issued any warnings to commercial ships to avoid the area.
 
At 2:18 in the afternoon the captain was called to the bridge by the third mate on watch.  A gunboat carrying a red flag was approaching fast.  A few seconds later there was a burst of machine gun fire over the bow.  Captain Miller decided to continue to see what they would do.  A sailor on the gunboat raised an RPG to his shoulder and fired over the forecastle.  Unable to outrun them the captain stopped the ship and it was boarded by more than a dozen soldiers from two small Cambodian armed boats. 

Here is a close up photo of one of the boats which was used to detail these elements on the model.  The text on the side reads in part: “A Cambodian gunboat nestles alongside the American container ship SS. Mayaguez off Koh Tang Island as its Cambodian Khmer Rouge crew take over the U.S. freighter.  This picture was made by one of the crew.

The crew was swiftly taken captive and the ship directed to the nearby Koh Tang Island.  The Captain and radio operator did an extraordinary job of getting off a series of SOS messages with the ship’s status and position.  These were relayed to US military command in the Phillipines and an Orion P-3 reconnaissance aircraft flew over, but was fired on.  Despite the danger, overflights were continuous after that, although repeatedly fired on.

In Washington an emergency meeting of the National Security Agency was taking place between President Gerald Ford and his team of well-known advisors, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller, Donald Rumsfeld, Brent Scowcroft, William Colby, James Schlesinger, and the full Joint Chiefs of Staff.  With that lineup it is not surprising that the final decision was to make a “strong statement” that would be recognized by the Koreans, the Chinese, and the American public.  The reaction of the Khmer Rouge was impossible to calculate and that of the ship’s crew was not important.  American naval elements including the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea and the frigate USS Holt were directed to steam to the area and await further orders.     

Over the next two days American jets from nearby bases sank several Cambodian gunboats but failed to prevent the crew being taken off the ship onto a fishing boat and ferried to Koh Tang Island.  The ship itself was not taken into a Cambodian port, but that was mostly because the Captain exaggerated the depth of the hull and said the radar would not work, so the ship would ground.  Meanwhile, Marines and other personnel from several bases were assembled nearby by helicopter and also told to stand by.  Tragically, during the moves a helicopter crashed, taking the lives of these 23 USAF Security Police and the flight crewmen pictured here.  This helicopter crash would not be the last.

Back on the model the ship was complete and had to be set into its seascape.  I will not go into detail here as to my method for sculpting and painting a sea.  I have set it down in my build logs of the USS/SS Leviathan and the whaleboat James B Colgate. In fact, I did not photograph this part of the build of this model.  Here, though, is a photo from the Leviathan build of the Plaster of Paris sea with waves and swells molded in with a damp sponge.

The same method was used, but since photos show a calm sea and the ship was to be pictured at anchor after being captured, the surface was only lightly textured and only very small patches of foam were shown around the hull.

One thing that I have found that increases the realistic look of a model far beyond its small size is the waste water discharge towards the stern of the ship.  I made this by bending a small length of styrene rod over a candle flame.  After trimming to length it was inserted into small holes in the hull and the plaster sea.  The rod was textured with gel cyano dabbed on with a toothpick, heavier at the lower end where the stream would have broken up a bit.  Then it was colored with flat white acrylic paint along with the small disturbance on the ocean’s surface.

 With some additional research it was discovered that the Cambodian gunboats were US made “Patrol Craft Fast” PCFs.  Nicknamed “Swift Boats” they had been used in the rivers and coastal areas of Vietnam and also given to the Cambodians when they were our allies during that fight.

An Internet search turned up a low resolution plan of the boats so I was started planning to carve and detail two of them for the diorama.  This would not have been easy with a scale length just over two inches each.   

I then turned to Shapeways, Inc. to see if their designers had something that could be used as a starting point.  To my happy surprise there was a set of two Fast Boats already in the right scale.  They were molded in fairly smooth frosted plastic with the topsides molded separately from the lower hull.  After cutting away the sprue framework the sections were separated and the interior was found to be filled with unhardened resin powder.  This was removed and the topsides glued down to the hull.

The propellers and rudders were removed as were the stern railings which were too thick.  After sanding the boats were painted light grey before detailing.  The guns on the stern deck and on top of the wheelhouse were painted, as were their mounts.  Life rings were added from my spares box along with hull numbers.  The stern railings were replaced with PE trimmed to size and the boats were finished with small paper flags painted with the flag of communist Kampuchea, a yellow temple on a red field.  Hollows were cut into the plaster sea and the boats set in with a bit of plaster to fill any gaps.   Paint and gloss finish melded them into the diorama.

After a few touch-ups of paint the model was complete and ready for delivery to the museum at the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY.


So here is a side-by-side comparison of the finished model with the photograph that started it all.  I think that I achieved a “compelling evocation of the actual ship.”  Others must think the same, because the model was honored with the Jim Roberts’ Craftsmanship Award at the 2022 Northeast Joint Clubs Show.  My gratitude goes out to all of the judges.

To finish, we return to the tragic and poignant Mayaguez Incident.  By the evening of May 14 the ship had been seized and the crew had been taken off to Koh Tang Island.  President Johnson authorized military action and several Kampuchean gunboats have been sunk.  Naval ships and Marine units were being hurried to the area so a “strong statement” could be made.  By the early morning hours of May 15 the pieces were in place and the order was given to seize back the ship and rescue the crew on Koh Tang Island.  Approaching cautiously, the USS Holt came alongside the Mayaguez.

At 06:13 in the morning, after a bombardment with tear gas, armed Marines in gas masks stormed the ship, only to find that it had been deserted.

With no opposition, the American flag was once again raised above the bridge.

At about the same time a communique from the Kampuchean government was broadcast which blamed the US for the incident and described the Mayaguez as a “CIA spy ship”, but which announced that both the ship and the crew were being released.  This was received in Washington an hour later, but was initially disbelieved.  Nonetheless, it was true and the crew was put on a captured fishing trawler and released.  However, confirmation of this was not established until several hours later.

Without this confirmation the assault on Koh Tang Island went ahead.  Unfortunately, there were two major pieces of information that President Johnson and the Marines did not have.  The first was that during the previous day the crew had all been moved from Koh Tang Island to nearby Koh Rong Sanloem Island.  This was observed by American planes, but it was still believed that some of the crew were on Koh Tang.  The second was that the Khmer Rouge had a much larger and more heavily armed force on Koh Tang which was meant to defend against the Vietnamese who also claimed the island.   
 
In the early morning hours of May 15 eight large helicopters, mostly CH-53 Sea Stallions, with 175 Marines began arriving at Koh Tang.  Of these, three were shot down and two became disabled from mechanical problems.  Nonetheless they landed 109 troops on three landing zones.  This aerial photo shows two of the downed helicopters on East Beach.

A running gun battle across the island continued throughout the day, even after the release of the Mayaquez’ crew was confirmed.  By mid-afternoon the order to withdraw was given and the rest of the day was spent in several attempts to extract the landing force, with additional helicopters shot down and more US troops killed and wounded.  This continued into the night, with confusion abounding amid the increasing fog of war.  Ultimately, the bodies of a number of Marines and four live troops were left behind after all the others were evacuated.  The Khmer Rouge, angered at the deaths aboard the gunboats that had been sunk and the 20 or so troops killed on Koh Tang, ultimately executed all four.
 
The final US death toll for the unnecessary assault on Koh Tang was 18 troops killed and 50 wounded.   Although the Mayaguez Incident did not occur in Vietnam, it is commonly referred to as the last battle of the Vietnam War.  The names of the Marines and other personnel who were killed in combat are inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.  This does not include the 23 USAF Security Police and flight crew who were killed in the helicopter crash during the troop movements prior to combat.   They were not so honored.

What lessons can be taken away from this poignant tragedy?  Not many, other than that assaults by slow, loud, fragile helicopters are rarely successful – see, e.g., the Iranian hostage rescue mission, ‘Blackhawk Down’ in Mogadishu, and even the successful killing of Osama Bin Laden.
 
Here’s hoping that it may never be necessary to mount another such military action.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Hi Cisco - 
 
Very nice progress on the hull planking.  You should end up with a nice, well-faired appearance.
 
One small point - you said you had 'messed up' your butt joint spacing and that you took out some planks already applied.  There was no need to do so.
As I understand it, the 4 or 5-step planking patterns ONLY apply to deck planking.  There were so many hull ribs, and so close together, that butt joints could land almost anywhere.  Of course you would not want two butt joints next to each other, but there is not, and cannot be, any strict mathematical stagger to the joints on such a curved surface.  For the deck, the beams were much further apart at a consistent distance and the surface was relatively flat, so a regimented pattern was possible.
 
If you have some time, and can find the books, I highly recommend "Building the Wooden Fighting Ship" by Dodds and Moore, which describes the process with many excellent drawings and illustrations.  Also, an easy, inexpensive, and enjoyable read is "Wooden Boats" by Michael Ruhlman, which is the story of his time at the Benjamin & Gannon shipyard on Martha's Vineyard where they still build wooden boats the old fashioned way. 
 
Best of success.  I am looking forward to seeing your work next April in New London.
 
Dan

Hi again to all, and thanks as always for the likes and compliments. 
 
This will be the last segment of the build log, although I plan to edit it down a bit and turn it into an article for the Nautical Research Journal.  Although all ships have their own stories, the history of the Mayaguez is more exciting and tragic than most, so I will go into it in a bit more detail than usual for a build log.  Some of it was set out in the first segment of the log, leaving off with the capture of the ship.  Here, as they say, is the rest of the story.
 
Let’s go back to that fateful day of May 12, 1975.  The SS Mayaguez is heading from Hong Kong to Sattahip in Thailand carrying 107 containers of routine commercial items and 77 containers for the US military of non-military supplies such as mail and PX items.  Although in a recognized and heavily travelled sea lane, she was only 6 miles from the small island of Koh Tang, claimed by both Cambodia and Vietnam.  The communist Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia, which had recently captured power, started enforcing a 12 mile limit off the island and had already seized a number of ships from several countries and had fired on several others.  Despite this, the American military command had not issued any warnings to commercial ships to avoid the area.
 
At 2:18 in the afternoon the captain was called to the bridge by the third mate on watch.  A gunboat carrying a red flag was approaching fast.  A few seconds later there was a burst of machine gun fire over the bow.  Captain Miller decided to continue to see what they would do.  A sailor on the gunboat raised an RPG to his shoulder and fired over the forecastle.  Unable to outrun them the captain stopped the ship and it was boarded by more than a dozen soldiers from two small Cambodian armed boats. 

Here is a close up photo of one of the boats which was used to detail these elements on the model.  The text on the side reads in part: “A Cambodian gunboat nestles alongside the American container ship SS. Mayaguez off Koh Tang Island as its Cambodian Khmer Rouge crew take over the U.S. freighter.  This picture was made by one of the crew.

The crew was swiftly taken captive and the ship directed to the nearby Koh Tang Island.  The Captain and radio operator did an extraordinary job of getting off a series of SOS messages with the ship’s status and position.  These were relayed to US military command in the Phillipines and an Orion P-3 reconnaissance aircraft flew over, but was fired on.  Despite the danger, overflights were continuous after that, although repeatedly fired on.

In Washington an emergency meeting of the National Security Agency was taking place between President Gerald Ford and his team of well-known advisors, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller, Donald Rumsfeld, Brent Scowcroft, William Colby, James Schlesinger, and the full Joint Chiefs of Staff.  With that lineup it is not surprising that the final decision was to make a “strong statement” that would be recognized by the Koreans, the Chinese, and the American public.  The reaction of the Khmer Rouge was impossible to calculate and that of the ship’s crew was not important.  American naval elements including the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea and the frigate USS Holt were directed to steam to the area and await further orders.     

Over the next two days American jets from nearby bases sank several Cambodian gunboats but failed to prevent the crew being taken off the ship onto a fishing boat and ferried to Koh Tang Island.  The ship itself was not taken into a Cambodian port, but that was mostly because the Captain exaggerated the depth of the hull and said the radar would not work, so the ship would ground.  Meanwhile, Marines and other personnel from several bases were assembled nearby by helicopter and also told to stand by.  Tragically, during the moves a helicopter crashed, taking the lives of these 23 USAF Security Police and the flight crewmen pictured here.  This helicopter crash would not be the last.

Back on the model the ship was complete and had to be set into its seascape.  I will not go into detail here as to my method for sculpting and painting a sea.  I have set it down in my build logs of the USS/SS Leviathan and the whaleboat James B Colgate. In fact, I did not photograph this part of the build of this model.  Here, though, is a photo from the Leviathan build of the Plaster of Paris sea with waves and swells molded in with a damp sponge.

The same method was used, but since photos show a calm sea and the ship was to be pictured at anchor after being captured, the surface was only lightly textured and only very small patches of foam were shown around the hull.

One thing that I have found that increases the realistic look of a model far beyond its small size is the waste water discharge towards the stern of the ship.  I made this by bending a small length of styrene rod over a candle flame.  After trimming to length it was inserted into small holes in the hull and the plaster sea.  The rod was textured with gel cyano dabbed on with a toothpick, heavier at the lower end where the stream would have broken up a bit.  Then it was colored with flat white acrylic paint along with the small disturbance on the ocean’s surface.

 With some additional research it was discovered that the Cambodian gunboats were US made “Patrol Craft Fast” PCFs.  Nicknamed “Swift Boats” they had been used in the rivers and coastal areas of Vietnam and also given to the Cambodians when they were our allies during that fight.

An Internet search turned up a low resolution plan of the boats so I was started planning to carve and detail two of them for the diorama.  This would not have been easy with a scale length just over two inches each.   

I then turned to Shapeways, Inc. to see if their designers had something that could be used as a starting point.  To my happy surprise there was a set of two Fast Boats already in the right scale.  They were molded in fairly smooth frosted plastic with the topsides molded separately from the lower hull.  After cutting away the sprue framework the sections were separated and the interior was found to be filled with unhardened resin powder.  This was removed and the topsides glued down to the hull.

The propellers and rudders were removed as were the stern railings which were too thick.  After sanding the boats were painted light grey before detailing.  The guns on the stern deck and on top of the wheelhouse were painted, as were their mounts.  Life rings were added from my spares box along with hull numbers.  The stern railings were replaced with PE trimmed to size and the boats were finished with small paper flags painted with the flag of communist Kampuchea, a yellow temple on a red field.  Hollows were cut into the plaster sea and the boats set in with a bit of plaster to fill any gaps.   Paint and gloss finish melded them into the diorama.

After a few touch-ups of paint the model was complete and ready for delivery to the museum at the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY.


So here is a side-by-side comparison of the finished model with the photograph that started it all.  I think that I achieved a “compelling evocation of the actual ship.”  Others must think the same, because the model was honored with the Jim Roberts’ Craftsmanship Award at the 2022 Northeast Joint Clubs Show.  My gratitude goes out to all of the judges.

To finish, we return to the tragic and poignant Mayaguez Incident.  By the evening of May 14 the ship had been seized and the crew had been taken off to Koh Tang Island.  President Johnson authorized military action and several Kampuchean gunboats have been sunk.  Naval ships and Marine units were being hurried to the area so a “strong statement” could be made.  By the early morning hours of May 15 the pieces were in place and the order was given to seize back the ship and rescue the crew on Koh Tang Island.  Approaching cautiously, the USS Holt came alongside the Mayaguez.

At 06:13 in the morning, after a bombardment with tear gas, armed Marines in gas masks stormed the ship, only to find that it had been deserted.

With no opposition, the American flag was once again raised above the bridge.

At about the same time a communique from the Kampuchean government was broadcast which blamed the US for the incident and described the Mayaguez as a “CIA spy ship”, but which announced that both the ship and the crew were being released.  This was received in Washington an hour later, but was initially disbelieved.  Nonetheless, it was true and the crew was put on a captured fishing trawler and released.  However, confirmation of this was not established until several hours later.

Without this confirmation the assault on Koh Tang Island went ahead.  Unfortunately, there were two major pieces of information that President Johnson and the Marines did not have.  The first was that during the previous day the crew had all been moved from Koh Tang Island to nearby Koh Rong Sanloem Island.  This was observed by American planes, but it was still believed that some of the crew were on Koh Tang.  The second was that the Khmer Rouge had a much larger and more heavily armed force on Koh Tang which was meant to defend against the Vietnamese who also claimed the island.   
 
In the early morning hours of May 15 eight large helicopters, mostly CH-53 Sea Stallions, with 175 Marines began arriving at Koh Tang.  Of these, three were shot down and two became disabled from mechanical problems.  Nonetheless they landed 109 troops on three landing zones.  This aerial photo shows two of the downed helicopters on East Beach.

A running gun battle across the island continued throughout the day, even after the release of the Mayaquez’ crew was confirmed.  By mid-afternoon the order to withdraw was given and the rest of the day was spent in several attempts to extract the landing force, with additional helicopters shot down and more US troops killed and wounded.  This continued into the night, with confusion abounding amid the increasing fog of war.  Ultimately, the bodies of a number of Marines and four live troops were left behind after all the others were evacuated.  The Khmer Rouge, angered at the deaths aboard the gunboats that had been sunk and the 20 or so troops killed on Koh Tang, ultimately executed all four.
 
The final US death toll for the unnecessary assault on Koh Tang was 18 troops killed and 50 wounded.   Although the Mayaguez Incident did not occur in Vietnam, it is commonly referred to as the last battle of the Vietnam War.  The names of the Marines and other personnel who were killed in combat are inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.  This does not include the 23 USAF Security Police and flight crew who were killed in the helicopter crash during the troop movements prior to combat.   They were not so honored.

What lessons can be taken away from this poignant tragedy?  Not many, other than that assaults by slow, loud, fragile helicopters are rarely successful – see, e.g., the Iranian hostage rescue mission, ‘Blackhawk Down’ in Mogadishu, and even the successful killing of Osama Bin Laden.
 
Here’s hoping that it may never be necessary to mount another such military action.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Hi again to all, and thanks as always for the likes and compliments. 
 
This will be the last segment of the build log, although I plan to edit it down a bit and turn it into an article for the Nautical Research Journal.  Although all ships have their own stories, the history of the Mayaguez is more exciting and tragic than most, so I will go into it in a bit more detail than usual for a build log.  Some of it was set out in the first segment of the log, leaving off with the capture of the ship.  Here, as they say, is the rest of the story.
 
Let’s go back to that fateful day of May 12, 1975.  The SS Mayaguez is heading from Hong Kong to Sattahip in Thailand carrying 107 containers of routine commercial items and 77 containers for the US military of non-military supplies such as mail and PX items.  Although in a recognized and heavily travelled sea lane, she was only 6 miles from the small island of Koh Tang, claimed by both Cambodia and Vietnam.  The communist Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia, which had recently captured power, started enforcing a 12 mile limit off the island and had already seized a number of ships from several countries and had fired on several others.  Despite this, the American military command had not issued any warnings to commercial ships to avoid the area.
 
At 2:18 in the afternoon the captain was called to the bridge by the third mate on watch.  A gunboat carrying a red flag was approaching fast.  A few seconds later there was a burst of machine gun fire over the bow.  Captain Miller decided to continue to see what they would do.  A sailor on the gunboat raised an RPG to his shoulder and fired over the forecastle.  Unable to outrun them the captain stopped the ship and it was boarded by more than a dozen soldiers from two small Cambodian armed boats. 

Here is a close up photo of one of the boats which was used to detail these elements on the model.  The text on the side reads in part: “A Cambodian gunboat nestles alongside the American container ship SS. Mayaguez off Koh Tang Island as its Cambodian Khmer Rouge crew take over the U.S. freighter.  This picture was made by one of the crew.

The crew was swiftly taken captive and the ship directed to the nearby Koh Tang Island.  The Captain and radio operator did an extraordinary job of getting off a series of SOS messages with the ship’s status and position.  These were relayed to US military command in the Phillipines and an Orion P-3 reconnaissance aircraft flew over, but was fired on.  Despite the danger, overflights were continuous after that, although repeatedly fired on.

In Washington an emergency meeting of the National Security Agency was taking place between President Gerald Ford and his team of well-known advisors, Henry Kissinger, Nelson Rockefeller, Donald Rumsfeld, Brent Scowcroft, William Colby, James Schlesinger, and the full Joint Chiefs of Staff.  With that lineup it is not surprising that the final decision was to make a “strong statement” that would be recognized by the Koreans, the Chinese, and the American public.  The reaction of the Khmer Rouge was impossible to calculate and that of the ship’s crew was not important.  American naval elements including the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea and the frigate USS Holt were directed to steam to the area and await further orders.     

Over the next two days American jets from nearby bases sank several Cambodian gunboats but failed to prevent the crew being taken off the ship onto a fishing boat and ferried to Koh Tang Island.  The ship itself was not taken into a Cambodian port, but that was mostly because the Captain exaggerated the depth of the hull and said the radar would not work, so the ship would ground.  Meanwhile, Marines and other personnel from several bases were assembled nearby by helicopter and also told to stand by.  Tragically, during the moves a helicopter crashed, taking the lives of these 23 USAF Security Police and the flight crewmen pictured here.  This helicopter crash would not be the last.

Back on the model the ship was complete and had to be set into its seascape.  I will not go into detail here as to my method for sculpting and painting a sea.  I have set it down in my build logs of the USS/SS Leviathan and the whaleboat James B Colgate. In fact, I did not photograph this part of the build of this model.  Here, though, is a photo from the Leviathan build of the Plaster of Paris sea with waves and swells molded in with a damp sponge.

The same method was used, but since photos show a calm sea and the ship was to be pictured at anchor after being captured, the surface was only lightly textured and only very small patches of foam were shown around the hull.

One thing that I have found that increases the realistic look of a model far beyond its small size is the waste water discharge towards the stern of the ship.  I made this by bending a small length of styrene rod over a candle flame.  After trimming to length it was inserted into small holes in the hull and the plaster sea.  The rod was textured with gel cyano dabbed on with a toothpick, heavier at the lower end where the stream would have broken up a bit.  Then it was colored with flat white acrylic paint along with the small disturbance on the ocean’s surface.

 With some additional research it was discovered that the Cambodian gunboats were US made “Patrol Craft Fast” PCFs.  Nicknamed “Swift Boats” they had been used in the rivers and coastal areas of Vietnam and also given to the Cambodians when they were our allies during that fight.

An Internet search turned up a low resolution plan of the boats so I was started planning to carve and detail two of them for the diorama.  This would not have been easy with a scale length just over two inches each.   

I then turned to Shapeways, Inc. to see if their designers had something that could be used as a starting point.  To my happy surprise there was a set of two Fast Boats already in the right scale.  They were molded in fairly smooth frosted plastic with the topsides molded separately from the lower hull.  After cutting away the sprue framework the sections were separated and the interior was found to be filled with unhardened resin powder.  This was removed and the topsides glued down to the hull.

The propellers and rudders were removed as were the stern railings which were too thick.  After sanding the boats were painted light grey before detailing.  The guns on the stern deck and on top of the wheelhouse were painted, as were their mounts.  Life rings were added from my spares box along with hull numbers.  The stern railings were replaced with PE trimmed to size and the boats were finished with small paper flags painted with the flag of communist Kampuchea, a yellow temple on a red field.  Hollows were cut into the plaster sea and the boats set in with a bit of plaster to fill any gaps.   Paint and gloss finish melded them into the diorama.

After a few touch-ups of paint the model was complete and ready for delivery to the museum at the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY.


So here is a side-by-side comparison of the finished model with the photograph that started it all.  I think that I achieved a “compelling evocation of the actual ship.”  Others must think the same, because the model was honored with the Jim Roberts’ Craftsmanship Award at the 2022 Northeast Joint Clubs Show.  My gratitude goes out to all of the judges.

To finish, we return to the tragic and poignant Mayaguez Incident.  By the evening of May 14 the ship had been seized and the crew had been taken off to Koh Tang Island.  President Johnson authorized military action and several Kampuchean gunboats have been sunk.  Naval ships and Marine units were being hurried to the area so a “strong statement” could be made.  By the early morning hours of May 15 the pieces were in place and the order was given to seize back the ship and rescue the crew on Koh Tang Island.  Approaching cautiously, the USS Holt came alongside the Mayaguez.

At 06:13 in the morning, after a bombardment with tear gas, armed Marines in gas masks stormed the ship, only to find that it had been deserted.

With no opposition, the American flag was once again raised above the bridge.

At about the same time a communique from the Kampuchean government was broadcast which blamed the US for the incident and described the Mayaguez as a “CIA spy ship”, but which announced that both the ship and the crew were being released.  This was received in Washington an hour later, but was initially disbelieved.  Nonetheless, it was true and the crew was put on a captured fishing trawler and released.  However, confirmation of this was not established until several hours later.

Without this confirmation the assault on Koh Tang Island went ahead.  Unfortunately, there were two major pieces of information that President Johnson and the Marines did not have.  The first was that during the previous day the crew had all been moved from Koh Tang Island to nearby Koh Rong Sanloem Island.  This was observed by American planes, but it was still believed that some of the crew were on Koh Tang.  The second was that the Khmer Rouge had a much larger and more heavily armed force on Koh Tang which was meant to defend against the Vietnamese who also claimed the island.   
 
In the early morning hours of May 15 eight large helicopters, mostly CH-53 Sea Stallions, with 175 Marines began arriving at Koh Tang.  Of these, three were shot down and two became disabled from mechanical problems.  Nonetheless they landed 109 troops on three landing zones.  This aerial photo shows two of the downed helicopters on East Beach.

A running gun battle across the island continued throughout the day, even after the release of the Mayaquez’ crew was confirmed.  By mid-afternoon the order to withdraw was given and the rest of the day was spent in several attempts to extract the landing force, with additional helicopters shot down and more US troops killed and wounded.  This continued into the night, with confusion abounding amid the increasing fog of war.  Ultimately, the bodies of a number of Marines and four live troops were left behind after all the others were evacuated.  The Khmer Rouge, angered at the deaths aboard the gunboats that had been sunk and the 20 or so troops killed on Koh Tang, ultimately executed all four.
 
The final US death toll for the unnecessary assault on Koh Tang was 18 troops killed and 50 wounded.   Although the Mayaguez Incident did not occur in Vietnam, it is commonly referred to as the last battle of the Vietnam War.  The names of the Marines and other personnel who were killed in combat are inscribed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall.  This does not include the 23 USAF Security Police and flight crew who were killed in the helicopter crash during the troop movements prior to combat.   They were not so honored.

What lessons can be taken away from this poignant tragedy?  Not many, other than that assaults by slow, loud, fragile helicopters are rarely successful – see, e.g., the Iranian hostage rescue mission, ‘Blackhawk Down’ in Mogadishu, and even the successful killing of Osama Bin Laden.
 
Here’s hoping that it may never be necessary to mount another such military action.
 
Be well
 
Dan

Happy Thursday night people.  I drove back from the Admiralty Workshops Carving class this evening, held this year in Annapolis MD.  Chuck showed a bunch of pictures under his Speedwell post of the group hunched over desks with magnifiers on.  It may look like a sweatshop in action but was actually very educational and fun.  Carving is still intimidating but maybe now a little less so.  I didn't take any pics there but here are my efforts.  Chuck laser-cut the blanks and then participants cut in the "swoops."

The wreath on the left was my least successful effort.  And it was a macro practice version; the real ones for the 1:48 ships were about half that size.  I fared better in the middle on the acanthus spray.  Its hard to see but the top one is the stock laser cut piece; the bottom is my version after cutting.  It was an acceptable for a first try/minimum of tearout effort so I was happy.  The far right is another acanthus/flower practice piece.  These were all panels from David's Fubbs model, which is supposed be an upcoming Seawatch book.
 
For anyone contemplating carving at this scale we found the Micromark gouges to be useless.  They come spoon-shaped (why?) and are some sort of stainless steel so will likely never hold an edge.  Additionally, I found in my pack one with a broken tip.  I am way past the return date so I'm stuck with them.

I did, however, like their micro chisel set and have been using them a fair amount.
 
Mostly everyone used Dockyard tools which sharpen well and take an excellent edge. 

Greg and David run a friendly, encouraging workshop and I highly recommend them.  This was my second year attending and I even convinced fellow model shipworlder Jason (JLong) to go too, but sadly he and his wife caught covid 2 days before the workshop so he missed out.
 
My AVS progress was educational as well, if less satisfying.  I was all set to add the next line of planking when I realized I had messed up my butt-joint spacing.  See the below picture repeated from several posts ago.  Above and to the right of my tick strip you can see the highest butt joint, then the main whale, then my topmost hull plank butt joint is clearly not in line.  I think I put in the top plank and forgot to trim it back.  To make matters worse I had done it again on aft end of the next line of planking.

Obviously it would haunt me forever if left alone so I used some alcohol and chisels to work the two offending planks out.  I was pleasantly surprised there was minimal collateral damage.
After trimming the butt joints to their proper lines I made and installed new planks.  I can't tell I did anything so although net 0 progress to me still a success.

And thats it.
 
Have a great evening
 
Cisco

Hello again to all who are following this build. 
 
Sorry to say that it has been almost a year since my last post, but life has a way of interfering with my literary efforts.  I’m happy to say that most of my health issues have resolved, leaving me with just the usual arthritic knees and a creaking hip replacement.   At 72 this is to be expected, I suppose.  As they say, it’s better than the alternative.  But back to the model - -
 
The build log left off with the ship completed – hull, superstructure, and 96 containers on deck.  The only remaining major structures to build were the two rolling cranes that loaded and unloaded the 35’ long containers.  Here is an overall photo of the ship at sea with the cranes set on their rails immediately forward and aft of the superstructure.

In close-up you can see how they straddle the blocks of containers.  The strong framework extends athwartships to the limits of the deck with a winch assembly on top that rolls side to side to lift and move the containers.

From overhead the overall layout of the cranes can be seen.  Obviously, they have to have at least 35’ between the vertical “U” shaped ends so the containers can move outboard without hindrance.  From the photo it is obvious that there is not much clearance, so my cranes had to be built to reflect these tight tolerances.  

Once again the lack of plans of any kind was a bit of a problem.  The layout and exact shapes of the several components of the cranes had to be deduced from the photographs.  To tease these out from the blurry black and white photos was the hardest photo interpretation task of the entire build.  Look at only the left side of the two images below.  This is as good as it got.  After much head scratching and comparing them to each other and to the many other less detailed photos, I was able to draw outlines of the pieces with a reasonable degree of confidence.   These were drawn in red on the photos
Note that the hinge between the central gallows piece and the movable wing piece must be located below the top of the gallows, otherwise they will not fit together with the tops aligned.  I located this where the red dot is, although there is no fitting to be seen on the outside at this point.  Also, I concluded that the vertical posts seen in the upper photo must be attached to the wing piece since they rotate to horizontal in the lower photos.  I have no direct proof, but I think that they must be some part of a locking mechanism that holds the wing up when extended.


With the shapes decided, rightly or not, I cut a piece of thick card stock so the bottoms of the inner vertical edges just cleared the container stacks and rested just outside of the crane guides on the lower trestles.  From there the shapes of the gallows was drawn in and then the shapes of the wings.  After much erasing and redrawing, I had shapes that fit all of the parameters and tolerances that I needed.

This drawing was finalized, then scanned and copied onto blank paper.  Since there were four gallows pieces, two for each crane, I needed eight identical pieces cut from plastic for the sides.  I first made up the eight blanks with rectangular pieces of 0.040” styrene welded to each other with thin plastic cement.  A simple jig made sure that the inner dimensions between the uprights was consistent and correct.  Small triangles were added to the inner corners as reinforcements as seen in the photos.  Then each gallows drawing was cut from the paper and spray mounted to the plastic blank.  Careful cutting with a sharp blade guided by a metal rule gave me the gallows piece in plastic.  The paper was easily removed with a drop of Goo Gone, a mild solvent.

To make up the thickness of the gallows components four ¼” I-beams were glued to the inner face of one of the gallows pieces.  This not only gave me a consistent thickness, but reinforced the joints between the sheet styrene pieces, rather than relying only on the welding action of the plastic glue.  In a bit of serendipity, using the I-beam across the top gave me a channel in the top that the rolling winches would be mounted on.  Not shown - a second gallows piece was positioned over the I-beams and glued in place.  The open sides were closed in with lengths of styrene strip the width of the I-beam between the two gallows sides.

The wing pieces were made in a similar fashion.  Sixteen wing piece paper outlines were printed out, mounted on sheet styrene, and cut out.  An I-beam was fitted to the straight side of one and a second wing piece glued to the beam to match the first.  In the upper left the sides of the assembly can be seen after being filled in with styrene strip.

Five I-beams of different sizes were all cut to the same length, just a bit longer than the 35’ containers.  A central large beam and two smaller ones at the lower corners connected two of the gallows to each other, forming a strong “U” that slid over the containers and rested on the lower trestles.  Then four of the wing pieces were attached to the upper corners of the gallows and connected to each other with smaller I-beams.  Small pieces of plastic were cut to fit around the lower legs of the gallows representing the control and observation platforms for the cranes.

These assemblies were then detailed with the locking arms, ladders, piping for electric lines or water runoff (I never did figure out which), and some punched discs seen in the photographs.  After painting them tan some black markings were drawn onto the winch channels, then railings were added to the tops of the gallows and around the control platforms.

The winch assembly was put together from some two dozen pieces to build up a moveable platform to match, as best I could figure it out, the less than detailed photographs.  I also had to use some additional common engineering sense for what had to be there, even if I couldn’t see it.  There is a walkway only on the starboard side and behind the two winch control houses.   The windows for the winch houses were cut from black decal film and carefully applied.

Here is the crane mounted on the lower trestles.  In this view you can see the paper applique doors on the winch control houses which had to be there, though I never saw them.  In the enlarged insert, the small black beads that represent the rollers that would allow the winch to run outboard along the channels on top of the gallows.  Similar small wheels were mounted under the legs of the crane to allow it to roll along the lower trestle to pick up containers from any location on the ship.

So here are the pair of cranes, as fitted to the ship, which is now complete. 

The final installment of this build log will focus on the ocean setting and the Cambodian gunboats that captured the ship.  I hope to get it out soon.
 
Until then, stay safe and well.
 
Dan

Hi Shipman,
I am pretty sure private yards always had contracts to build ships and boats based on those contracts.  Two samples below of contracts including an original for a 30 foot long boat and a  transcribed contract for two yawls.   
Allan

 
Contract for two Yawles
 Contracted this 24th July  90 with  the Honoble Thomas Willshaw, Esqre one of the Principall Officers  & Commrs of their  Majties Navy, for & behalf of their Majties, by me Robert Smith of Langstone Shipwrts and  doe hereby oblidge myselfe to build & deliver into their Majties Stores at Portso: free of all charge by the latter and on Augst next ensueing the two Yawles undermentioned of the Dimensions and Scantlins & each fitted with the particulars folling  (viz)     
                           Long              Broad                   Deepe
Yawles  of         23ft:   -----      5ft: 7:ins  ------     2ft: 5ins   ------- Two
 
Railes of the upper streakes to be made out of the wholewood up and downe Gunnels stuck, 3   Thwarts bound with Iron Knees and ye Transome wth two Iron Knees, the Stateroom stuck an O:G. & planshier for the Gunnwales with two pannells on each side of the backboard, a locker under the after bench and lynings under the bench, Keel, thwart ships 4: ins. up and down 4½ ins. & 4 ins.  Keelson 6: ins. broade of 1½ inch plank, timbers of 1½ inch wth 13 ins room and Space, & 10: in. Scarphs to the floor, timberheads to naile to the lower Edge of the binding Strake with bottome boards & Scarr Boards Keelbands & Iron bolts & Rings for Stem and Sterne to row wth  6: oars each to be grav’d and primed to the Waterline and pid in stuff in the inside to the rising at ye rate of 12 s   per foot   I doe oblidge myself that these boats shall be wrought wth good dry well seasoned oak board of ynch thick in workmanlike manner for wch I am  to be paid readdy money at Portsmouth when a bill is made out and signed by the Officers at ye yard as useable.  
 

Hello again to all who are following this build. 
 
Sorry to say that it has been almost a year since my last post, but life has a way of interfering with my literary efforts.  I’m happy to say that most of my health issues have resolved, leaving me with just the usual arthritic knees and a creaking hip replacement.   At 72 this is to be expected, I suppose.  As they say, it’s better than the alternative.  But back to the model - -
 
The build log left off with the ship completed – hull, superstructure, and 96 containers on deck.  The only remaining major structures to build were the two rolling cranes that loaded and unloaded the 35’ long containers.  Here is an overall photo of the ship at sea with the cranes set on their rails immediately forward and aft of the superstructure.

In close-up you can see how they straddle the blocks of containers.  The strong framework extends athwartships to the limits of the deck with a winch assembly on top that rolls side to side to lift and move the containers.

From overhead the overall layout of the cranes can be seen.  Obviously, they have to have at least 35’ between the vertical “U” shaped ends so the containers can move outboard without hindrance.  From the photo it is obvious that there is not much clearance, so my cranes had to be built to reflect these tight tolerances.  

Once again the lack of plans of any kind was a bit of a problem.  The layout and exact shapes of the several components of the cranes had to be deduced from the photographs.  To tease these out from the blurry black and white photos was the hardest photo interpretation task of the entire build.  Look at only the left side of the two images below.  This is as good as it got.  After much head scratching and comparing them to each other and to the many other less detailed photos, I was able to draw outlines of the pieces with a reasonable degree of confidence.   These were drawn in red on the photos
Note that the hinge between the central gallows piece and the movable wing piece must be located below the top of the gallows, otherwise they will not fit together with the tops aligned.  I located this where the red dot is, although there is no fitting to be seen on the outside at this point.  Also, I concluded that the vertical posts seen in the upper photo must be attached to the wing piece since they rotate to horizontal in the lower photos.  I have no direct proof, but I think that they must be some part of a locking mechanism that holds the wing up when extended.


With the shapes decided, rightly or not, I cut a piece of thick card stock so the bottoms of the inner vertical edges just cleared the container stacks and rested just outside of the crane guides on the lower trestles.  From there the shapes of the gallows was drawn in and then the shapes of the wings.  After much erasing and redrawing, I had shapes that fit all of the parameters and tolerances that I needed.

This drawing was finalized, then scanned and copied onto blank paper.  Since there were four gallows pieces, two for each crane, I needed eight identical pieces cut from plastic for the sides.  I first made up the eight blanks with rectangular pieces of 0.040” styrene welded to each other with thin plastic cement.  A simple jig made sure that the inner dimensions between the uprights was consistent and correct.  Small triangles were added to the inner corners as reinforcements as seen in the photos.  Then each gallows drawing was cut from the paper and spray mounted to the plastic blank.  Careful cutting with a sharp blade guided by a metal rule gave me the gallows piece in plastic.  The paper was easily removed with a drop of Goo Gone, a mild solvent.

To make up the thickness of the gallows components four ¼” I-beams were glued to the inner face of one of the gallows pieces.  This not only gave me a consistent thickness, but reinforced the joints between the sheet styrene pieces, rather than relying only on the welding action of the plastic glue.  In a bit of serendipity, using the I-beam across the top gave me a channel in the top that the rolling winches would be mounted on.  Not shown - a second gallows piece was positioned over the I-beams and glued in place.  The open sides were closed in with lengths of styrene strip the width of the I-beam between the two gallows sides.

The wing pieces were made in a similar fashion.  Sixteen wing piece paper outlines were printed out, mounted on sheet styrene, and cut out.  An I-beam was fitted to the straight side of one and a second wing piece glued to the beam to match the first.  In the upper left the sides of the assembly can be seen after being filled in with styrene strip.

Five I-beams of different sizes were all cut to the same length, just a bit longer than the 35’ containers.  A central large beam and two smaller ones at the lower corners connected two of the gallows to each other, forming a strong “U” that slid over the containers and rested on the lower trestles.  Then four of the wing pieces were attached to the upper corners of the gallows and connected to each other with smaller I-beams.  Small pieces of plastic were cut to fit around the lower legs of the gallows representing the control and observation platforms for the cranes.

These assemblies were then detailed with the locking arms, ladders, piping for electric lines or water runoff (I never did figure out which), and some punched discs seen in the photographs.  After painting them tan some black markings were drawn onto the winch channels, then railings were added to the tops of the gallows and around the control platforms.

The winch assembly was put together from some two dozen pieces to build up a moveable platform to match, as best I could figure it out, the less than detailed photographs.  I also had to use some additional common engineering sense for what had to be there, even if I couldn’t see it.  There is a walkway only on the starboard side and behind the two winch control houses.   The windows for the winch houses were cut from black decal film and carefully applied.

Here is the crane mounted on the lower trestles.  In this view you can see the paper applique doors on the winch control houses which had to be there, though I never saw them.  In the enlarged insert, the small black beads that represent the rollers that would allow the winch to run outboard along the channels on top of the gallows.  Similar small wheels were mounted under the legs of the crane to allow it to roll along the lower trestle to pick up containers from any location on the ship.

So here are the pair of cranes, as fitted to the ship, which is now complete. 

The final installment of this build log will focus on the ocean setting and the Cambodian gunboats that captured the ship.  I hope to get it out soon.
 
Until then, stay safe and well.
 
Dan

Hello again to all who are following this build. 
 
Sorry to say that it has been almost a year since my last post, but life has a way of interfering with my literary efforts.  I’m happy to say that most of my health issues have resolved, leaving me with just the usual arthritic knees and a creaking hip replacement.   At 72 this is to be expected, I suppose.  As they say, it’s better than the alternative.  But back to the model - -
 
The build log left off with the ship completed – hull, superstructure, and 96 containers on deck.  The only remaining major structures to build were the two rolling cranes that loaded and unloaded the 35’ long containers.  Here is an overall photo of the ship at sea with the cranes set on their rails immediately forward and aft of the superstructure.

In close-up you can see how they straddle the blocks of containers.  The strong framework extends athwartships to the limits of the deck with a winch assembly on top that rolls side to side to lift and move the containers.

From overhead the overall layout of the cranes can be seen.  Obviously, they have to have at least 35’ between the vertical “U” shaped ends so the containers can move outboard without hindrance.  From the photo it is obvious that there is not much clearance, so my cranes had to be built to reflect these tight tolerances.  

Once again the lack of plans of any kind was a bit of a problem.  The layout and exact shapes of the several components of the cranes had to be deduced from the photographs.  To tease these out from the blurry black and white photos was the hardest photo interpretation task of the entire build.  Look at only the left side of the two images below.  This is as good as it got.  After much head scratching and comparing them to each other and to the many other less detailed photos, I was able to draw outlines of the pieces with a reasonable degree of confidence.   These were drawn in red on the photos
Note that the hinge between the central gallows piece and the movable wing piece must be located below the top of the gallows, otherwise they will not fit together with the tops aligned.  I located this where the red dot is, although there is no fitting to be seen on the outside at this point.  Also, I concluded that the vertical posts seen in the upper photo must be attached to the wing piece since they rotate to horizontal in the lower photos.  I have no direct proof, but I think that they must be some part of a locking mechanism that holds the wing up when extended.


With the shapes decided, rightly or not, I cut a piece of thick card stock so the bottoms of the inner vertical edges just cleared the container stacks and rested just outside of the crane guides on the lower trestles.  From there the shapes of the gallows was drawn in and then the shapes of the wings.  After much erasing and redrawing, I had shapes that fit all of the parameters and tolerances that I needed.

This drawing was finalized, then scanned and copied onto blank paper.  Since there were four gallows pieces, two for each crane, I needed eight identical pieces cut from plastic for the sides.  I first made up the eight blanks with rectangular pieces of 0.040” styrene welded to each other with thin plastic cement.  A simple jig made sure that the inner dimensions between the uprights was consistent and correct.  Small triangles were added to the inner corners as reinforcements as seen in the photos.  Then each gallows drawing was cut from the paper and spray mounted to the plastic blank.  Careful cutting with a sharp blade guided by a metal rule gave me the gallows piece in plastic.  The paper was easily removed with a drop of Goo Gone, a mild solvent.

To make up the thickness of the gallows components four ¼” I-beams were glued to the inner face of one of the gallows pieces.  This not only gave me a consistent thickness, but reinforced the joints between the sheet styrene pieces, rather than relying only on the welding action of the plastic glue.  In a bit of serendipity, using the I-beam across the top gave me a channel in the top that the rolling winches would be mounted on.  Not shown - a second gallows piece was positioned over the I-beams and glued in place.  The open sides were closed in with lengths of styrene strip the width of the I-beam between the two gallows sides.

The wing pieces were made in a similar fashion.  Sixteen wing piece paper outlines were printed out, mounted on sheet styrene, and cut out.  An I-beam was fitted to the straight side of one and a second wing piece glued to the beam to match the first.  In the upper left the sides of the assembly can be seen after being filled in with styrene strip.

Five I-beams of different sizes were all cut to the same length, just a bit longer than the 35’ containers.  A central large beam and two smaller ones at the lower corners connected two of the gallows to each other, forming a strong “U” that slid over the containers and rested on the lower trestles.  Then four of the wing pieces were attached to the upper corners of the gallows and connected to each other with smaller I-beams.  Small pieces of plastic were cut to fit around the lower legs of the gallows representing the control and observation platforms for the cranes.

These assemblies were then detailed with the locking arms, ladders, piping for electric lines or water runoff (I never did figure out which), and some punched discs seen in the photographs.  After painting them tan some black markings were drawn onto the winch channels, then railings were added to the tops of the gallows and around the control platforms.

The winch assembly was put together from some two dozen pieces to build up a moveable platform to match, as best I could figure it out, the less than detailed photographs.  I also had to use some additional common engineering sense for what had to be there, even if I couldn’t see it.  There is a walkway only on the starboard side and behind the two winch control houses.   The windows for the winch houses were cut from black decal film and carefully applied.

Here is the crane mounted on the lower trestles.  In this view you can see the paper applique doors on the winch control houses which had to be there, though I never saw them.  In the enlarged insert, the small black beads that represent the rollers that would allow the winch to run outboard along the channels on top of the gallows.  Similar small wheels were mounted under the legs of the crane to allow it to roll along the lower trestle to pick up containers from any location on the ship.

So here are the pair of cranes, as fitted to the ship, which is now complete. 

The final installment of this build log will focus on the ocean setting and the Cambodian gunboats that captured the ship.  I hope to get it out soon.
 
Until then, stay safe and well.
 
Dan

Hello again to all who are following this build. 
 
Sorry to say that it has been almost a year since my last post, but life has a way of interfering with my literary efforts.  I’m happy to say that most of my health issues have resolved, leaving me with just the usual arthritic knees and a creaking hip replacement.   At 72 this is to be expected, I suppose.  As they say, it’s better than the alternative.  But back to the model - -
 
The build log left off with the ship completed – hull, superstructure, and 96 containers on deck.  The only remaining major structures to build were the two rolling cranes that loaded and unloaded the 35’ long containers.  Here is an overall photo of the ship at sea with the cranes set on their rails immediately forward and aft of the superstructure.

In close-up you can see how they straddle the blocks of containers.  The strong framework extends athwartships to the limits of the deck with a winch assembly on top that rolls side to side to lift and move the containers.

From overhead the overall layout of the cranes can be seen.  Obviously, they have to have at least 35’ between the vertical “U” shaped ends so the containers can move outboard without hindrance.  From the photo it is obvious that there is not much clearance, so my cranes had to be built to reflect these tight tolerances.  

Once again the lack of plans of any kind was a bit of a problem.  The layout and exact shapes of the several components of the cranes had to be deduced from the photographs.  To tease these out from the blurry black and white photos was the hardest photo interpretation task of the entire build.  Look at only the left side of the two images below.  This is as good as it got.  After much head scratching and comparing them to each other and to the many other less detailed photos, I was able to draw outlines of the pieces with a reasonable degree of confidence.   These were drawn in red on the photos
Note that the hinge between the central gallows piece and the movable wing piece must be located below the top of the gallows, otherwise they will not fit together with the tops aligned.  I located this where the red dot is, although there is no fitting to be seen on the outside at this point.  Also, I concluded that the vertical posts seen in the upper photo must be attached to the wing piece since they rotate to horizontal in the lower photos.  I have no direct proof, but I think that they must be some part of a locking mechanism that holds the wing up when extended.


With the shapes decided, rightly or not, I cut a piece of thick card stock so the bottoms of the inner vertical edges just cleared the container stacks and rested just outside of the crane guides on the lower trestles.  From there the shapes of the gallows was drawn in and then the shapes of the wings.  After much erasing and redrawing, I had shapes that fit all of the parameters and tolerances that I needed.

This drawing was finalized, then scanned and copied onto blank paper.  Since there were four gallows pieces, two for each crane, I needed eight identical pieces cut from plastic for the sides.  I first made up the eight blanks with rectangular pieces of 0.040” styrene welded to each other with thin plastic cement.  A simple jig made sure that the inner dimensions between the uprights was consistent and correct.  Small triangles were added to the inner corners as reinforcements as seen in the photos.  Then each gallows drawing was cut from the paper and spray mounted to the plastic blank.  Careful cutting with a sharp blade guided by a metal rule gave me the gallows piece in plastic.  The paper was easily removed with a drop of Goo Gone, a mild solvent.

To make up the thickness of the gallows components four ¼” I-beams were glued to the inner face of one of the gallows pieces.  This not only gave me a consistent thickness, but reinforced the joints between the sheet styrene pieces, rather than relying only on the welding action of the plastic glue.  In a bit of serendipity, using the I-beam across the top gave me a channel in the top that the rolling winches would be mounted on.  Not shown - a second gallows piece was positioned over the I-beams and glued in place.  The open sides were closed in with lengths of styrene strip the width of the I-beam between the two gallows sides.

The wing pieces were made in a similar fashion.  Sixteen wing piece paper outlines were printed out, mounted on sheet styrene, and cut out.  An I-beam was fitted to the straight side of one and a second wing piece glued to the beam to match the first.  In the upper left the sides of the assembly can be seen after being filled in with styrene strip.

Five I-beams of different sizes were all cut to the same length, just a bit longer than the 35’ containers.  A central large beam and two smaller ones at the lower corners connected two of the gallows to each other, forming a strong “U” that slid over the containers and rested on the lower trestles.  Then four of the wing pieces were attached to the upper corners of the gallows and connected to each other with smaller I-beams.  Small pieces of plastic were cut to fit around the lower legs of the gallows representing the control and observation platforms for the cranes.

These assemblies were then detailed with the locking arms, ladders, piping for electric lines or water runoff (I never did figure out which), and some punched discs seen in the photographs.  After painting them tan some black markings were drawn onto the winch channels, then railings were added to the tops of the gallows and around the control platforms.

The winch assembly was put together from some two dozen pieces to build up a moveable platform to match, as best I could figure it out, the less than detailed photographs.  I also had to use some additional common engineering sense for what had to be there, even if I couldn’t see it.  There is a walkway only on the starboard side and behind the two winch control houses.   The windows for the winch houses were cut from black decal film and carefully applied.

Here is the crane mounted on the lower trestles.  In this view you can see the paper applique doors on the winch control houses which had to be there, though I never saw them.  In the enlarged insert, the small black beads that represent the rollers that would allow the winch to run outboard along the channels on top of the gallows.  Similar small wheels were mounted under the legs of the crane to allow it to roll along the lower trestle to pick up containers from any location on the ship.

So here are the pair of cranes, as fitted to the ship, which is now complete. 

The final installment of this build log will focus on the ocean setting and the Cambodian gunboats that captured the ship.  I hope to get it out soon.
 
Until then, stay safe and well.
 
Dan

Hello again to all who are following this build. 
 
Sorry to say that it has been almost a year since my last post, but life has a way of interfering with my literary efforts.  I’m happy to say that most of my health issues have resolved, leaving me with just the usual arthritic knees and a creaking hip replacement.   At 72 this is to be expected, I suppose.  As they say, it’s better than the alternative.  But back to the model - -
 
The build log left off with the ship completed – hull, superstructure, and 96 containers on deck.  The only remaining major structures to build were the two rolling cranes that loaded and unloaded the 35’ long containers.  Here is an overall photo of the ship at sea with the cranes set on their rails immediately forward and aft of the superstructure.

In close-up you can see how they straddle the blocks of containers.  The strong framework extends athwartships to the limits of the deck with a winch assembly on top that rolls side to side to lift and move the containers.

From overhead the overall layout of the cranes can be seen.  Obviously, they have to have at least 35’ between the vertical “U” shaped ends so the containers can move outboard without hindrance.  From the photo it is obvious that there is not much clearance, so my cranes had to be built to reflect these tight tolerances.  

Once again the lack of plans of any kind was a bit of a problem.  The layout and exact shapes of the several components of the cranes had to be deduced from the photographs.  To tease these out from the blurry black and white photos was the hardest photo interpretation task of the entire build.  Look at only the left side of the two images below.  This is as good as it got.  After much head scratching and comparing them to each other and to the many other less detailed photos, I was able to draw outlines of the pieces with a reasonable degree of confidence.   These were drawn in red on the photos
Note that the hinge between the central gallows piece and the movable wing piece must be located below the top of the gallows, otherwise they will not fit together with the tops aligned.  I located this where the red dot is, although there is no fitting to be seen on the outside at this point.  Also, I concluded that the vertical posts seen in the upper photo must be attached to the wing piece since they rotate to horizontal in the lower photos.  I have no direct proof, but I think that they must be some part of a locking mechanism that holds the wing up when extended.


With the shapes decided, rightly or not, I cut a piece of thick card stock so the bottoms of the inner vertical edges just cleared the container stacks and rested just outside of the crane guides on the lower trestles.  From there the shapes of the gallows was drawn in and then the shapes of the wings.  After much erasing and redrawing, I had shapes that fit all of the parameters and tolerances that I needed.

This drawing was finalized, then scanned and copied onto blank paper.  Since there were four gallows pieces, two for each crane, I needed eight identical pieces cut from plastic for the sides.  I first made up the eight blanks with rectangular pieces of 0.040” styrene welded to each other with thin plastic cement.  A simple jig made sure that the inner dimensions between the uprights was consistent and correct.  Small triangles were added to the inner corners as reinforcements as seen in the photos.  Then each gallows drawing was cut from the paper and spray mounted to the plastic blank.  Careful cutting with a sharp blade guided by a metal rule gave me the gallows piece in plastic.  The paper was easily removed with a drop of Goo Gone, a mild solvent.

To make up the thickness of the gallows components four ¼” I-beams were glued to the inner face of one of the gallows pieces.  This not only gave me a consistent thickness, but reinforced the joints between the sheet styrene pieces, rather than relying only on the welding action of the plastic glue.  In a bit of serendipity, using the I-beam across the top gave me a channel in the top that the rolling winches would be mounted on.  Not shown - a second gallows piece was positioned over the I-beams and glued in place.  The open sides were closed in with lengths of styrene strip the width of the I-beam between the two gallows sides.

The wing pieces were made in a similar fashion.  Sixteen wing piece paper outlines were printed out, mounted on sheet styrene, and cut out.  An I-beam was fitted to the straight side of one and a second wing piece glued to the beam to match the first.  In the upper left the sides of the assembly can be seen after being filled in with styrene strip.

Five I-beams of different sizes were all cut to the same length, just a bit longer than the 35’ containers.  A central large beam and two smaller ones at the lower corners connected two of the gallows to each other, forming a strong “U” that slid over the containers and rested on the lower trestles.  Then four of the wing pieces were attached to the upper corners of the gallows and connected to each other with smaller I-beams.  Small pieces of plastic were cut to fit around the lower legs of the gallows representing the control and observation platforms for the cranes.

These assemblies were then detailed with the locking arms, ladders, piping for electric lines or water runoff (I never did figure out which), and some punched discs seen in the photographs.  After painting them tan some black markings were drawn onto the winch channels, then railings were added to the tops of the gallows and around the control platforms.

The winch assembly was put together from some two dozen pieces to build up a moveable platform to match, as best I could figure it out, the less than detailed photographs.  I also had to use some additional common engineering sense for what had to be there, even if I couldn’t see it.  There is a walkway only on the starboard side and behind the two winch control houses.   The windows for the winch houses were cut from black decal film and carefully applied.

Here is the crane mounted on the lower trestles.  In this view you can see the paper applique doors on the winch control houses which had to be there, though I never saw them.  In the enlarged insert, the small black beads that represent the rollers that would allow the winch to run outboard along the channels on top of the gallows.  Similar small wheels were mounted under the legs of the crane to allow it to roll along the lower trestle to pick up containers from any location on the ship.

So here are the pair of cranes, as fitted to the ship, which is now complete. 

The final installment of this build log will focus on the ocean setting and the Cambodian gunboats that captured the ship.  I hope to get it out soon.
 
Until then, stay safe and well.
 
Dan

Hello again to all who are following this build. 
 
Sorry to say that it has been almost a year since my last post, but life has a way of interfering with my literary efforts.  I’m happy to say that most of my health issues have resolved, leaving me with just the usual arthritic knees and a creaking hip replacement.   At 72 this is to be expected, I suppose.  As they say, it’s better than the alternative.  But back to the model - -
 
The build log left off with the ship completed – hull, superstructure, and 96 containers on deck.  The only remaining major structures to build were the two rolling cranes that loaded and unloaded the 35’ long containers.  Here is an overall photo of the ship at sea with the cranes set on their rails immediately forward and aft of the superstructure.

In close-up you can see how they straddle the blocks of containers.  The strong framework extends athwartships to the limits of the deck with a winch assembly on top that rolls side to side to lift and move the containers.

From overhead the overall layout of the cranes can be seen.  Obviously, they have to have at least 35’ between the vertical “U” shaped ends so the containers can move outboard without hindrance.  From the photo it is obvious that there is not much clearance, so my cranes had to be built to reflect these tight tolerances.  

Once again the lack of plans of any kind was a bit of a problem.  The layout and exact shapes of the several components of the cranes had to be deduced from the photographs.  To tease these out from the blurry black and white photos was the hardest photo interpretation task of the entire build.  Look at only the left side of the two images below.  This is as good as it got.  After much head scratching and comparing them to each other and to the many other less detailed photos, I was able to draw outlines of the pieces with a reasonable degree of confidence.   These were drawn in red on the photos
Note that the hinge between the central gallows piece and the movable wing piece must be located below the top of the gallows, otherwise they will not fit together with the tops aligned.  I located this where the red dot is, although there is no fitting to be seen on the outside at this point.  Also, I concluded that the vertical posts seen in the upper photo must be attached to the wing piece since they rotate to horizontal in the lower photos.  I have no direct proof, but I think that they must be some part of a locking mechanism that holds the wing up when extended.


With the shapes decided, rightly or not, I cut a piece of thick card stock so the bottoms of the inner vertical edges just cleared the container stacks and rested just outside of the crane guides on the lower trestles.  From there the shapes of the gallows was drawn in and then the shapes of the wings.  After much erasing and redrawing, I had shapes that fit all of the parameters and tolerances that I needed.

This drawing was finalized, then scanned and copied onto blank paper.  Since there were four gallows pieces, two for each crane, I needed eight identical pieces cut from plastic for the sides.  I first made up the eight blanks with rectangular pieces of 0.040” styrene welded to each other with thin plastic cement.  A simple jig made sure that the inner dimensions between the uprights was consistent and correct.  Small triangles were added to the inner corners as reinforcements as seen in the photos.  Then each gallows drawing was cut from the paper and spray mounted to the plastic blank.  Careful cutting with a sharp blade guided by a metal rule gave me the gallows piece in plastic.  The paper was easily removed with a drop of Goo Gone, a mild solvent.

To make up the thickness of the gallows components four ¼” I-beams were glued to the inner face of one of the gallows pieces.  This not only gave me a consistent thickness, but reinforced the joints between the sheet styrene pieces, rather than relying only on the welding action of the plastic glue.  In a bit of serendipity, using the I-beam across the top gave me a channel in the top that the rolling winches would be mounted on.  Not shown - a second gallows piece was positioned over the I-beams and glued in place.  The open sides were closed in with lengths of styrene strip the width of the I-beam between the two gallows sides.

The wing pieces were made in a similar fashion.  Sixteen wing piece paper outlines were printed out, mounted on sheet styrene, and cut out.  An I-beam was fitted to the straight side of one and a second wing piece glued to the beam to match the first.  In the upper left the sides of the assembly can be seen after being filled in with styrene strip.

Five I-beams of different sizes were all cut to the same length, just a bit longer than the 35’ containers.  A central large beam and two smaller ones at the lower corners connected two of the gallows to each other, forming a strong “U” that slid over the containers and rested on the lower trestles.  Then four of the wing pieces were attached to the upper corners of the gallows and connected to each other with smaller I-beams.  Small pieces of plastic were cut to fit around the lower legs of the gallows representing the control and observation platforms for the cranes.

These assemblies were then detailed with the locking arms, ladders, piping for electric lines or water runoff (I never did figure out which), and some punched discs seen in the photographs.  After painting them tan some black markings were drawn onto the winch channels, then railings were added to the tops of the gallows and around the control platforms.

The winch assembly was put together from some two dozen pieces to build up a moveable platform to match, as best I could figure it out, the less than detailed photographs.  I also had to use some additional common engineering sense for what had to be there, even if I couldn’t see it.  There is a walkway only on the starboard side and behind the two winch control houses.   The windows for the winch houses were cut from black decal film and carefully applied.

Here is the crane mounted on the lower trestles.  In this view you can see the paper applique doors on the winch control houses which had to be there, though I never saw them.  In the enlarged insert, the small black beads that represent the rollers that would allow the winch to run outboard along the channels on top of the gallows.  Similar small wheels were mounted under the legs of the crane to allow it to roll along the lower trestle to pick up containers from any location on the ship.

So here are the pair of cranes, as fitted to the ship, which is now complete. 

The final installment of this build log will focus on the ocean setting and the Cambodian gunboats that captured the ship.  I hope to get it out soon.
 
Until then, stay safe and well.
 
Dan

SS Mayaguez (c. 1975), scale 1:192 by Dan Pariser
 
 
Hi to everyone who followed me from the build log of the restoration of the bone and ivory POW model to this one, and hello to any modeler who might be interested in a completely different subject using completely different materials.  I hope that I can make this build log as informative as the last one.
 
The subject here is the SS Mayaguez, an American container ship that was involved in a famous incident of piracy at sea.  On May 12, 1975, about a week after the fall of Saigon, and a month after the fall of Cambodia (renamed Kampuchea) to the communist Khmer Rouge, Mayaguez was en route from Hong Kong on what was to be a routine voyage.  Travelling through a disputed area, the ship was accosted by a gunboat flying a red flag which fired machine guns and a rocket over the bow.  The ship stopped and was taken over by Kampuchean sailors.  The crew were captured and removed from the ship.  Upon learning of this, American planes were scrambled from nearby bases and photographs of the ship and gunboats were taken as hurried plans were made to recapture the ship and free the crew.
 

 
SS Mayaguez was launched in April 1944 as SS White Falcon, a Maritime Commission C2-S-AJ1 freighter built in North Carolina.  Type C2 ships were all-purpose cargo ships with five holds, but were remarkable for their versatility, speed and fuel economy. U.S. shipyards built 328 of them from 1939 to 1945 similar to this one shown in wartime camouflage. 
 

 
After her service in World War II the ship was sold to Grace Line and carried coffee from South America.  In 1960 she was converted into one of the first all-container ships, with a capacity of 382 boxes below deck plus 96 on deck.
 

 
To do this she was lengthened from 459 feet to 504 by adding a midships section and widened from 63 feet to 74 by adding oddly shaped and angled sponsons on each side.
 

 
  
To support and level the containers on deck above the curved sheer of the hull, structures similar to railroad trestles were built.  Because few ports at the time had equipment built to handle containers the ship was also fitted with two rolling cranes, one forward of the superstructure and one aft, riding on rails mounted on those levelling trestles. 
 

 
The cranes had wings that could hinge up to shuttle the containers out and over the docks and onto or off of waiting trucks or trains.  In this photo the wings are up and extended, while they are down in the prior one.  Notice that these are extended even though they are over the water side.  I suppose that this was done to help balance the ship during loading operations.
 

 
In 1964 the ship was sold to the container line Sea-Land Service and renamed SS Mayaguez after the city in Puerto Rico.  In 1967 she began regular container service in support of US combat forces in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.  After the US withdrawal in 1973 the Mayaguez began sailing a commercial route between Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore.  It was on one of those runs that she was captured.
 
I was recently asked to build a waterline model on an ocean base commemorating the event for the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy museum in their preferred scale of 1/16” = 1’, or 1:192.  As usual, I scoured the internet for plans and images of the ship so my model could be as accurate as possible.  Unfortunately, I could not find any plans of the ship available from after its conversion to work from.  I even contacted Sea-Land, without success, so the project became mostly an exercise in photo interpretation.
 
I found many images, most of which were of only moderate resolution, but all of which gave me some information or viewpoint that let me develop the details.  I did locate a plan of a generic C2 cargo ship which gave me the general outline of the original ship.
 

 
I then located two photos taken by the US Air Force during and just after the incident that were of high resolution and taken from almost exactly overhead on the centerline.  These gave me the outline of the expanded deck which could be combined with the C2 plan and photos of the sponsons to give me a good idea of the final shape of the hull.
 

 
Armed with this information I could lay out the lifts that I would need to build the hull.  I first used Photoshop to resize both the C2 plans and the overhead photos to match the overall dimensions of the model (504 feet x 12 / 192 = 31.5 inches).  On the C2 plans I marked out ½” lifts from below the waterline to the beginning of the upward curve of the sheer of the ship.  A 5/8” tapered wedge at the bow and a similar 3/8” wedge at the stern gave me the basic curve of the deck.
 

 
½” basswood sheets were cut for the lower lifts according to the plans, then attached with wood glue colored black with acrylic paint.  This gave me indelible horizontal guides to guide the shaping process, especially the waterline.  Here the bow has been assembled and the 5/8” sheer wedge has been planed to shape and attached.  The wedge was sanded to a smooth shallow curve and the 1/8” deck piece was cut a bit oversize to allow for adjustment, then secured.
 

 
At the stern the same process was used, just with a flatter wedge.  The raised fore and stern castles were cut to shape from the photo and attached, fairing them to the lower hull.
 
The hardest part of the hull construction was to fashion the sponsons, which had to match the overhang of the deck piece, fit snugly against the curves of the original C2 hull, and match the shapes seen in the photos of the sides of the hull.  They were built up in several pieces, being pinned to the hull temporarily with wooden dowels during shaping.  Several attempts had to be made to get everything to fit, and even here in this photo of my third stern sponson there were problems (notice how the bottom edge of the aft piece is curved and not straight) and the piece was discarded.
 

 
Eventually I learned from my mistakes and the sponsons took on the shapes that I wanted.  Once that was done the entire hull got a thin coating of plaster of paris to seal the wood and fill the larger joints. 
 

 
This layer was mostly sanded off to give me a smooth surface for the first of half a dozen primer coats.  These were individually sanded as well until any small defects were filled and smooth.  The hull then got a color coat of rust resistant red paint below the waterline and a navy blue coat above, as seen in the few color photos.  The deck was also filled and sanded, but left with just the primer coat.
 

 
While this was going on I was also fiddling with the layout and construction of the superstructure.  That will be the subject of the next installment.
 
Until then, be well.
 
Dan

Hello again to all who are following this build. 
 
Sorry to say that it has been almost a year since my last post, but life has a way of interfering with my literary efforts.  I’m happy to say that most of my health issues have resolved, leaving me with just the usual arthritic knees and a creaking hip replacement.   At 72 this is to be expected, I suppose.  As they say, it’s better than the alternative.  But back to the model - -
 
The build log left off with the ship completed – hull, superstructure, and 96 containers on deck.  The only remaining major structures to build were the two rolling cranes that loaded and unloaded the 35’ long containers.  Here is an overall photo of the ship at sea with the cranes set on their rails immediately forward and aft of the superstructure.

In close-up you can see how they straddle the blocks of containers.  The strong framework extends athwartships to the limits of the deck with a winch assembly on top that rolls side to side to lift and move the containers.

From overhead the overall layout of the cranes can be seen.  Obviously, they have to have at least 35’ between the vertical “U” shaped ends so the containers can move outboard without hindrance.  From the photo it is obvious that there is not much clearance, so my cranes had to be built to reflect these tight tolerances.  

Once again the lack of plans of any kind was a bit of a problem.  The layout and exact shapes of the several components of the cranes had to be deduced from the photographs.  To tease these out from the blurry black and white photos was the hardest photo interpretation task of the entire build.  Look at only the left side of the two images below.  This is as good as it got.  After much head scratching and comparing them to each other and to the many other less detailed photos, I was able to draw outlines of the pieces with a reasonable degree of confidence.   These were drawn in red on the photos
Note that the hinge between the central gallows piece and the movable wing piece must be located below the top of the gallows, otherwise they will not fit together with the tops aligned.  I located this where the red dot is, although there is no fitting to be seen on the outside at this point.  Also, I concluded that the vertical posts seen in the upper photo must be attached to the wing piece since they rotate to horizontal in the lower photos.  I have no direct proof, but I think that they must be some part of a locking mechanism that holds the wing up when extended.


With the shapes decided, rightly or not, I cut a piece of thick card stock so the bottoms of the inner vertical edges just cleared the container stacks and rested just outside of the crane guides on the lower trestles.  From there the shapes of the gallows was drawn in and then the shapes of the wings.  After much erasing and redrawing, I had shapes that fit all of the parameters and tolerances that I needed.

This drawing was finalized, then scanned and copied onto blank paper.  Since there were four gallows pieces, two for each crane, I needed eight identical pieces cut from plastic for the sides.  I first made up the eight blanks with rectangular pieces of 0.040” styrene welded to each other with thin plastic cement.  A simple jig made sure that the inner dimensions between the uprights was consistent and correct.  Small triangles were added to the inner corners as reinforcements as seen in the photos.  Then each gallows drawing was cut from the paper and spray mounted to the plastic blank.  Careful cutting with a sharp blade guided by a metal rule gave me the gallows piece in plastic.  The paper was easily removed with a drop of Goo Gone, a mild solvent.

To make up the thickness of the gallows components four ¼” I-beams were glued to the inner face of one of the gallows pieces.  This not only gave me a consistent thickness, but reinforced the joints between the sheet styrene pieces, rather than relying only on the welding action of the plastic glue.  In a bit of serendipity, using the I-beam across the top gave me a channel in the top that the rolling winches would be mounted on.  Not shown - a second gallows piece was positioned over the I-beams and glued in place.  The open sides were closed in with lengths of styrene strip the width of the I-beam between the two gallows sides.

The wing pieces were made in a similar fashion.  Sixteen wing piece paper outlines were printed out, mounted on sheet styrene, and cut out.  An I-beam was fitted to the straight side of one and a second wing piece glued to the beam to match the first.  In the upper left the sides of the assembly can be seen after being filled in with styrene strip.

Five I-beams of different sizes were all cut to the same length, just a bit longer than the 35’ containers.  A central large beam and two smaller ones at the lower corners connected two of the gallows to each other, forming a strong “U” that slid over the containers and rested on the lower trestles.  Then four of the wing pieces were attached to the upper corners of the gallows and connected to each other with smaller I-beams.  Small pieces of plastic were cut to fit around the lower legs of the gallows representing the control and observation platforms for the cranes.

These assemblies were then detailed with the locking arms, ladders, piping for electric lines or water runoff (I never did figure out which), and some punched discs seen in the photographs.  After painting them tan some black markings were drawn onto the winch channels, then railings were added to the tops of the gallows and around the control platforms.

The winch assembly was put together from some two dozen pieces to build up a moveable platform to match, as best I could figure it out, the less than detailed photographs.  I also had to use some additional common engineering sense for what had to be there, even if I couldn’t see it.  There is a walkway only on the starboard side and behind the two winch control houses.   The windows for the winch houses were cut from black decal film and carefully applied.

Here is the crane mounted on the lower trestles.  In this view you can see the paper applique doors on the winch control houses which had to be there, though I never saw them.  In the enlarged insert, the small black beads that represent the rollers that would allow the winch to run outboard along the channels on top of the gallows.  Similar small wheels were mounted under the legs of the crane to allow it to roll along the lower trestle to pick up containers from any location on the ship.

So here are the pair of cranes, as fitted to the ship, which is now complete. 

The final installment of this build log will focus on the ocean setting and the Cambodian gunboats that captured the ship.  I hope to get it out soon.
 
Until then, stay safe and well.
 
Dan

Hello again to all who are following this build. 
 
Sorry to say that it has been almost a year since my last post, but life has a way of interfering with my literary efforts.  I’m happy to say that most of my health issues have resolved, leaving me with just the usual arthritic knees and a creaking hip replacement.   At 72 this is to be expected, I suppose.  As they say, it’s better than the alternative.  But back to the model - -
 
The build log left off with the ship completed – hull, superstructure, and 96 containers on deck.  The only remaining major structures to build were the two rolling cranes that loaded and unloaded the 35’ long containers.  Here is an overall photo of the ship at sea with the cranes set on their rails immediately forward and aft of the superstructure.

In close-up you can see how they straddle the blocks of containers.  The strong framework extends athwartships to the limits of the deck with a winch assembly on top that rolls side to side to lift and move the containers.

From overhead the overall layout of the cranes can be seen.  Obviously, they have to have at least 35’ between the vertical “U” shaped ends so the containers can move outboard without hindrance.  From the photo it is obvious that there is not much clearance, so my cranes had to be built to reflect these tight tolerances.  

Once again the lack of plans of any kind was a bit of a problem.  The layout and exact shapes of the several components of the cranes had to be deduced from the photographs.  To tease these out from the blurry black and white photos was the hardest photo interpretation task of the entire build.  Look at only the left side of the two images below.  This is as good as it got.  After much head scratching and comparing them to each other and to the many other less detailed photos, I was able to draw outlines of the pieces with a reasonable degree of confidence.   These were drawn in red on the photos
Note that the hinge between the central gallows piece and the movable wing piece must be located below the top of the gallows, otherwise they will not fit together with the tops aligned.  I located this where the red dot is, although there is no fitting to be seen on the outside at this point.  Also, I concluded that the vertical posts seen in the upper photo must be attached to the wing piece since they rotate to horizontal in the lower photos.  I have no direct proof, but I think that they must be some part of a locking mechanism that holds the wing up when extended.


With the shapes decided, rightly or not, I cut a piece of thick card stock so the bottoms of the inner vertical edges just cleared the container stacks and rested just outside of the crane guides on the lower trestles.  From there the shapes of the gallows was drawn in and then the shapes of the wings.  After much erasing and redrawing, I had shapes that fit all of the parameters and tolerances that I needed.

This drawing was finalized, then scanned and copied onto blank paper.  Since there were four gallows pieces, two for each crane, I needed eight identical pieces cut from plastic for the sides.  I first made up the eight blanks with rectangular pieces of 0.040” styrene welded to each other with thin plastic cement.  A simple jig made sure that the inner dimensions between the uprights was consistent and correct.  Small triangles were added to the inner corners as reinforcements as seen in the photos.  Then each gallows drawing was cut from the paper and spray mounted to the plastic blank.  Careful cutting with a sharp blade guided by a metal rule gave me the gallows piece in plastic.  The paper was easily removed with a drop of Goo Gone, a mild solvent.

To make up the thickness of the gallows components four ¼” I-beams were glued to the inner face of one of the gallows pieces.  This not only gave me a consistent thickness, but reinforced the joints between the sheet styrene pieces, rather than relying only on the welding action of the plastic glue.  In a bit of serendipity, using the I-beam across the top gave me a channel in the top that the rolling winches would be mounted on.  Not shown - a second gallows piece was positioned over the I-beams and glued in place.  The open sides were closed in with lengths of styrene strip the width of the I-beam between the two gallows sides.

The wing pieces were made in a similar fashion.  Sixteen wing piece paper outlines were printed out, mounted on sheet styrene, and cut out.  An I-beam was fitted to the straight side of one and a second wing piece glued to the beam to match the first.  In the upper left the sides of the assembly can be seen after being filled in with styrene strip.

Five I-beams of different sizes were all cut to the same length, just a bit longer than the 35’ containers.  A central large beam and two smaller ones at the lower corners connected two of the gallows to each other, forming a strong “U” that slid over the containers and rested on the lower trestles.  Then four of the wing pieces were attached to the upper corners of the gallows and connected to each other with smaller I-beams.  Small pieces of plastic were cut to fit around the lower legs of the gallows representing the control and observation platforms for the cranes.

These assemblies were then detailed with the locking arms, ladders, piping for electric lines or water runoff (I never did figure out which), and some punched discs seen in the photographs.  After painting them tan some black markings were drawn onto the winch channels, then railings were added to the tops of the gallows and around the control platforms.

The winch assembly was put together from some two dozen pieces to build up a moveable platform to match, as best I could figure it out, the less than detailed photographs.  I also had to use some additional common engineering sense for what had to be there, even if I couldn’t see it.  There is a walkway only on the starboard side and behind the two winch control houses.   The windows for the winch houses were cut from black decal film and carefully applied.

Here is the crane mounted on the lower trestles.  In this view you can see the paper applique doors on the winch control houses which had to be there, though I never saw them.  In the enlarged insert, the small black beads that represent the rollers that would allow the winch to run outboard along the channels on top of the gallows.  Similar small wheels were mounted under the legs of the crane to allow it to roll along the lower trestle to pick up containers from any location on the ship.

So here are the pair of cranes, as fitted to the ship, which is now complete. 

The final installment of this build log will focus on the ocean setting and the Cambodian gunboats that captured the ship.  I hope to get it out soon.
 
Until then, stay safe and well.
 
Dan

Hello again to all who are following this build. 
 
Sorry to say that it has been almost a year since my last post, but life has a way of interfering with my literary efforts.  I’m happy to say that most of my health issues have resolved, leaving me with just the usual arthritic knees and a creaking hip replacement.   At 72 this is to be expected, I suppose.  As they say, it’s better than the alternative.  But back to the model - -
 
The build log left off with the ship completed – hull, superstructure, and 96 containers on deck.  The only remaining major structures to build were the two rolling cranes that loaded and unloaded the 35’ long containers.  Here is an overall photo of the ship at sea with the cranes set on their rails immediately forward and aft of the superstructure.

In close-up you can see how they straddle the blocks of containers.  The strong framework extends athwartships to the limits of the deck with a winch assembly on top that rolls side to side to lift and move the containers.

From overhead the overall layout of the cranes can be seen.  Obviously, they have to have at least 35’ between the vertical “U” shaped ends so the containers can move outboard without hindrance.  From the photo it is obvious that there is not much clearance, so my cranes had to be built to reflect these tight tolerances.  

Once again the lack of plans of any kind was a bit of a problem.  The layout and exact shapes of the several components of the cranes had to be deduced from the photographs.  To tease these out from the blurry black and white photos was the hardest photo interpretation task of the entire build.  Look at only the left side of the two images below.  This is as good as it got.  After much head scratching and comparing them to each other and to the many other less detailed photos, I was able to draw outlines of the pieces with a reasonable degree of confidence.   These were drawn in red on the photos
Note that the hinge between the central gallows piece and the movable wing piece must be located below the top of the gallows, otherwise they will not fit together with the tops aligned.  I located this where the red dot is, although there is no fitting to be seen on the outside at this point.  Also, I concluded that the vertical posts seen in the upper photo must be attached to the wing piece since they rotate to horizontal in the lower photos.  I have no direct proof, but I think that they must be some part of a locking mechanism that holds the wing up when extended.


With the shapes decided, rightly or not, I cut a piece of thick card stock so the bottoms of the inner vertical edges just cleared the container stacks and rested just outside of the crane guides on the lower trestles.  From there the shapes of the gallows was drawn in and then the shapes of the wings.  After much erasing and redrawing, I had shapes that fit all of the parameters and tolerances that I needed.

This drawing was finalized, then scanned and copied onto blank paper.  Since there were four gallows pieces, two for each crane, I needed eight identical pieces cut from plastic for the sides.  I first made up the eight blanks with rectangular pieces of 0.040” styrene welded to each other with thin plastic cement.  A simple jig made sure that the inner dimensions between the uprights was consistent and correct.  Small triangles were added to the inner corners as reinforcements as seen in the photos.  Then each gallows drawing was cut from the paper and spray mounted to the plastic blank.  Careful cutting with a sharp blade guided by a metal rule gave me the gallows piece in plastic.  The paper was easily removed with a drop of Goo Gone, a mild solvent.

To make up the thickness of the gallows components four ¼” I-beams were glued to the inner face of one of the gallows pieces.  This not only gave me a consistent thickness, but reinforced the joints between the sheet styrene pieces, rather than relying only on the welding action of the plastic glue.  In a bit of serendipity, using the I-beam across the top gave me a channel in the top that the rolling winches would be mounted on.  Not shown - a second gallows piece was positioned over the I-beams and glued in place.  The open sides were closed in with lengths of styrene strip the width of the I-beam between the two gallows sides.

The wing pieces were made in a similar fashion.  Sixteen wing piece paper outlines were printed out, mounted on sheet styrene, and cut out.  An I-beam was fitted to the straight side of one and a second wing piece glued to the beam to match the first.  In the upper left the sides of the assembly can be seen after being filled in with styrene strip.

Five I-beams of different sizes were all cut to the same length, just a bit longer than the 35’ containers.  A central large beam and two smaller ones at the lower corners connected two of the gallows to each other, forming a strong “U” that slid over the containers and rested on the lower trestles.  Then four of the wing pieces were attached to the upper corners of the gallows and connected to each other with smaller I-beams.  Small pieces of plastic were cut to fit around the lower legs of the gallows representing the control and observation platforms for the cranes.

These assemblies were then detailed with the locking arms, ladders, piping for electric lines or water runoff (I never did figure out which), and some punched discs seen in the photographs.  After painting them tan some black markings were drawn onto the winch channels, then railings were added to the tops of the gallows and around the control platforms.

The winch assembly was put together from some two dozen pieces to build up a moveable platform to match, as best I could figure it out, the less than detailed photographs.  I also had to use some additional common engineering sense for what had to be there, even if I couldn’t see it.  There is a walkway only on the starboard side and behind the two winch control houses.   The windows for the winch houses were cut from black decal film and carefully applied.

Here is the crane mounted on the lower trestles.  In this view you can see the paper applique doors on the winch control houses which had to be there, though I never saw them.  In the enlarged insert, the small black beads that represent the rollers that would allow the winch to run outboard along the channels on top of the gallows.  Similar small wheels were mounted under the legs of the crane to allow it to roll along the lower trestle to pick up containers from any location on the ship.

So here are the pair of cranes, as fitted to the ship, which is now complete. 

The final installment of this build log will focus on the ocean setting and the Cambodian gunboats that captured the ship.  I hope to get it out soon.
 
Until then, stay safe and well.
 
Dan

Hello again to all –
 
Thanks for all the likes and comments.  Keep them coming.
 
Sorry for the long delay since my last post.  I have been fighting a long covid problem that gives me bronchitis which makes me cough, especially at night, so I am having a lot of trouble sleeping.  Also I have had cataract surgery on both eyes, which has interfered with writing this blog.
 
But enough about me – back to the model.
 
At the end of the last segment I had completed the basic structure of the hull and was proceeding to work out the superstructure.  This began, as with the rest of the model, with a careful examination of the photographs of the ship.  Fortunately there were a few images of high resolution like this one of the entire ship.
 

 
Once enlarged I got a good, if a little fuzzy, picture of the 5 decks and deck houses of the superstructure.  I was able to tease out some sense of the complex shapes of the various decks and overhangs.  Porthole, door, and stairway locations can be seen, as well as the fact that the top deck house is taller than all the others.
 

 
In this slightly clearer image I could start the actual analysis of the dimensions and relationships of the shapes that can be seen.  I started with the assumption that the original superstructure footprint had been retained, which is the lowest deck house with the curved fillets on either side.  Then, when the hull was widened by 8 feet on each side, some changes were made.  The supports for the lifeboat davits had to be built out and supported by pillars reaching to the outer edge of the deck.  There is an overhang to the right of the lifeboat that extends to the new deck edge and is supported by three diagonal braces.  The bridge wings had to be extended, and a number of other small details all had to be changed.
 

 
These images and analysis was integrated with the information from the overhead photos of the ship taken during the incident and rescue, such as this one from just after the recapture.
 

 
The image was enlarged and straightened out to give a top view that could be worked with.  Always being aware that the image is not precisely taken from directly overhead, I could make out many more details, such as the stairways marked with the red arrows.  Hours of staring at these images, individually and collectively, were needed to determine what the various elements and details were.  I am still not 100% sure of all of them, and even where I am sure of the shape of things, I am not sure of their purpose.  But since this is for the US Merchant Marine Academy, it is good enough for government work.
 

 
Other images which were not full pictures of the decks and deck houses also informed a number of details of railings, stairways, overhangs, supports, etc.  Here, for example, is one of the Marines taking control of the ship.  I would not have seen the tall ventilator/filter under the stairs at the side of the bridge except for this picture.
 

 
So, taking all the information in hand, I laid out the shape of the lowest deck house over the top image.
 

 
Using this as my basic starting point I laid on the shapes of the stairway platforms and lifeboat davit supports to the first level.  Then using the relationships seen in the photos, I drew on the shapes of the second and third decks, deck houses, and overhangs in contrasting colors, giving this image.
 

 
Based on these drawings I cut ½” planks of basswood to the shapes of the deck houses (less 0.04” all around) and sheathed them with 0.02” styrene (restoring the full sizes).  The decks were cut to the full size of the deck houses and painted grey before being edged with styrene.  This gave a pleasing delineation to the decks, which can be seen in the photos.  The edges extended just a bit above the deck level, making a lip that anchored the photoetched railings when they were added later.  Portholes are the brass dollhouse electric circuit pieces, while the handrails are 0.015” round rod.  Here the superstructure stack is about half done, with all the upper details still to be done.
 

 
Here is an enlarged shot of some of the details.  Notice the diagonal supports for the overhangs of the second deck and bridge wing.  The railings and stairways are photoetched brass from Gold Medal Models’ ocean liner set.  It is expensive, but makes for a very convincing impression when painted, folded and installed.
 

 
The railings come in long frets four scale feet tall (1/4”) with horizontal rails numbering from one to five to be used as needed.  The photos of the ship show that the railings mostly have three rails, so these were the frets that were used.  They were spray painted gloss white before being cut apart.  Unfortunately the paint was a bit brittle, so it chipped off when bent, as can be seen in the last photo, but that was easily touched up later.
 

 
The stairways come as part of a larger fret with hooks, steering wheels, etc.  They have a central length of steps flanked by angled wings for the side railings.  They come in three different lengths.  Mostly the middle length was used, but occasionally the short or long ones were needed for a particular location.  Small adjustments to length were made by trimming the bottom of the stairways.
 

 
The basic stairway is made by bending up the wings of the piece to form the railings at either side of the steps (left image).  But this is meant for use on the ocean liners, so it is wider and less steep than the stairways on merchant ships.  To make them steeper the railings are pressed down towards the steps till the supporting posts are vertical when the stairs are at the steeper angle (middle image).  Where the stairs had to be narrow, one side railing and some of the width of the steps was cut off and the stairs supported by an added strip of styrene (right image).    
 

 
Work continued on the superstructure with detail added as they were identified in the photos.  Note the cross supports between the lower and upper bridge wings and the fact that the front facing of the upper bride wing is taller at the bridge house than it is at the outer end.  The funnel has now been sheathed and is set in place so I could determine the location and size of the many details on the upper decks.
 

 
While this analysis and work on the superstructure continued I was also starting to puzzle out the size and shape of the 96 containers that had to be installed on deck, and how to build them in a reasonably efficient manner.  This will be the topic of the next segment.
 
Till then, may your health be better than mine.
 
Dan