Brian Falke

In a couple of the views, you will notice a notch out section on the main deck forward of the fantail. That space is for the magnetic cable reel. My intention at the time was to leave the aft door to the mag cable reel open so that the reel could be seen. This was how we steamed around and in port. That door was always open. My intention was to build the model as I remember the ship, its uniqueness. The notch amidships is for the mast

With plans and material (decided on basswood), I next had to determine whether to build the hull from a solid piece or plank-on-frame. As a youngster my whittling skills were poor to be kind, and I am sure they did not improve over the years. I do have a background in construction, and the plank-on-frame seemed to suit me best. The Booklet of General Plans is 1/8 = 1'0" scale (1:96) so I could compare the keel and frames directly to the drawings. I used 1/8" bass wood for the keel and frames. Here is how it turned out:

Ok, where to start? First my motivation and why such an obscure ship. This was my first sea assignment right after commissioning from the Naval Academy. I spent two combined years on ENGAGE and IMPERVIOUS. The entire crew transferred from ENGAGE to IMPERVIOUS for Desert Storm. Being the first (you never forget your first 😉 ), ENGAGE holds a special place in my heart. It was a tough ship to be on, the crew truly lived up to the mantra "Wooden Ships, Iron Men". The ships hull was leaky and oil soaked, so as the Damage Control Assistant, I constantly worried about flooding or fire - either one and the ship was going to go fast. On IMPERVIOUS we actually conducted mine clearance operations in live minefields - very nerve wracking. That is why I chose a MSO, and why I chose ENGAGE. The attached photo of ENGAGE is from December 1991, right after her decommissioning. As you can see the pilot house port holes and bridge windows are all boarded up and the anchor chain is rigged for tow. She was to depart the next day for Philadelphia, PA. Because this was such an obscure ship, there is not a lot of ship build information out there on MSOs. Fortunately, in 2007 I was assigned to a command which had a lot, and I mean a lot of mine warfare historical documents. One of those documents was the BUSHIPS Booklet of General Plans for MSO 441 (pictures attached). This got me started. The General Plans were great for profiles and deck layout, but one thing missing from the plans were the hull lines. Searching through the internet, I was able to find a set of hull lines for a MSO, but they were not to scale. After much manipulation and trial and error, I was finally able to get those plans to scale (or at least extremely close). With a good starting point, I set out on my adventure. It was January 2008.

Hi! I am excited that I stumbled upon this website now. I am currently close to finishing up my first scratch model (which I will document in the log later) which is my second ship model. The first was a small sailboat kit (photo attached). The scratch model is the USS ENGAGE (MSO 433). ENGAGE was my first ship out of the Naval Academy, so it has a special place in my heart. I started the model in January 2008 and I am down to the final details today. I have attached a picture of its current state of build. The reason it has taken over 11 years to complete is many, but now I have the time to finish this one and start on the next and I am hoping to find a lot of great advice and support here as the next one is the USS CONSTITUTION from a kit.