Javelin

You know I had my reservations about that base, but looking at the forward side of it, and with the wooden cupboard/table underneath I really love it! The mod podge-beach idea really looks nice as well. So comes the eternal question: How are you going to make anything more impressive?

Here is a picture in her old SCV role with a "typical" load, a piece of oil exploration equipment, on deck. This is one of many structures that are placed on the seabed inside an oil field. Since we seem to be recommending movies around here nowadays, in this case the 2024 movie "Last Breath", featuring Woody Harrelson is worth watching. Not strictly subsea construction related, but gives a good idea of how important that Dynamic Positioning is and also some background on everything that's going on on the seabed. On to the model. The carousel got its primer. The vessels had additional putty and spray putty applied. On Viking Neptun, I now sanded her with fine grit sanding paper, cut out the recesses for the anchors and started drilling portholes. Will probably continue detailing the sides, scribing lines etc. before continuing to primer, then white and finally the yellow-green. Haven't determined yet if I'll add the wooden landing areas and rubber bar fenders on the side of the vessel before spraying the primer or after... During drying of both vessels, I also proceeded on the auxiliary crane. I believe her main hoist is 100T SWL, also with a wire length of 3000m. It also has a lighter auxiliary hoist. The main hoist does have its wire on a big drum on the back of the crane itself. In different pictures of the real vessel you will see the crane jib rests and even the auxiliary crane itself, are being moved around on deck. This is done during preparation of projects (called mobilisations) and adds to the cost of such offshore projects.

1) I agree, might be water running down, but not entirely sure where from/to 2) I believe that is actually one of the paddles of the wheel coming up, but dark due to the lighting/ shadow 3) hadn't noticed that detail.... seems a bit exposed for an oil pipe, but then in those days.... 4) 🤣

Took these before your request, but I will put something in front in the future. She's not that small, since the real ship is quite large (about 50% longer) than Scheldt River. Also the Lange Wapper is a larger hopper dredger. In any case, first sacrificial coat of spray primer is applied to both vessels now. I also continued a bit on the main crane. The main crane is designed for subsea construction. She's a knuckle boom crane with a 400T wotk load. She has a main wire of 126mm diameter, which is really big. I'm used to work with 86mm wires and those weigh 30kg per meter of length, I'm curious what this 126mm version weighs. Since she needs to reach the bottom of a large part of the ocean with it, the wire has a length of 3000m (3km)! It is therefore stored under deck on a huge winch and passes through the pedestal up. The smaller drum at the top of the pedestal is the auxiliary wire with "only" 100T Safe Work Load (SWL). As you can see on the above shots, she will require a little more sanding and puttying.

Not entirely sure on those springboards, I actually believe these beams were holding her off the shore. I mean ropes are making sure you don't go off a quay, but what is keeping her away from shore when there is no quay? She'd run aground if the wind came from the sea side... I believe that door on Billy might have been used when she was alongside the quay or sailing without the barge. Having the door open and have a gangway/plank straight into the door opening. Luckily you mention it's a sternwheeler as I keep thinking those wheels are at the bow... I believe it's due to the funnels being forward of the wheel house. Looking at that last picture, it looks like the real exhaust is sticking out between the wheels (lighter vertical object), with the planks around it blackened by soot (blurry darker area), so your assumption that the engine could be between the wheels is probably right. Or am I seeing things here?

So, finally got to the stage of putting epoxy putty on them. Now on to some hours of sanding and probably filling some smaller pits. In the meanwhile I started work on the carousel. First tried to get the proper dimension by turning a piece of PVC pipe I had laying around, but the dimensions were still just too large and thick, so I eventually built it up from a disc with 0.3mm side shell. As you can see, it's not perfectly round (slightly pointy on the right), so I decided to make it look as if it is partially filled with cable. Put some filler bars on the bottom and then forced in another disc, somewhere midway. By gluing the shell to that disc, it did become nice and cylindrical. I then tried to put copper wires to get the horizontal stiffeners. However, the amount of vertical stiffeners was goint to cost a lot of time... So, since laziness is the mother of invention, I went to check some fly screen netting. It seemed quite right, thickness not too much, vertical spacing perfect. All I needed to do was cut out every other vertical stanchion. It's not perfect, but better than a bland looking wall. It'll all be painted white after all. Both vessels will now be sanded and continued until I can apply some spray filler/primer. Then their paths will diverge again.

From someone who made the same mistakes (see topic on LPG tanker Chaconia), I can give you one advice. Either start over on that hull starting from the beginning and make those frames again, but perfect this time. Or, less optimal, carry on, the way you are going now, but continue with filling and sanding untill it truly is perfect. Use primer layers to spot the bumps and dents. I do fear the wobly hull will always show through though. Filler can only do so much. The reason I'm saying this, is that such ships are a long process and your skills evolve during construction. In the end you're building good details etc, but still on a less-than-perfect hull, and it's going to bother you, believe me 🙄. That said, at least you took on a rare scratchbuild project and got started (that's better than 99.9% of people). If you finish it, people will certainly admire it, unable to understand how you pulled it off.

Beautiful work Phil, these different colored details really stand out and make the real difference between a good model and an excellent model!

Not talking about booms for lowering the boats, but booms for entering them. Like ones seen on HMS Formidable here: HMS Formidable Sailors would crawl along the boom to the ladders length towards ladders, the boats would be moored side by side along the boom below the ladders. As mentioned I'm not entirely sure. You also see the boom on Formidable is mounted on the hull side rather than on deck. But I don't think it's impossible.

Given their position in relation to the boats's position, I'd also say they are the booms to moor and embark the boats. They also seem to be long enough to serve that purpose. Regarding rigging to deploy and stow them, no idea. Perhaps connected near the upper stowage support?

Thanks Paul. A litte more about that real ship. This is not relevant for this build, since this is a waterline model. (perhaps for a future racecar red version?). What makes her somewhat special for a modern offshore DYnamic Positioning vessel is her rather conventional propulsion. Where most vessels in these classes are relying purely on azipods/twin pods etc. Basically propellors that can be turned 360°, Viking Neptun has a conventional twin propellor-twin rudder propulsion. In addition, she has 2 regular bow thrusters, 3 stern thrusters and just behind the bow thrusters, 2 retractable azipod thrusters. That's a lot of power and thrusters to hold position and heading. You don't want to tangle lines 2km below the waterline... As mentioned, a lot of them are simply redundant, so that in case of failure of one thruster, or a complete power production unit, she can still maintain that position and heading. As a disadvantage, this means all engines and thrusters need to run during DP operation, which means the engines are continuously running at very low power, which they really don't like. In above picture you can see the rudders are of the Becker type, which means there is an additional piece that hinges in the same direction as the rudder, this doubles the effect of the rudder, so a 10° rudder angle on this type of rudder equals a 20° angle on a normal rudder. They can also often be used at greater angles, creating a nearly 90° deflection. The propellers are variable pitch propellors, the blades can rotate hydraulically, to change the thrust while keeping the same rpm. This means they are less efficient (compared to fixed pitch) for pure sailing, but makes the vessel much easier to manoeuvre. As for the model, this may be the last post for a while as I've come at the point where I have to smoothen the hull with Milliput epoxy filler (followed by a coat of spray filler). However, before I do that, I need to bring the second hull to a similar state, so I can apply the filler on both hulls at the same time. Looking at it today, I noticed I underestimated the complexity of the second hull, meaning I will need to progress it much further than expected. I also closed the side galleries for the rescue boats on Viking Neptun. The pedestal is only dry fitted, it'll be in the way for filler application and sanding afterwards. The bridge and level below are also only roughly shaped. They'll have to wait until the hulls are ready.

Yes, something will: group pressure from our crowd, and that includes ALL of the penguins! @gsdpic solved most of the conceptual issues. If you're not going tu use that idea, I just might...

I'm with Johny! Brilliant result Glen! It looks even better than I'd imagined when she was still out of the bottle. The scale, including flame nicely fills that bottle. It's a perfect fit really!

Amazing work Phil. A very complicated subject that I wouldn't even tackle with all materials available, let alone when limited to card/paper. A great accomplishment by any measure!

Congratulations on finishing another build Keith. That weathering is gorgeous and nearly perfect (nothing can ever be really perfect, can it?). They look great together! And a big thank you to keep this place alive. Your high pace of building and posting, gives all of us a good reason to daily visit this place (and have a good laugh from time to time)!