Javelin

Great job again Glen! Very instructive. Continue like this and you'll create a whole horde of SIB builders over here!

She's finally finished. I put some pics in the gallery. Thanks Mike. Hope somebody can learn from my experiments. I guess in most cases it's not such an issue since the epoxy stays in the sturdy box/bottle in which it is poured. I removed the bounderies, which was perhaps done too early, creating this bending. It's not a disaster as I could still hide it with the base, but I'll take it in consideration for future builds.

Great job on those ratlines Keith. You're getting there, piece by piece.

And finally found some time for the pictures of last week's work. Small reminder of that crane, not entirely finished, but gives an idea of how great an idea it was to use it as a handle to lift that hatch... Now on to the solution. I used a bolt with washer, M6, since I didn't really find an M4 in the store, and M6 would still fit after all. I then decided to basically do the same as my original idea, except that in this case the crane pedestal would be the cover of the assembly. This does mean I need to remove the crane for lifting the hatch, but I believe it's safer for the crane's integrity. Since the top and pedestal will be glued together and the jib will rest in the jib rest, the direction of the pedestal will be correct as well. Due to the relatively long piece below the nut, the crane pedestal will fit snugly on top and will not move when the vessel is underway. I had to machine that part a bit to make it fit, but it's now both tight, yet loose enough to comfortably lift the crane off. In the first picture, with the full crane, it's actually already mounted on top of the nut-bolt assembly. So in order to remove the hatch, I will now grab that piece of threaded bar to lift the aft side of the hatch. (still need to test that though). And finally I also installed the branches of the IG line towards tank 3, meaning that part is finished as well. Time to start extending all the stanchions for the catwalk. Not something I look forward to, but has to be done before going to the next layer of piping.

As you may have noticed, those last bits really are tough for me... Finally took a decision on finishing this one. As you can see in one of the last pics, the epoxy seems to have lifted the corners of the dio, not entirely sure where that shrinkage came from, since in older pics you can see it was nicely flat on the bottom. That said, I had a few options, one of them was to place the casing, then follow the edges of the dio bottom while applying acrylic-sand mixture on the casing walls. The other option, the one I actually used, was building up a border around the casing, with the border following the contour of the dio bottom and then filling up to that edge with acrylic-sand mixture. This option would be a bit more difficult, but would allow the casing to be removed (and replaced if required, not too happy with the whole thing, few glue accidents etc. on that case). So once it was decided to go for that border, I built it. Then painted the inside brown (ochre with some black) and applied a mixture of acrylic gel with ochre-black mixture. The reason for the difference is that I didn't want to put the sand/acrylic on paint, with the shrinkage of the acrylic, it might loosen the paint from the border. By mixing the paint with acrylic, it would be an acrylic-acrylic adhesion which seemed less risky to me... I wanted some colour on the border as I'm not sure the sand would cover everything, and with a white styrene background that would be too obvious. And then applied the mixture around it. And now the curved bottom is a lot less obvious and the case is still removable. I'm already a lot happier than before. One or two more coats of the sand mixture to blend the whole thing in and then a nameplate. I decided, with help from my better half, to cut a negative stencil to apply on the forward black edge of the base. Not sure which colour I'll use for that, probably yellow-green or blue, with, due to the background, black letters. The curve on the forward part are not that extreme that would interfere with the readability of that text. As you can see in above picture, the case has caught a lot of dust already since it's still standing in my workshop close to the Chaconia, which I'm currently building. Hopefully soon a set of final pictures.

Thanks guys. Took her out for a spin last weekend, finally some better weather over here. All is still operational, but no pics since I was too busy controlling the vessel with some wind in very confined waters. I did discover some issues though. First I didn't remember how to mount the ballast, so I need to mark it for next time. That wasn't the biggest issue though. The hatch went on and off quite ok when setting everything up. However I had the habit of going with my arm through the hole below the accomodation block to pop the aft edge of the hatch up and the tilted it out. When she's in the water and ballasted, I can't pass that way because the ballast and battery are in the way. In the past I grabbed the compressor room, slightly lifted the hatch and then grabbed the aft edge, with the new detailing, that became quite risky. I had a small hole foreseen underneath the crane pedestal with the aim to put an M4 threadbar through it, squeezing the deck and pedestal together, with the nut inside the jib base at the top of the pedestal. This way I'd be sure it was strong enough to lift the hatch without solely relying on glue and plastic. This has proven impossible, since the jib base is off center and too small. Using the reinforced detailed crane as a handle to lift the hatch probably wasn't such a great idea anyway. I came up with a new idea, which I'll show soon. Didn't have much time to continue construction last week, but did make some progress.

Gorgeous work Ian, such vessels have sparked my interest in shipping during my childhood. Love your solution for the rudders, looks very convincing. Perhaps a coat of matt varnish would solve the satin issue? However I like the satin finish, nothing really wrong with it.

Thanks for the comments and likes. How do I keep that straight? One of the most important tricks (but I hadn't applied it from the beginning unfortunately) is not going progressively from one side to another, but instead doing first one side, then the other side to get two fixed points. Afterwards you use a ruler or something straight to line up everything in between. I used that in several different iterations on the manifold area. I first did the support beams and then used straight lines to mount the supports in between. Similarly I first fixed the liquid manifold lines and used those two flanges to line up all the flanges in between. This week it's a small update. I had to build the level gauges for the tanks as well as the bulkhead valve handles, all for the pump domes. As mentioned somewhere before, the tanks are in fact mostly split in two, a Portside and Starboard side on each tank. They can be connected by a valve at the bottom, the bulkhead valve. This also means both halves have their own level gauge, which makes 6 in total. 10 years ago I had made 1 level gauge, then made 5 supports, but never got to finishing them. Lucky for me at this point, since I had less job to do to actually finish them. I did decide to go for some additional detailing now. The bulkhead valves I wanted to leave off entirely back when I started this build. Now I did decide they 'd make a good addition to add to the clutter (and therefore realism of the model). You can see the level gauges and bulkhead valve handle between the two pumps. The pumps themselves are just shapes for now. Dry fitted. Since I've moved up to the top layers on the manifold, it's time to also go up on the rest of the vessel. The pumps and pump domes themselves are now the next point of attention to finalize. You can also see a lot of pencil marks on deck, that's not sloppiness (for once), they are actually marks for additional details. Most of them were already built, but I'm keeping them off to have more space to work (mostly to rest my hand/fingers during installation of other parts). I suppose I'm nearly at the point where they will be installed. The last major point on the cargo system is the Inert Gas line. The forward part was finished, but not the aft part. There is big blower with heating on the aft. Bending the pipe with this kind of diameter is difficult, that's why I probably didn't finish it in the past. The blower was made, the straight piece of IG line was made, but nothing was connected. I was lucky I didn't fix that long part of pipe, since I had adjust a few things to make it all fit. Once this part is fixed, I need to make the connections to vapour dome 3 and then it's finally finished. The damage mark on the aft of the tank dome is from a detail that got knocked off long ago. It'll be mounted again once the pumps are installed, since again I will need some access to the aft of those pumps. I will now admit what I know for quite a while now. The stanchions for the catwalk are all too short... I noticed it when I was building the manifold upper layer. There should be more space between the catwalk and the upper pipes, some other pipes need to be on top of those pipes, below the catwalk, and as it is now, that's not possible. Additionally the manifold valve actuators should be lower than the catwalk bottom and as it is now, they aren't. The difference is around 3-4mm, so can't be really ignored. I've been devising a solution where I will install reversed U-shapes on the inside of the L-shaped supports, but haven't gotten too far in planning that. I'm also slowly changing my mind and I'll probably build the catwalks up on the vessel itself instead of building it off the ship and try to install it as one piece.

Tagging along with great intrest as usual. In your epoxy setup, I see you tied up the hose to something underneath it, is that a metal guide to make it hold that bend? Interesting way with the gaffs and booms, need to remember that. That said, it's often easier to drill the hole first and then taper the rod, depending on which way you use for tapering.

And shorter, as you can see on the above drawing, the side of the boat rests against the fender on the davit arm when inboard. The hanging point, tip of the davit arm, is in the middle (transversally) of the boat. You'll have to shorten the arm so that the tip is half of the boat width outboard of that fender. Hope my explanation makes sense...

Hi Keith, I actually fully agree with Kuparu on this one. Hadn't thought of that before, since echosounders are normally keel mounted on big ships, but there's no space for that on this one. The cap forward of it, is probably installed to deflect bubbles created by the bow wave, a common issue on echo sounders. On big ships, with larger drafts, there's no cap, but they are mounted more aft (relative to the bow) than on Cangarda.

Time for another update as I'm finally finishing that manifold area, something I hadn't even thought possible apart from the very start of this model. I was waiting for yellow paint to arrive, so I continued with the dreaded last line on the booster-heater system. The line ran below the rest, then came up, turned over to finally arrive at the discharge. Quite a puzzle of mounting, fitting, adjusting etc. Then the yellow paint arrived, so I could finish the vapour lines on the manifold, fix them in place and start working on that last crucial Inert Gas line. Below was my initially bent pipe, bent around 10 years ago without really having anything else apart from the plan. You can see what I mean with having the distances between the lines symmetrical and having the pipes themselves parallel. This line clearly needed some adjustment, but bending it from one piece and matching all criteria is quite impossible. After clipping the longitudinal part and adjusting its length: And overview of the manifold. Vapour lines and IG line are also connected to the longitudinal pipes in the pipe rack. I left a little distance between the booster system and the High Pressure line, since the High Pressure line is on the hatch, while the booster system is on the vessel. In order to avoid damage, I've noticed that you can't quite make good joints, so leaving a little distance between should prevent some collisions between parts while opening the hatch. The small gap will probably be hardly visible since there will be a piece of catwalk above it after all. You can also see the instrumentation boxes behind the HP line. It took me a while to line them up as 2 feet are on the vessel, while the box itself is connected to 2 feet on the hatch. I haven't removed the hatch for quite a while, it's time to do that now since I need to fix the supports of the aft catwalk from the piping downward. I expect some adjustments to be made to avoid collisions during opening/closing of the hatch. In the last two pics you can also see the shape of the cargo pump upper parts. They'll be covered in the green tarpaulin, like the booster pump motors, so they are just roughly shapes, while the tarp will be glued over them with some small ropes to hold it (like the real thing). I think I'll use a light coloured sewing thread for that.

The detail you're looking for, is near the starboard bow, just above the keel. You can see it on the head-on shot you posted on the first page. No idea what it would be, but I'd guess some outlet and perhaps the sewage plant discharge straight down? Would indeed be interesting to see the internal layout in that area.

How could I have missed this? I only seem to notice your new builds when I see them in your signature. You really outdid yourself on those wheels. This will be a stunner again!

Hi Nils, here you go, Colregs Annex 1.5 Colregs Annex 1 In point 5 it says: " 5. Screens for sidelights The sidelights of vessels of 20 m or more in length shall be fitted with inboard screens painted matt black, and meeting the requirements of section 9 of this annex. On vessels of less than 20 m in length the sidelights, if necessary to meet the requirements of section 9 of this annex, shall be fitted with inboard matt black screens. With a combined lantern, using a single vertical filament and a very narrow division between the green and red sections, external screens need not be fitted." As mentioned, I do not know when this particular requirement was written in the rules or where it originated before that. On the other side, your light vessel did operate until well after the Colreg implementation, so I do believe they would retroactively adapt to these rules.

Great progress again Nils. Although an old vessel, I do believe she would follow Colreg regulations, which stipulate that the background of navigation lights should be matt black. Only the glass of the lights is coloured red/green/yellow. This is to avoid reflections in unwanted directions. I believe you can still correct it, although it will hardly be visible in the end result, going by the magazine cover in your first post in this topic. Not sure when that rule came into effect though.

Very sharp planking and that tone of wood with those sharp hull lines makes for a very classy appearance.

There he goes again. Interesting choice of subject!

Very sharp construction and painting. She will definately fit in a museum when finished.

Waited to respond until I had something to show. Sorry for trying to put years of operations and many courses and manuals in a single post... I guess that was a bit much. In any case, as mentioned before, the first liquid line was the hardest as I had to line it out, get a good length etc. Once this one was done (and for those paying attention, in the last picture it had already its end flanges and orange painted extremities in place), I could continue with the others. I was very reluctant to glue it in place, due to so many things that need to line up at one time, that I didn't glue it in place for a long time. Although I wanted to continue aft with the vapor line next to my finished liquid line, I decided not to do that. Although everything is far from perfect, I had a feeling that the longitudinal distance between the manifold flanges would be very important for the overall view of the model. I therefore went ahead with the aft liquid line. Once that was done, I could go towards the center and make sure those distances were at least symmetrical. Again everything was laying dry fitted for a very long time, until I was sure that I had at least the space to cram in the other lines. I then glued the two liquid (orange tipped) lines in place and continued inward with the vapor lines etc. Here you see how I lined up all manifold flanges to be at a straight line transversally. Because I had the two liquid lines fixed, I could use a straight piece of styrene touching the flanges. I then marked the edge of the "new" pipes and cut them off at that mark. Once I had the flanges on on one side, I then used that piece of styrene against all flanges (with the white pipes still dry fitted) and used the same trick to mark out the other side. Then I cut that side and glued the flange. Up till that moment I had the "flanges", small rings, that I needed for valves, loose on the pipes. Once the flanges were in place, I could measure and glue the first flange for the first valve and so on. And a bit of extra. As you can see on the liquid manifold ends, there are two valves. 1 is manual, with a wheel (inboard), the other is hydraulic (outboard), with a big actuator. The manual valve is called a double shut valve and is installed because a single valve can leak, chances of having two valves leaking at the same time are much smaller. Since the liquid lines can go quite high in pressure, this is a requirement for liquid lines only. On the vapour line you can see there is no more manual valve behind the hydraulic actuator. The high pressure line also has a double valve (more work for me again). I've been thinking of making the manifold flanges bolted, in a similar way as the strainer lids. But eventually I decided against it. It would probably be out of scale, take a long time to make and I had already used blank discs as end flanges on other parts of the vessel, so it would be out of the normal to have them with bolts here. And last but not least I tested with a paper template, the walkway that's supposed to come on top. To my greater surprise (I had to make some things slightly out of scale and expected the accumulated error to be quite large), it fitted quite well. I will make a cardboard adapted version of this catwalk before I make the final one in the same way as I made the driptray gratings.

Not really my main interest, but I'm keeping an eye on this one for quite a while now. It's a funny hull shape and brilliant planking job!

Well actually, I doubt that. The reason for such slow promotions is often just long retention due to good employment conditions (if no one leaves, there's simply no place to promote anybody) and I consider time for model building etc. part of that. Additionally there would be training/certification requirements. To get a master licence it takes sailing time in rank and as officer of the watch (navigation watch that is). Often on such special ships, the time onboard is not fully considered as "sailing time". It might have a reduced validity of 50% compared to real sailing time. In the past this was the case for some dredgers as well. I've also encountered a system in offshore where the sailing time fully counted to retain a valid licence, but could not count for upgrading a licence. That of course resulted in a rather old crew, where all officer candidates already had their master licence.

oh sorry, got confused with Keith's Trinity House lightships. Propulsion or no propulsion doesn't make that much of a difference in this case when it comes to shipboard activities. You also stand a higher chance successfully fighting a fire with 11 or 12 than with 3...

I would assume there was quite some maintenance. Although there was no propulsion, they'd still have generators (need to keep that light on), which then means they'd have a fuel system, starting air system, fresh water production (or bunkering), sewage system, etc. All of that requires maintenance. Additionally I'm not sure if they had pneumatic chipping hammers, if they didn't, they'd have to chip with manual chipping hammers, which really takes a long time to do properly (in fact also also with pneumatic hammers). Cosmetic maintenance would therefore also take a lot of manpower. Additionally there is taking provisions, spare parts, bunkering, communications etc. Pretty sure they could keep themselves busy, although it would look to me like an end-of-career/retirement job considering the lack of prospects and for local people the idea of working closer to home.

Well here we go then. Hope this clarifies a few things. Always a big difference between a regular diagram and the actual construction. A lot of complexity is added simply by having those 2 fully separated systems (marked on the lines by a single line or a double one). The diagram is a single tank depiction with only a single pump. To make things worse, the tanks are split longitudinally in 2 halves for stability reasons. 1 pump is located in each half. The top and condensate system however, are connected, to keep the pressures equal (so you can't mix put two products in 1 tank). For loading there is a (small) valve located between the pumps so you can equalize the liquid levels. The different lines on the drawing are colored in the same color as the lines on the ship, so that should be clear. I believe I marked everything from the drawing on the picture. This drawing would only explain loading or discharging, but there are additional lines that are used for "special operations", eg. dry docking, changing cargo etc. Normal life cycle would be something like this: - Dock: Ambient air - drying the tank (dry air) (ambient temperature, vessel underway to loading port) - Inerting the tank (removal of oxygen to avoid flammable mixtures when loading flammable gasses) (ambient temperature, vessel underway to loading port) - Filling the tank with cargo gas (depends on which gas you will load, done to remove the inert gas from the system, since that doesn't work in the reliquefaction plant later on and it would still retain some moisture in the system, which you want to avoid) (ambient temperature, arrived in either special port to receive small amount of cargo, or in loading port itself) - Cooling down of cargo tank (going from ambient to loading temperature using condensate line top spray) - Loading of cargo When going to dry dock: - discharging last cargo as much as you can (cold temperature) - sending warm gas to the bottom to remove last liquid cargo - warm-up of cargo tank to warm up the insulation and tank walls - inerting of cargo tank - aeration of cargo tank - once gas free, vessel can enter dry dock In the above sequences a lot of different non-fixed connections are made between the pipes and I'll avoid pointing all those out in detail. When changing cargo it's practically the reverse. First you prepare the vessel like going to dry dock and then you prepare it for the next cargo, much like after dry dock. With propane and butane you can often cheat a bit, but you can't do that when going from propane to ammonia etc. Hope it's a bit more clear, let me know if you want more details.