SS Mayaguez c.1975 by shipmodel - FINISHED - scale 1/16" = 1' (1:192) - Dan Pariser

[shipmodel]

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

[GrandpaPhil]

Dan,

  Your models are awesome!  I’m looking forward to watching this one!

 

  Quick question for you.  How do you make your ladders and railings at this scale?

Phil

[ccoyle]

Interesting subject, Dan. I did not know about the incident. A challenging project, to be sure.

[lmagna]

Nice start Dan. While I knew that the Mayaguez was a container ship, I had no idea she was a converted C-2 or of the extent of that conversion. Looking forward to the rest.

[shipmodel]

Hi guys - 

 

Thanks for joining me here.  Yes, this was an interesting subject, if not for the ship herself, but for the historic event.

As for the ladders and stairways, these will be covered in detail in upcoming installments.

 

Dan

[mtaylor]

Count me in on this one also.    Interesting subject both historically and engineering-wise for the mods.

[Jack12477]

Me too! 

[KeithAug]

Hi Dan, that was a very quick start. As I was reading through everything I was starting to think that maybe you were about to complete the build in one post. Fortunately my fears were unfounded and with relief I look forward to the next post.

[Canute]

I'm in also. I remember the incident, because of some friends' involvement conducting the overflights. Looking forward to the build.

[druxey]

Nice to see you back Dan. If I might ask, what is the advantage of Plaster of Paris over gesso for getting a nice smooth, sealed surface? One does not have to mix gesso. and 'open time' is longer!

[shipmodel]

Hi all - 

 

Thanks for joining me.  I'll try to keep it interesting.

 

Keith - it will be more than one post, but not a full, extensively detailed, build log.

I was working to a bit of a deadline and did not stop to take photos of every day's progress.

I will show the construction process for many of the more unusual details, but the general construction follows my usual methods shown in other build logs.

 

Druxey - I use plaster of Paris because I am familiar with it.  It mixes easily, spreads thinly, and dries to a stiff, hard surface that can still be easily sanded to smooth surfaces with sharp corners and edges.  With a final coating of Minwax Wood Hardener it takes on a great deal of strength that stands up to the occasional clumsy ding without a major dent.  I am not familiar with gesso, and don't know its properties.  It may well be as good or better, but this is the Devil I know.

 

Thanks for your interest.

 

Dan

[Mirabell61]

brilliant work Dan....

 

Nils

[Jim Lad]

A model of an interesting ship with a very complicated history.

 

John

[shipmodel]

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

[mtaylor]

That's good news on the surgery and the recovery from COVID.  She's looking a proper ship to my eye with all the details being added.  Thanks for the insights on how you arrive at shapes and sizes of all those tiny bits.

[Jim Lad]

Coming along nicely, Dan.  An interesting commentary on the work involved in teasing out the details of fixtures and fitting from those photographs.

 

I trust the cataract surgery went to plan and hope you get through the long covid OK.

 

John

 

 

[lmagna]

Amazing work, at least to me, considering source material you are working from. And it is also amazing that you have accompliched so much while undergoing surgery, COVID, and bronchitis/ sleep deprivation.  I hope things get a little better health wise and a little easier building wise.

[druxey]

Sorry to read of your health issues, Dan. Hopefully you will be able to shake the last symptoms off soon. Nice forensic work using those photographs. Take care of yourself first!

[jerome]

Dan, 

She’s coming along nicely.

sorry to hear about your Covid issues.

the Academy’s ship model fleet will be awesome soon enough. 

[KeithAug]

Very nice superstructure Dan, but god only knows how you manage to interpret  those fuzzy images. It would do my head in.

[shipmodel]

 

Hello again –

 

Thank you all for your well wishes on my health.  I do seem to be recovering, slowly, on the long covid front.  I can mostly sleep at night without coughing or sitting up, but it does come back with a vengeance from time to time.  The silver lining to this cloud is that I can get more done during the insomniac periods.  Hence, this post somewhat quickly after the last one.

 

As in most builds, especially with modern ships, I work on several sub-projects at the same time.  While the superstructure was still being finished I turned to the containers on deck.  In an earlier build of a container ship model for the museum, the El Faro (build log soon to be written), I had researched these ‘intermodal containers’.  I found that ninety percent of the global container fleet are closed rectangular boxes, almost all 8 feet (2.44 m) wide, and of either 20 or 40 feet (6.10 or 12.19 m) standard length, and with a standard height of 8 feet 6 inches (2.59m) as defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) regulation 668:2020.

 

The height and width of the containers on the Mayaguez seem to fit these dimensions in this photograph taken just after the recapture of the ship.  You can also see that they are stacked in sets of three, and in two layers. 

 

 

However, to my surprise, when I used Photoshop rulers and scaled out the length of the containers from the overhead shots, they measured out to only 35 feet long, a size that I had not encountered before.

 

 

Back to the books!  After a good deal of reading I located a single sentence in “An Act of Piracy, The Seizure of the American-flag Merchant Ship Mayaguez in 1975” by Gerald Reminick.  There he says that when Grace Line sold its Santa Eliana, ex-White Falcon, to Sea-Land Service in 1965 the ship was sent for a second conversion where the container cells on board were enlarged to accommodate the new 35 ft. containers.  It was Sea-Land that changed her name to Mayaguez later that year.

 

Now that I had confirmation of the correct sizes, I had to determine the details of their structures.  Modern containers have sides of pressed metal with the corrugations quite close together, like those in a cardboard box.  Instead, the 1965 containers had smooth sides reinforced with square section battens spaced much further apart.  In the detailed photographs of the Mayaguez containers only 16 of these battens can be counted.  With the two ends there are 17 panels, so in 35 feet the battens must be close to 2 feet apart.

 

 

I tried a number of ways to create this look.  I started with looking around for what was commercially available, but none of the Evergreen Plastics sheets were close.  Neither their railroad car, passenger car or siding extrusions were close to what I needed.  Then I tried making them myself, gluing 0.01” square strips to smooth plastic sheets at a spacing of 1/8”, but I could never keep the long strips straight.  If I did it by eye, they wandered all over before the glue dried.  If I held them against a metal or wood straightedge, then they got glued to the straightedge.  This happened even when I used thin glue meant just for plastic, which melted the plastic, but the melted plastic then would attach again to the straightedge.  I tried cutting narrow parallel channels with a thin blade in the Preac table saw, to be filled with thin strips, but the depths could not be cut consistently. 

 

Ultimately I decided to compromise on the look a little in order to get it done.  Evergreen has a product which represents a metal roof with batten supports (#4521).  It comes as a sheet 0.04” thick with channels 0.015” deep set 3/16” apart.  These channels are to be filled with thin strips 0.01” x 0.03” which are supplied with the sheet.   Doing this is a tedious process, to say the least.  Each strip had to be turned on edge and set into the start of the channel.  It was tacked there with a small drop of Tamiya extra thin plastic glue (which is mostly acetone), which welds the strip to the sheet.  Then the rest of the strip, still set upright, had to be fed into the length of the channel and glued there. 

 

 

There was a distinct learning curve and a good bit of wastage of these expensive sheets before I got the hang of it.  The final product looked very much like the photos of the container sides, although the spacing of the battens was 3’ rather than 2’ apart.  As mentioned before – GEFGW.

 

With the strips in place the six pieces for each rectangular box had to be designed and cut.  Each had to be sized to compensate for the thickness of the material so that the final assembled size was 0.50” x 0.53” x 2.19” (8’ x 8.5’ x 35’).  I also had to compensate for the various edging strips that were added to make up the look of the corners of the boxes.  Once all the calculations were done, the pieces for the sides were parted off the sheet on the Preac.

 

 

These ribbed side pieces then had to have edging around all four sides, made from strips 0.02” x 0.06”.  The final piece is shown in the insert below.

 

 

The final components are shown below.  These are the ones needed for a set of three containers.  To minimize the number of ribbed pieces only the outside sides, ends and tops of the containers are ribbed.  Where the side will not be seen it is not ribbed.

 

 

The first step to assemble each container was to set a side piece against a top piece using wood blocks to hold them perpendicular.  Thin plastic glue was fed along the seam and held until it was hard.

 

 

Turning it over the matching ribs can be seen.

 

 

The second side is attached in a similar manner, but using a specially cut wood spacer to keep the sides parallel.  I marked it in blue so I would not throw it out by mistake.

 

 

Each end was installed using the spacer block again to make sure it was vertical.

 

 

Finally the open box was turned over and laid on the base, which had been cut a bit oversize.  When the glue was dry the excess was trimmed and the container complete.

 

 

To give some differentiation and interest to the containers they were randomly painted in three different metallic colors: dark steel, flat antique nickel, and titanium silver. 

 

 

Placards with the Sea-Land logo and name were created in my computer and printed out onto thin acid-free paper.  Two different styles for the larger side labels and small ones for the ends as seen in the photographs.

 

 

With the labels attached the containers were attached in sets of three to an underlying base plate and stacked on deck to judge how well they fit.

 

 

Here they all are, 8 stacks of 12 containers each.

 

 

Sitting here you can see the curve of the sheer of the deck.  Without some levelling structures the cranes would not have been able to move them consistently.  Those structures will be covered in the next installment.

 

 

Thank you all for following along and for your interest and comments.

 

Be well

 

Dan 

[Jim Lad]

Looking good, Dan.  I think your containers are a very acceptable compromise.

 

John

[druxey]

Aiiee! What a job to create all those containers. Nicely done. Did you consider making a single master and casting the rest of them?

[shipmodel]

Thank you Jim, Druxey - 

 

Yes, I did consider casting, but my previous forays into those mysteries were less than perfect, and I did not think that these shapes, with the many undercuts, would lend themselves easily to the process.

 

Dan 

[KeithAug]

Nice job Dan, particularly the detailed description of the process.

[shipmodel]

Hi again to all –

 

Thanks as always for the likes and comments.  I hope everyone has had a good summer and we are getting back to the workbench and computer, as I am. 

 

Thanks also to all who asked about my health problems.  They are all getting better, slowly, and in any event were small compared to some of those suffered by other friends in the MSW family.  My best wishes for speedy and complete recoveries to all.

 

When I left off last segment the 96 containers had all been built and detailed and set on deck.  But they have to be supported on leveling trestles and supports that raise them to a height where the cranes can move them around.  As before, there are no plans of these structures, so I had to rely on somewhat fuzzy photos.  The interpretations of these were some of the most difficult of the build, and I spent any number of hours staring at the images, changing lighting and contrast, till I had a pretty good idea of how they worked.  Here are some of the better images with arrows pointing to the several elements:

 

 

 

 

After all this studying, and keeping in mind what I was capable of building, I came up with this rough cross-section sketch of the various components and how they would sit on or attach to each other:

 

 

The first element to build was the support trestle.  To get the right taper and curve to the vertical piece of the I-beam I clipped pieces of card stock to small wood blocks and set them on the fore and aft decks.  With careful measuring and trimming I matched the lower edge to the deck curve.  Then using a small line level I laid out and marked the top edge so it was horizontal and parallel with the waterline.  The final task was to adjust that horizontal line to a level where the final height of the containers would match the look seen in the photos.  Since the container supports had not been built, nor the final structure of the container blocks, this was a bit of an informed guess, but I think it came out OK in the end.

 

 

With the shape of the vertical piece determined I cut out the tapered piece from 0.03” (.75mm for the metrically minded) styrene.  The same plastic gave me a wide bottom piece and a narrower top piece for the trestle I-beam.

 

 

The tapered piece was laid on a wood sheet of a thickness that supported it at half the height of the lower piece.  Using small pieces of wood to hold the plastic pieces against each other they were glued along the joint with thin plastic cement, which essentially softens and welds the pieces to each other.  Note that where possible the pieces are cut oversize to be trimmed after gluing.

 

 

Locations for the trestle web pieces were marked out along the length of the trestle at 3/16” (3 foot in scale) intervals.  This may be a bit wide, but it does match the look from the photos.  The web pieces were also cut long and extended past the top edge of the vertical piece.  Once they were all glued on solidly the tops were cut to match the edge of the piece.  Doing it in this sequence meant that I never had to cut and fit the pieces individually to their different lengths.

 

 

After trimming the web pieces the narrower top piece was glued on using small wood blocks as before.

 

 

Now the outer edges of the web pieces could be cut to the taper to match the wider lower piece and the narrower top piece.  This is the final look of the leveling trestles, which matches the cross-section sketch pretty closely.

 

 

The crane guide rails were attached to the tops of the leveling trestles and they were set on deck to check their appearance.

 

 

Plastic I-beams of various heights were attached to the trestles so the port and starboard ones would be parallel with each other.  The beams had to be cut to a length that would allow for the thicknesses of the future container supports and the sizes of the containers themselves inside the crane guide rails.  A lot of trial and error went into this, and a fair amount of cursing, because the tolerances were so small.  However finally a satisfactory dimension was achieved and the I-beams were all cut to this length.  After gluing, the trestle assembly was painted dark bronze.  I don’t have any references for this choice, but it does set them off from the deck and the containers, and the color is not unknown as a rust resistant coating. 

A final check with the line level confirmed that everything was up to spec, which was followed by a big sigh and a bigger glass of bourbon.

 

 

The forward trestles were built in the same manner.  Note that there is no beam across the forward end of the forward trestles.  The photos show that this area is open, so that is how it was built.  The two sets were temporarily laid on deck to see if anything looked wrong or out of scale.  Fortunately, I was happy with the results so the pieces were removed and set aside for later use.

 

 

While this was going on, the final detailing of the superstructure, as well as the bow and stern decks, was also proceeding.  These will be covered in the next installment.

 

Until then, stay safe and well.

 

Dan

[Roger Pellett]

Very nice work, Dan!

 

Roger

[Canute]

Nicely done, Dan. These early container ships are hard to find good data for accurate modeling.

[druxey]

Nicely interpreted from the photos, Dan. Glad to read that things are improving for you.

[JKC27]

Glad I found this build log.  Fantastic!

 

One question on the details..... you said you are using the handrails, steps, etc from the Gold Medal Models 1:192 photoetched.  How sturdy are the railings on this?  I got some 1:200 scale brass photoetched handrails from Tom's Modelworks (I think), and they were so fragile......easy to crush.  I have used HO scale handrails (photoetched) for my current freighter(1:200) build, and once I cut off the bottom row it comes very close to what I need, and they are very rigid, easy to bend and hold shape and not hair thin like the one I experimented with.

 

I'll be following this closely as it's close to the type of ships that I will be building, and also good luck and best wishes on everything on the health front as well!