Chaconia by Javelin - 1/100 - RADIO - LPG Tanker

[Keith Black]

 I'm amazed, again. 

[FriedClams]

I've been reading your log over time and have enjoyed watching your progress on this very complex model.  I've especially enjoyed your modeling of the tanker's piping arrangement.  

 

I spent most of my working years in manufacturing as an industrial automation electrician and there was always chemical processing and treatment support systems associated with that manufacturing.  Your pipe modeling on this tanker reminds me of those systems although the operations and purposes are completely different.  Most of the individual process systems I worked on were quite simple when broken into segments and understood separately.  But when these systems were all crammed, stacked and constructed closely together in an area or even a separate building, they look intimidatingly complex.  A tangle of cable trays, racks of pipes, tubing, pump stations, valves, vessels, pits and tanks of all sizes.  Almost steampunk.

 

This modeling of yours has tremendous visual interest, authenticity and to me, great appeal.  Wonderful work, Roel!  Excellent craftsmanship and a level of detail seldom seen on a model.

 

Gary

[Javelin]

Thanks a lot guys for all the comments and likes. It's probably because of your active feedback that I have the drive to actually get this thing finished. Probably wouldn't have continued construction after the long hiatus if I hadn't found this board with its great members! 

 

Currently all cargo pumps are installed, but the wiring was proving difficult. I'll give that another go when I get back from sea with a fresh mind. 

Being at sea is like a short prison sentence. You're very limited in your choices. Each day you work the prescribed hours (and/or more as required), but you have to eat whatever they give you (and during several weeks you get to see a lot of things a lot of times...) and you're also limited in the things you can do during your free time, so you end up in a certain routine for weeks. I can follow build logs over here since we do have internet, but it only makes you want to create something yourself even more... So whenever I do get home, I really have a drive to get on with it. 

 

So last things I want to finish before I go were the rollers and chocks (if not finished, at least I wanted to get a working procedure and jigs to create them). 

First were the single rollers, I needed 8 of those. Afterwards there are another 10 of them that are combined with closed fairleads/chocks and then there are still 8 closed single fairleads remaining to be made. On top of that there is another emergency towing chock in the back, which is a bit larger and stronger than the others. 

So for the rollers, each consisting of 4 rollers, a base plate, side cheeks and a top plate, I decided to go for drilling rather than just gluing. It's still a sailing model, so I want those things to have at least some strength. 

First I made a jig for the two horizontal rollers to fit in the side cheeks. That's Number 1 in following picture. 

Then I scribed a line at the width of the cheeks, but kept it connected to the plastic plate for easier handling (Number 2 in the picture). Then I put my drilling jig on top of that strip and drilled the 2 holes. Then I marked and again scribed a line. Then came the next holes etc. The cheeks are rounded at the top, so I maked that curve (shape of the jig) to file them rounded later on. 

Last but not least, Number 3 is just a larger diameter tube with a 1.5mm hole in the center, it has the length of the rollers. So I just put a 1.5mm rod inside of it, push it flat on my desk and then cut it off. Later on I punch out the roller with a 1mm drill. Like this I had to create 4 rollers for each roller fairlead, so 72 of them. 

I then cut off the cheeks by following the scribed lines and filed the rounded top edge. 

 

Afterwards I made another "jig" (Number 4 in below pic), at the other side of the cheek jig for the vertical rollers. I then used the same method of scribing a strip and drilling the holes. The inside of the base plate is also beveled. (Number 5 in below pic). 

 

 

Then I glued the vertical rollers in place. And afterwards the horizontal ones in the cheeks. While the glue is still wet I then mounted it against the vertical rollers to make everything square and fit (Number 6 in above pic)

Last action, not visible in the pictures yet, is filling the top of the vertical rollers and the cheeks flat and level at the top and add a tiny plate on top. 

The methodology is basically the same as with the piping, leave an end open that you can adjust. In this case it's that top of the vertical rollers as well as the sides of the cheeks. I can file those flat and level, which allows me to have slight offsets in length or even slightly angled cuts on those styrene rods. 

This in turn makes the process go quite fast, mainly being limited by the drying time of the glue. 

 

Next came the double rollers, where I made a small mistake by scribing the strip for the base plate too narrow. This resulted in the cheeks being too wide to fit on top. Luckily I could recover the rollers themselves and I only had to remake the base plates. 

 

After that came the closed chocks. I'm still somewhat looking for a good method, but I did discover that I can put a mill in my hand drill and actually use it to make the shape of the holes nice. 

For now it looks like the method will be to drill the holes like in the picture. Then mill out the hole to a nicer oval shape.

The strip and the first holes were actually drilled some 10 years ago. I still remember where I wanted to get with that, but I didn't see the way to that target back then. 

We'll see where we get. 

I won't be installing those anytime soon though, they are integrated in the railing, so I'll be drilling holes to insert the railing in these later on, when I get to the stage of railing. 

 

[Jim Lad]

This build just continues to amaze, Roel.

 

John

[Dr PR]

Roel,

 

When you are at sea what is your duty rotation - how many hours on and off?

[Javelin]

Hi Phil, 

 

During dredging we do 12 hour shifts, so 12 hours on, 12 hours off. In our case we work from Noon to midnight or from Midnight to Noon. On other dredging vessels they often do from 0700 till 1900 and 1900 to 0700, so there you effectively have a day and night shift. They then change somewhere in the middle of their rotation so the dayshift does the night and opposite (with a transition of 2 backbreaking 18 hour shifts). Due our Noon to Midnight shifts we don't have a need to change and just do the whole trip, the same shift. 

For sailing it depends, if it's a short trip of just a couple of days or a week we generally stay in our 12 hour shifts, navigating instead of dredging. When it's a longer trip, it depends on what we agree on. Normally we'd then go to 3 8-hour shifts with some overtime adjacent to that. This creates one long break for relaxation. Dredging business is essentially a part of construction business and not really related to transportation business. It therefore works a lot less strict and without much hierarchy compared to the merchant marine/navy. 

In the merchant we kept the normal 4-hour watches with overtime in between, but this breaks your time off in several small breaks, not allowing for any normal 8-hour sleep. With current regulations regarding MLC (Maritime Labour Convention), the merchant sort of creates their own problem. With the dredging system it's a lot easier to follow those rules and their multitude of requirements (maximum 14 hours of work in any 24-hour period, maximum of 3 breaks of which one needs to be at least 6 hours etc. etc.) 

 

On to the closed chocks/fairleads. First things first, I'm in favor of roller fairleads. A lot of ship owners are going for the much cheaper closed fairleads nowadays, but in my opinion that's often a mistake. Rollers allow your mooring rope to move in all directions without really damaging the rope (they do require more greasing and maintenance).

This is particularly important in ports where you are exposed to a lot waves/swell and during ship-to-ship transfers (which are done very frequently nowadays. As an owner you may think you're not going to do such things, but very often a few years later they end up doing it anyway. Closed fairleads often chafe the mooring ropes/wires with resulting breakage and in some cases unwanted break-away. 

This is one of the arrangements on Chaconia.

 

The reason for the closed fairlead is for tugboats. You don't want to put a tug line through a roller fairlead, as forces are much higher when using a tug than when in any normal moored situation. Tugs can also exceed their normal maximum pull forces by pulling sideways, in this case the winch will not render the rope, even when set at a certain maximum. 

 

For the time being I settled on following method to make the closed fairleads.

First I make the front and back plate with the oval holes as shown in last post. Then I insert a 2mm thick piece of styrene tube. I put this one quite off center, with its side at the bottom of the fairlead. 

I then add small pieces of strip on each side of that tube to mimic the plates on the real one. 

And lastly I sand/file the strips flush with the edge of the tube and add the front/backplate. Later on I file/sand the whole thing to shape and hollow out the hole in the central tube to match the front and backplate. 

It's not a perfect copy as it's not rounded between the front and backplate, but I don't feel like adding filler and sanding on each one of those. The shape of the hole is also not quite as squared as the real thing, but I'll see if I adjust my oval hole later on. 

 

Here you see the fairlead standing up under an angle, looks fine for the time being. 

 

Here is one of those combination rollers-closed leads. The roller is built the same way as explained above, the base plate is just bigger to accommodate for the closed fairlead.

 

That's it for now. On to mass production again. I need 16 closed fairleads (10 of which are mounted in a combination with a roller fairlead). 

Edited August 20 by Javelin

[Keith Black]

 Amazing work on the fairleads and thank you Roel for the shift information and the fairlead comparisons. Your experience brings this build log to life. 

[Javelin]

Thanks Keith, 

 

So, after determining the way to build those fairleads, it was off to mass production. 

Finished all of them by now. As you can see there are left and right combinations of rollers and closed fairleads. The seperate plates in the midle of the picture are for single closed fairleads. On the main deck the sloped side of the base plate is much longer than on the combinations or single roller fairleads, while next to the accommodation block it's somewhere in between the two. I assume this has to do with the reinforcements under deck. 

 

And finally an overview picture with the fairleads dry fitted in place. It's the first time I actually put the accommodation block in place since I continued building her. I assume her overall appearance will not really change that much with the catwalk on. Largest items that are still missing are the large gangways on the deck edges on both sides. 

 

[KeithAug]

On 8/19/2024 at 9:14 PM, Javelin said:

So last things I want to finish before I go were the rollers and chocks

Oh good - no need to discover more surperaltive piping words. that's a heck of a lot of fairleads.

[Jim Lad]

What? You mean that's all? 😀

 

John