Suggestions for new BlueJacket Shipcrafters kits, please.

[alross2]

Thanks to all who responded to the survey.  There were over 100 responses with a wide range of subjects.  I'm going to run the survey for another week, then we'll analyze the results.  If you have a wish list, let us know.🙂

[allanyed]

Something modern such as the latest Auld Mug winners including the New Zealand Te Rehutai (Sea Spray)  in the photo below.  Then again, these may be better suited to plastic.   It might be very interesting to have a model of America 1851 and Te Rehutai on display side by side.  Video below is really interesting --- 50 knots in a sail boat!!!!

Allan

 

 

 

Edited February 8 by allanyed

[ERS Rich]

Any US nuclear powered CGN…..

 

Thanks

[gak1965]

Any of the Brunel designed ships. Great Eastern, Great Western, or Great Britain would be cool.

 

And a plea for that humble Cold War workhorse, the Spruance class. I'm partial to Peterson (969), but any member would be fine. It would joun your other USN DDs and you could make 2 variants, pre VLS and post VLS mods. And heck, build a Ticonderoga from the same hull, and several of the later (VLS variant) Ticos were built in Bath.

 

George 

[Seamus107]

Looking forward to your survey results!

 

james

[Harvey Golden]

If I could squeak one in before closing....

 

The Hart Line "Okahumkee"-- an inboard sternwheeler that plied the Ocklawaha River from the 1870s into the 1920s.  This steamer, and its later-built sister-ship "Hiawatha" are both documented in the Historic American Merchant Marine Survey, and many fine historical photos of each exist.   This links to many photos of the Okahumkee, and on one of the three pages there are pages from the HAMMS Survey: https://www.floridamemory.com/find?keywords=Okahumkee (The "Hiawatha" [and other steamers] is also on this web-page).

 

Here are two Plates from the Florida Memory (State Archives and Library of Florida) page, (Public Domain):

...And a couple postcards of the similar "Hiawatha" from my collection: 

Lastly: Here's a model from the 1890s of another Hart Line Steamer in the US Postal Museum:

https://postalmuseum.si.edu/object/npm_0.052985.271

 

(Full disclosure: I am currently building a model of the "Okahumkee"). 

All the best, 

Harvey

 

 

 

[alross2]

The kit survey will end this Friday, Feb 16, so you still have a few days to suggest some potential candidates. To date, I've received over 150 suggestions with a very broad range of types and time periods. The most responses any named vessel received was 4, so there are no overwhelming results in that area. The largest group of named vessels was naval vessels, mostly USN and from the pre-dreadnaught and WWII periods. Most sailing vessel suggestions were from the late 18^th C to mid-19^th C and were trading vessels. Vessel lengths ranged from 20' to 1013'. Almost all suggestions were for US vessels. I'll provide more details after the survey ends.

[ccoyle]

2 hours ago, alross2 said:

The most responses any named vessel received was 4

 

C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer

 

I call for a recount. 😜

 

Seriously, though, I think you should follow this thread up with a short list of the suggestions that most piqued your interest (after all, it's you who will have to endure the developmental slog) and then maybe create a poll to help narrow the field further.

[alross2]

21 minutes ago, ccoyle said:

 

 Thayer C A Thayer C A Thayer

I call for a recount. 😜

 

Seriously, though, I think you should follow this thread up with a short list of the suggestions that most piqued your interest (after all, it's you who will have to endure the developmental slog) and then maybe create a poll to help narrow the field further.

😆 Thank you for your subtle attempt at influencing the outcome...😆  Actually, it's not what piques my interest so much as what seems most likely to sell well and I'm fine with that.   

[Roger Pellett]

IMHO, an interesting and attractive feature of Bluejacket’s  lineup is its line of vessels built in its “backyard,” the northeastern USA.  Regional vessels do have unique characteristics many due to the environment in which they operate and you guys do a great job of understanding this.

 

Roger

Edited February 13 by Roger Pellett

[BobG]

The US Coast Guard is seriously unrepresented in the modeling world and, as a CG veteran myself, I'd love to see some of their more famous boats and ships available as accurate kits. I know that Bluejacket has been working on a Point class 82 footer model but there aren't many other kits around. I served on the Cutter Storis in Alaska for a year and a half and I was also a coxswain and engineman on one of several 40 foot utility boats for 2 1/2 years. I think that both of these would make great models.

 

The Cutter Storis was commissioned on April 4, 1942 and went on to actively serve for 64 years and 5 months before being decommissioned on February 12, 2007, making her the longest serving CG vessel in history and she was the Queen of the Fleet for many years. In 1957, the Storis, along with the Cutters Bramble and Spar, left Greenland in search of a deepwater channel through the Arctic Ocean. Their transit ended a 450 year search for the Northwest Passage. She went on to return to Greenland via the Panama Canal making her the first ship in history to circumnavigate the North American continent. She was subsequently assigned to her home port in Kodiak, Alaska, where she was active in fisheries patrols and search and rescue operations in the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska until her decommissioning and was affectionately known as "The Galloping Ghost of the Alaskan Coast."

 

The Storis was unceremoniously sold for scrap after being in the moth ball fleet in the Suisun Bay near San Francisco even while the city of Juneau, Alaska, had plans to turn her into a dockside, historic museum. I think she would make a great CG model especially given her extensive, notable history.

 

 

I think a model of the CG 40 foot Utility Boats would also make a nice model kit. 236 of these hard working, twin screwed, port security and search and rescue boats were built between 1950 and 1966 and the last one was decommissioned in 1983. Dumas made a large model kit of these 40 footers some 50 years ago or so and it was built primarily as an RC model. It was 35 inches long and, as such an old model, the cutting of the parts and the instructions are not great. It's unclear to me if Dumas has these available anymore. They don't show them on their list of models. It can occassionally be found on eBay. I think a smaller, accurate model of these 40 footers would make a very nice model that would be fairly easy to build.

 

Edited February 15 by BobG

[Wawona59]

I realize I'm probably late but I would like to put another plug for the C.A. Thayer / Wawona in 1/8" scale.  You could develop 1 kit that gives the modeler 2 options.  I'm not aware of anything like this on the market.

 

Wawona Wawona Wawona CA Thayer CA Thayer CA Thayer

 

Please give this serious consideration.