Harry DeWolf by Javelin - scale 1:100 - RADIO - AOPS

[Javelin]

Going out at sea brings a lot of crazy ideas. This is one of them. 

It all started with my last trial of LPG Chaconia in my home pond. After rebuilding the pond, she seems to be short of space in order to fully turn around. That meant that either I needed a bigger pond, or a different boat to sail. A bigger pond (again!) was not an option, so I decided for a smaller RC ship. 

Having learned some lessons from Chaconia, mainly that a heavy ship is not very handy for RC sailing (getting it in and out of the pond is quite a task). Additionally for fun of sailing, a single prop ship without bow thruster is quite boring and limited in things you can do with it on the water. 

In parallel to this, it should be known that I've been collecting any icebreaker plans that I could get my hands on in the past 15 years, having a myriad of ideas with them, but never quite using them. 

 

All of this led to the latest Canadian Arctic Offshore Patrol Ship, named Harry DeWolf. Most recent icebreakers use azipods or Z-drive propulsion, which isn't very practical for RC, and although conceived with such a propulsion, Harry DeWolf was eventually built with a regular twin rudder - twin prop configuration (with a bow thruster). 

Given her length of about 104m and wide 19m beam, she'd make for an ideal RC ship for my pond in 1/100 scale (in which I already have 2 ships). 

Not sure where this will go. Might be Harry DeWolf itself, might end up being one of the other units (or none at all). 

 

The disadvantage of the vessel? Well she's relatively new, which means no real plans are available. 

However, if you look well, you can find parts of plans. In addition, they've been very open about its construction, proudly showing a lot of pictures of their block/megablock construction in the process. Add to the mixture of plans and picture some common sense and shipbuilding knowledge, and off I went making my own plans. 

 

During my last stay at sea, I made a lineplan, drawn in 1/100, but decided to make a prototype in 1/400 to validate the frame shapes. I was pondering finishing the 1/400 model, but to save me some time I think I'll just do the lower hull to see if that shape is plausible. The prototype will be quick-and-dirty, with an eventual decent finish on that lower hull, adjusting frames where required. It won't be 100% accurate, given the lack of actual plans, but I can live with that. 

She is quite a sleek shape with relatively few small exposed details, so the large version shouldn't take too much time to build neither. 

I've been working on this for 2 days now. The prototype is also giving me some additional insights into the future construction method/approach of the big version. 

 

We'll see where it all goes, considering I'm still working on Chaconia as well. 2 gangways with 44 steps each to build...

 

 

First lesson I learned was that I had forgotten to draw a frame. Marked it on the longitudinal drawing, but forgot to set out its shape... Corrected that by now. 

Additionally you can see on the frame with the cut-out that the shape is off. It won't form a smooth line with the frame in front of it. I corrected its shape a bit, but not sure if it will be sufficient. You can see the black marking near its bottom. This is the correction. I'll file it down to that black line and see if it's credible. 

 

 

The idea is to fill and sand the lower hull shape and see which frames are good and which ones need correcting on the plan. When the plan is then corrected, I can go forward with planning for the real sized model. 

 

 

 

[Keith Black]

 Following along as I enjoy viewing your work, Roel. 

[NavyShooter]

Following as well - I have an interest in RCN Ships!

[Ian_Grant]

What about carving a half-hull, then cross-cutting it at intervals to reveal the frame shapes? I did that for the bow and stern of my Roman Galley and it worked out quite well.

[Javelin]

Thanks guys. 

It's a bit on the backburner, although I must admit that everyday I'm looking at its design. I discovered a couple of issues with my drawings compared to the real thing. 

 

Carving could be an option, but it'll take a long time and it will be difficult to achieve the sharp knuckle lines of this design by carving and sanding. Additionally I do not have the actual drawings, but I do try to get as close as I can to the real design/shape by combining the things that I do have. 

 

So what I have:

- A GA side view (giving me at least an accurate height and length of a lot of parts)

 

- An outside view side drawing, showing the knuckle line and the prominent openings for the boats on the side as well as the fairleads and hatches. 

 

- some sketchy deck top views (luckily the main deck and 2 decks down, I do have my doubts about the accuracy of outline of those plans though)

 

- Pictures of the megablocks during construction, this gives me a good view at some frames, allowing me to discern some important curves. On those pics I can see the longitudinal stiffeners, equally spaced in a transverse way. Combined with the width of the ship, I know the distance between those stiffeners. Combined with the height of the decks (combination of the pictures with the GA plan), I can determine some intersecting points to draw up those frame shapes. 

In the same way I determined the width of the bridge, hangar etc. 

 

The main issues are of course near the bow. In the above pictures you can see I thought that the lines from the knuckle up would be a continuous curve/line. This appears to be wrong. It seems they designed the bow from the knuckle to the mooring deck and then started a new curve/line from the mooring deck to the "roof" of the mooring deck. Doesn't make much sense to me, but I discovered it from some close-up shots of that bow and will change my frame plan accordingly. 

 

For those not familiar with the ship itself. 

[KeithAug]

Good choice Roel - not too many pipes!