Scheldt River by Javelin - 1/1250 - Bottle - Dredger

[Javelin]

Well there it is, cat's out of the bag now. 

 

After a lot of thought and a tremendous amount of ideas, bottles and tests, I finally decided upon Scheldt River for my next SIB project. 

Unlike @Glen McGuire, I simply collect bottles instead of going to a liquor store to pick them out. I had a lot of trouble finding a decent bottle for my first SIB (Sea Installer) and actually poured the liquor in a different bottle in order to use the bottle I wanted. So ever since, I'm just collecting decent looking bottles. 

 

And yes, the one with the really long neck looks appealing... The wooden guy lost an arm, so either I fix it, or I try to get him out and use the bottle, since it has an interesting shape! 

In any case, I wanted to use one of the very large ones, trying several ships in it, but it simply didn't look right. Seems those bottles are too large (which leads me to think that I will put multiple ships in those bottles? 

I'm also quite specific about scales, so I actually wanted to put a 1/700 modern ship in it. That would have filled the bottle properly in length and height, but the it would have been a real issue with that neck, cutting the hull in 3, 4 or more pieces just to get it in, simply seemed to much to me. 

1/2000, same scale as Sea Installer and Spartacus would have made any ship too small to fill the bottle, so eventually I decided on something in between. 1/1250 is a rather common scale and would reduce a ship's beam to an acceptable level to fit inside a bottle neck. 

 

Then of course the length wouldn't fill the bottle at all, so I decided on a slightly smaller bottle, é voilà, there we are:

 

 

The drawing is just a drawing of course. Scheldt River is what they call a Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger (TSHD), which is a dredging vessel that drags a draghead on a long pipe over the bottom of a river or port. This dradhead is equipped with teeth and spray nozzles to stir up sediments, which are then sucked up through the draghead and pipe to the vessels hold/hopper. There the sediments are slowing down and sink to the bottom of the vessel while any excess water goes back to the sea/river. When the hopper is full of sediment, the hopper raises the draghead onboard and moves to an area to discharge. This can be done by opening bottom doors or pumping it to a floating line (bow connection) or rainbowing (spraying it up in the air towards a beach, also through the bow connection). 

In short, they are either used to keep rivers/ports at depth or to build islands/ports by bringing sand/sediment to the required places. 

Scheldt River has 1 sister called Meuse River. Scheldt River is a special dredger as she was one of the first TSHD's that were able to run on LNG (cleaner fuel than the regular heavy fuel or diesel). 

 

Although my earlier idea was show her dumping sand from the bottom doors I have decided to try to depict her while dredging. 

Further info about the idea (probably with a sketch) will follow in a later post. 

I've started construction of the vessel itself. Still in early stage:

 

 

 

[Glen McGuire]

Glad to see you hitting the bottle again, Roel!  This looks like it's going to be a fascinating build and you are off to a nice start.  I'm anxious to see the sketch to get a better idea of what the overall project will be.  You continue to choose such interesting vessels!

[Javelin]

Hi @Glen McGuire, 

 

glad to see you're following. 

Here is an explanation on this type of ship and the depiction doesn't differ too much from what I'm going to try (except of course that these ships don't have a pipe connected to their bow while they are dredging). The link is also by the IHC shipyard in the Netherlands where also Scheldt and Meuse River were built. 

 

Trailing Suction Hopper dredger

 

 

 

So basically I'll have the dredge pipe deployed. Obviously due to the limited "depth" of water that I can achieve, the angle won't be very impressive. 

I'll again put sand on the bottom of the bottom, just to the right depth to achieve a width that matches the width of the dredger with pipe deployed. 
Due to the bubble issues with my previous attempts, I'll be mixing the sand with epoxy rather than acrylic gel this time. I checked a few you-tube videos and it seems this is also done by epoxy artists, so it shouldn't give any adverse effects this time. 

 

 

So as before I'm drawing up a sequence and adapt when required: 

 

- Arrange the sand on the bottom with epoxy. 

- insert starboard part of the hull

- insert portside part of the hull, which has the dredge pipe attached (more on that later)

- put the two parts together to form the basic hull

- insert special tool (to be made) that forms a long beam and is fixed on the top of the bottle neck to hang the hull (with earlier attached ropes) 

- pour epoxy, let dry 

- when hull is fixed, use acrylic gel to create tiny waves on the sea surface

- insert aft superstructure

- mount aft crane (still need to check in which sort of position)

- mount main deck level, including opening cylinders for bottom doors and lower part of forward superstructure and pipeline

- mount middle crane 

- mount bridge with mast

 

At first I wanted to create some extra depth by filling the bottle till the middle of the neck with epoxy, I then realised I would only have half of the neck opening for mounting the other parts etc., which would probably not even allow to insert a tweezer inside the bottle... Dumb idea really, but it would have been cool  (unfortunately still no magic skills here). 

 

I don't have the bottle with me, this complicates things a bit, but I did take measurements of the opening, drew the circle out and I can check with some certainty whether parts will fit through or not. 

 

I also saw clouds being made with medical cotton and epoxy, so that's something I'll try to create to mount around the draghead. I'll then insert it, attached to the draghead. I'm also thinking of making some objects on the bottom to make it a bit more interesting (and realistic, as dredgers catch a lot of stuff on the bottom). 

 

In the meanwhile the starboard side received its outer plate and I've started shaping the bulbous bow and stern area. I don't have any filler with me, so it'll have to stay like it is until I get back home for final finishing touches. I will, just like on Sea Installer, apply vaseline on one side of the hull and apply filler on the other, squeeze the parts together afterwards to make sure the center seam is becomes very thin. 

 

I've also carved out an opening in the portside where the dredge pipe will go. I'll explain that idea a bit later on. The pipe itself will be attached, inserted with the outer shell plate. 

 

I'm now working on the inside of the hopper. It has sloped sides and sloped internal divisions to make sure the sand is guided to the bottom doors and doesn't stay behind in piles inside the hopper while dumping/discharging.