Zuiderzee-Botter by wefalck - FINISHED - Artitec - RESIN

[wefalck]

It would be the 1890s to early 1900s

[wefalck]

If you want to see the botters in action, here is a film made in 1930, shortly before all that disappeared because the Zuidersee was dammed-up: 

 

[Thistle17]

You brought the model to life with your renditions of the figures. really nice work!

Joe

[BrianK]

Hi Wefalck,

I am so impressed and inspired by this build!

I am new to MSW and was going to build a Resin Artitec German Zeesen boat in HO scale that I think arrives tomorrow. Its for a future model railroad layout. I started searching MSW builds and when yours came up I felt very lucky. 😃

 

I am a novice so 2mm teapots and extreme figure make-overs are not in the plan but I know I will be asking myself "I wonder how Wefalck would do this?" many times over the coming weeks.....

 

Warm regards and happy New Year,

 

BrianK

[Keith Black]

 Eberhard, I'd forgotten all about this model (my poor memory). The warmth and the beauty of it make it one of my all time favorites. 

[wefalck]

Keith, talking about the 'warmth' of a winter-setting with the Zuiderzee frozen over sounds like a contradiction in terms  

 

Anyway, thank you very much for your kind words !

 

Brian, you may have come across material on the Zeesboot on the Web, there is quite a bit, as various specimens have been saved and restored over the decades, even during GDR times. There is also a very detailed building-log for a 1:20 scale model on a German forum: https://www.segelschiffsmodellbau.com/t2889f685-Zeesboot-um-ca-Massstab.html. The text, of course, is in German, but you probably can translate it with the help of Google. It is a wonderful model, I have seen it myself. The model is based on the reconstructed specimen in the Nautineum in Stralsund (https://www.nautineum.de). We held the GA of our association there in 2019 and I have various pictures of the boat.

 

[Keith Black]

1 hour ago, wefalck said:

sounds like a contradiction in terms

 My eyes see the snow and ice but my mind doesn't feel winter's bite. The wood tone colors, brightly highlighted clothing, and rosy cheeks chase away thoughts of cold.  

[wefalck]

Then I failed 😕 ... the idea was to create the feeling of bright, but freezing cold day - like this:

 

The Zuiderzeemuseum in Enkhuizen in February 2009.

Edited December 30, 2021 by wefalck

[Keith Black]

1 minute ago, wefalck said:

Then I failed

 Like heck you did! Eberhard, in your model winter is there , I see it but I feel the warmth of human activity. I think you pulled off the almost impossible task of combining cold winter elements and the warm vibrance of life. In the picture you just posted, you bet, that's winter and it looks dead cold because that's all there is. You, my friend, added life to your model and I feel that warmth. 

[BrianK]

wefalck,

I live in Florida but your diorama reminded me of the neighborhood pond that would ice over growing up in the north in Connecticut. So success to you! 😃

 

That 1:20 Zeesen boat build is a big one. Almost 1000 posts. I will have to carve out some quiet time for it (pun intended). Thanks! Google translate does the job just fine too.....

[wefalck]

Slightly off topic: 2009 I lived in Alkmaar, Noord-Holland, and it was the first winter for many years, when they had a period of real frost, cold enough for the canals etc. to freeze over. On smaller ones people could even skate (missed that myself because of other occupations and the thaw came only a couple of days later). The Dutch were looking forward to do the 'Cities Tour' again, whereby you skate from place to place around the Ijsselmeer/Zuiderzee. We also had a little bit of snow and it was the first time my neighbours' seven year old daughter experienced snow. The children around got so exited that day, that I didn't need to worry about cleaning the pavement in front of my house - when I got home from work, they had swept up every snowflake in the neighbourhood to build a snowman

 

The climate now is rather different from that of the so-called Little Ice-Age of the 16th and 17th this is portrayed so vividly in many winter-landscape of the painters of the Dutch and Flemish Golden Age.

 

BTW, the Zeesboot or Zeesenboot (both are correct) uses a particular type of trawl-net that is spread between two booms projecting from the drifting boat - certain types of botters used a similar net and fishing technique.

[BrianK]

Thanks for that story weflack. I have walked in Amsterdam and the canals were a marvel. I could image they would become quite fun for skaters if iced over.... 😃

Quick similar snow story. My wife is Thai. We met here in Florida about a year after she came to the states. One of the first trips we took was to Philadelphia where I had been consulting regularly and had many friends. Long story short, in the winter of 2010 they had back to back blizzards that closed things down and we were there for it. After 3 days of being shut-in, she declared "I hate snow". 😃

 

The Zeesenboot model is not here yet but have started some searching -- a bit of a challenge (and fun) with so many ways to say its name in German and English.

 

The net sounds interesting -- Sort of a scaled down version of the bigger nets used on trawlers.

 

One of my good friends ran shrimp fishing boats all his life. Captain Barry Woods of Fernandina Beach, FL. Retired from the sea now, but his last boat was "Island Girl" which he owned. It was a San Sebastian (St. Augustine, FL) wood hulled ice boat laid down in the early 1960's. She was 65' with outriggers that trawled nets on the bottom. Each net was held open with wooden doors that were dragged on  the bottom. The doors were chained so that when pulled forward they would "fly" open to either side creating the opening of the net. He called the net rig an "otter" rig -- I believe the name had to do with the shape of the net. The picture is of Captain Barry freeing a stuck chain on the port side outrigger before deploying them on Island Girl's maiden voyage. He used the steel haul cable just like a yard-arm footrope to get out there.... I was "4th mate" that day in April 2007. 😃 (I was the coffee maker and documentarian, and stayed out of the way).

 

A few years later, he was doing that same dangerous move when the chain shackle broke. He and the doors went to the bottom. They often shrimp in 15'-20' of water, just off shore, so he got free and surfaced. His mate got him back onboard and to the hospital. He lived alone across the street, so my wife and I met him in the ER to take him home. He had a big gash in his leg and a hell of a story that included circling sharks and dolphins (they follow the nets) and references to "Davy Jones' locker"....

[wefalck]

'Otter' are the 'doors'. Not sure why they are called otter, but it probably has to do with the otter-like shape of floats that were used in mines-sweeping gear, where they have a similar function as the 'doors'. 

 

The 'Zeese' was held open by the spars projecting from the boat, rather than 'doors' or beams, as in beam-trawls.

[BrianK]

Thanks wefalck!

 

How common are those doors on ship's fishing rigs? 

 

I had not really noticed them until meeting captain Barry 20 some years ago.....

[wefalck]

Over here in Europe they are very common, probably the most common rig on trawlers. They also replaced, I think, beam-trawls except in the shrimp fisheries. The 'otters' do not actually scrape along the sea-bottom, unlike the beam-trawl, and therefore considered more environmentally friendly.