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American cargo liner Santa Catalina


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Yet another beautiful model Bob. Your modelling never never ceases to amaze me with the amount of detail you manage to add.

The fact that they are all scratchbuilt really makes them stand out as something special indeed.

 

Thank you once again for sharing your models here, they certainly bring a smile to my face.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Absolutely beautiful.  This quality of modelling is more like an art form! Does this type of ship carry fare paying passengers as well as freight?  Showing my ignorance regarding ships.

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Some of them carried 12 passengers, but the Santa Catalina did not.     If they did, the accommodation had been altered to take them.    But anyway, they were pretty grim things to sail on!:(      My first ship was one of this class, completed in the USA in 1943 as an Escort carrier, and converted to a 12-passenger cargo ship in 1948.     The crew all shared cabins.   The officers all had single berth cabins, but there was no hot or cold running water, just a bathroom for the engineers and another for the deck officers.    Only the captain and chief engineer had their own bathrooms.     All the cabin fittings were steel: bunk, desk, chair, wardrobe and daybed.    That is all we had - no air-conditioning and boiling hot in the tropics with the heat from the engine-room (steam turbine) adding to the heat from the sun.       All these ships are long-gone now.    I doubt if the modern generation would want to sail in them anyway!

However, I wanted to go to sea for the adventure and even the hardship, as practically everyone I knew told me I wouldn't survive it - but I did - 31 years!:D

If I was leaving school today, I would not even consider going to sea!:o   (Don't like modern ships and don't like flying).   Here I am on the bridge of the collier Wandsworth in 1962, on the far left, aged 17.    Wandsworth was my 4th ship.   I was getting £11 a week, and felt like a millionaire when I went on leave!B)  At the bottom of the sea now, since 1969!

Bob

Collier_Wandsworth_1962.jpg

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On ‎01‎/‎01‎/‎2017 at 8:39 PM, ShipbuilderMN said:

Here I am on the bridge of the collier Wandsworth in 1962, on the far left, aged 17.    Wandsworth was my 4th ship.   I was getting £11 a week, and felt like a millionaire when I went on leave

 

And only £23.76 (£101.85/month) 15 years later as a Engineer Cadet :-)

 

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