I’m working the Lindberg Kennebec class, shown as AO36 on the box art, kit right now. A friend that I joined the Navy with served aboard the USS Mattaponi AO41. This kit is not of the Mattaponi class. The AO 41 class was very similar but 20 feet longer to accomodate a “stock” or standard boiler. The kit is quite crude, but I think it will represent Mattaponi very well when I’m done. I wish I had known the AO 41 kit was available before I started this one, would have saved me a lot of work. He was aboard when it was re-commissioned, then went to the yards to have the mid well-deck catwalk removed and replaced with a full, open deck constructed of steel frame and wood deck, to be used to haul munitions. I’m doing it with the catwalk still in place.
The kit I have is HL438, a re-pop put out in 2016 by round 2. The kit pictured - AO 41 (ex Kalkay renamed Mattaponi) is actually USS Mattaponi. The Neches (ex Aekay renamed Neches) is # AO47.
I suspect this model kit is the same as the AO 41, but with a different number. E-bay has it for the same price.
Happy modeling Crackers [A]
Uh-OH !
Well , It isn’t the best tanker model BUT ! It is a generation prior to the T-2 edition ! So it has a place . I have one or two in my stash . Including a T-2 that I converted to a LNG tanker .Everyone wants to know what’s LNG - Liquified Natural Gas .
They are handled very gently as ships go . An exploding one could take out half of the N.Y waterfront ! That’s why they have special ports away from everything else !
Fascinating looking ships though . Nice part ? There is a small train called " Z " scale .It’s half of H.O. ( 1/87 ) . They have some very nice globe top refinery sets .So you can get that ladder that curls around the hemisphere to the top ! That looks neat on a ship ! T.B.
Hi Again !
Looking at the Box-Top , I think there’s just the one ship you could do the conversion to and she’s right there ! All the right contours ! Hmmmm. T.B.
Nice looking ships but they have a different look to supertankers. What I like about supertankers is not only the way they look but their monstrous size.
Hello there :
If you can , try to imagine looking down the length of the ship when she’s Not moving . If you have poor eyes the bow gets fuzzy after half the length . If your eyes are good it looks like two football fields , maybe three or more to the bitter end .
The problem that came up concerning their size was not their length at first . It was the width ! If you are in a port that has piers on both sides and a in /out channel in the middle with a turning basin at the end , well you got problems ( Big Ones ) .
The ships going up or down have to stay clear .That means going to the wrong side of the channel to get by you . It is an experience to see one , much less be aboard one .The sheer size in one human construct is staggering .
Many wonder how you can go to sea in something that rides lower than a carrier , Has a slightly bigger footprint and yet doesn’t break apart in the first bad storm it gets into . I don’t put it down to modular construction either .
The one thing that always was in back of my mind as I watched the " Orion " twist and bend was that she would break at one of the module joints . She didn’t , But water coming over the bow was so tall at one time we got a dented deckhouse .Yes , I said dented !
Depth of the dent was two feet deep , four decks high , and some broken windows later we knew what high seas mean . " G " I bet could tell us what a gallon of Pacific seawater weighs . Then multiply that by sixty seven feet x fourty four miles an hour The water was traveling at 26 mph toward us and we were doing , give or take a knot or two , ten knots .
That’s a lot of steel and oil going a little over 11 and an eighth miles and hour . We would need , even in those seas at least nine or ten miles to come Dead in the Water ,getting pushed backwards at the same time by the winds that topped fifty - five mph. at times .