Graanelevators would be surrounded by a large number of inland barges to get the wheat to Germany or elsewhere in Europe. In 1923 this was still a combination of sailing and towing barges.
I started by stealing a kempenaar from a stalled project and put her behind a small tug.
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Fully loaded barges like this would be towed to another basin to be combined form 5 to 10 barge tows behind a large paddle steam tug. Time and space constraints kept that tug from being in this diorama I may do one independently at some point as they were fascinating ships in their own right.
Maritiem Digitaal again gave me drawings for some other scratchbuilds in styrene.
I started with two large towing barges (Groot sleepschip). One of them had an open cargo space and would be put under the elevator.
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I added an older ‘ Groot Rijnschip’ which had originally been designed for sailing rather than towing and a Friese maatkast.
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And I converted the two barges from the Starling tug and barges set into a koopvaardijklipper.
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And a Stevenaak.
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The tugs from the Starling set were not right for Rotterdam in 1923 so I used some others in the spares box. Both were owned by separate companies called ‘ Smit’ .
As Rotterdam had three towage companies called Smit at the time they were called by the color of the funnels. The big ocean going tugs of L Smit en Co’s Internationale Sleepdiensten were called ‘ Blauwe Smit (Blue smit) ‘ and are not in the diorama. The harbor tugs of L Smit were called Rode Smit ( Red Smit). I modified a Niko Models tug to put a red funnel Smit tug in front of my kempenaar. And I modified a ships’ steam cutter to a small Maashaven class tug of the Yellow Smit (Sleepdienst P Smit jr) to move my klipper about.
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I’m ending this series with a sign of the time to come. Nosing around in the corner is a yacht called Nymphaea, one of the first large diesel engined yachts built in NL. Nymphaea was owned by Albert Goudriaan. Goudriaan, along with van Uden and van Beuningen was part of a group of Rotterdam shipowners who were building up a fleet of modern shelter deck liners to challenge the dominance of welsh tramp shippers. By 1930 they had succeeded in becoming dominant in the LaPlata-Rotterdam trade. Nymphaea is stil in existence, I’m cycling past her every week or so. It has its own biography with some basic drawings and pictures. Good enough for a small scratchbuild.
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