1/700 Gas carrier Flanders Harmony

[Neptune]

Well here she is. Since the drying time of the wood glue for my LPG carrier Chaconia (which can be seen in the scratch built section) is around 3 hours, I started a small scale build to cover the time.

It's a 1/700, my regular scale, and it's the Very Large Gas carrier Flanders Harmony. She was the last ship built by the Boelwerf in Belgium and currently still is the biggest (capacity wise) VLGC in the market. Currently she's doing something like a storage tanker job with regular replenishments by other ships. This is also the way I want to depict her, prepared for a Ship-To-Ship operation, pretty much empty/ballasted, ready for loading from the other ship.
As I've built gas carriers before, I'm learning with each of these builds and I'm always trying to incorporate new things. Some of the new things in this one is of course her ballasted state. Building a ship on waterline is fairly easy as the most difficult curves are anyway below the waterline. This time I've put her very far up, with a certain trim and real drafts. The bulb of the ship is coming out of the water due to this effect too.
One thing I've noticed already is that the bulb on the ship's plans doesn't match with the real bulb on the ship... But anyway I followed the plan and most people won't notice the difference anyway.
Apart from this effect she'll be stopped in the water and at anchor, with fenders (big rubber balloons) along her side, ready to receive the other ship. I'm still in doubt whether I'd build one of the assisting tug boats too or not... I'll see about that later on. I'm also using this ship as my main project for the model club meetings.

She's painted as she's coming out of the shipyard for now, but I intend some very heavy weathering below the summer waterline. In reality it's pretty bleached there with a lot of animals/sea life on the hull. There is also a continuous sea water outlet on portside which is in loaded condition below the waterline, but in empty state it's a few meters above waterline, As there is a contuous stream of water along the hull below that opening, there is also a trace of algae. I'm not exactly great at weathering, so this will be new too.
Last but not least I also intend to make a case from plexi for this ship and its waterbase along with a wooden base, something I haven't done before either.

[Pieter]

Looks nice and it proves Robert Wilson is not the only one in this game . What's your source for drawings?

[Neptune]

I'm no match for Robert Wilson in modelbuilding, and he's not in the gas carrier thing either I suppose. Anyhow there are many of our company who build models of our ships (although mostly in larger scale and from wood rather than styrene).

The plans are drawn by me, based on the real ship's frame plans from onboard. I still have some copies of the real plan too and that bulb really is different in shape and dimensions!

So far there is limited progress on this ship, a few more details have been added to the deck, but I'm in a rather more complicated phase of the large scale Chaconia build, which is taking more of my time.

[Neptune]

And a small update. We're proceeding. Here are some pics to compare sizes with other gas carriers. The one on top was my first scratchbuild. A regular LNG. The one on the bottom is the Donau, a Mid-size semi-pressurised LPG carrier and the middle is Flanders Harmony (unfinished), a Very Large Gas carrier. There is a size in between the Donau and Flanders too, but our fleet doesn't contain any of those.

Furthermore you can see the two white cilindrical things next to the ship, they're two of the fenders used for ship-to-ship operations, They'll be used in a small diorama too.

[Neptune]

And an update on this lady.
Sorry for the dark-ish pictures. I've did some painting and detailing. Started to make the pipe supports but ran out of 0.3mm wire... Will have to wait for some supply with that. In the meanwhile I did some painting and made the winches. Also detailed the big fenders which will be put alongside and added the ventilation to the compressor room (cargo cooling plant in that deckhouse midships). The big "windows" painted on the side are the places where tugboats have to push.
Next to her is a smaller offshore supply tug of Maersk. I'm not sure what to do with that one.

[uaw233]

Super work.
There I can only say: Class.

Olaf

[Timmy C]

Sharp work, Roel!

[Neptune]

Ok, a bit late, but since I'm finally nearing completion, I thought I'd update this one!

So here you go, only the finishing coat of acrylic for the water, some weathering (perhaps) and finishing the forward and aft masts. I'll probably try to put railing on this one as well, depending on how tests for producing these in 1/700 turn out.

Of course an endless amount of work has gone into this, although I had breaks in the meanwhile as well, with the large scale Chaconia consuming a lot of time as well.

[Cadman]

It's about time you worked on this one!!! Nice work!

[JIM BAUMANN]

Model looks great!

Unusual subject--buit well executed mate!

Gotta ask--will the sea colour be ... err ...toned down a bit?

Ity does look somewaht bright...?


Hope to help!

JIM B

[Neptune]

Thanks for the comments gents, coming from a skilled modeller like you Jim, it's great!

Yes I will tone down the sea a bit. What you see at this moment is the bottom painted with one (transparant) layer of Baltic Blue over a white primer. Over that I applied already several layers of acrylic (not there yet), mixed in different proportions with water to create a calmer sea than what I had before. After that I'll add another layer of Baltic blue to create a depth and a much darker shade of water (much like on my previous models), mixed here and there perhaps with some white. Since the anchor chain is more or less slacked, I'll need to represent a calm sea after all, not much white froth around an anchored ship then.

One thing I should mention though, I've seen the sea as bright as this in reality. When you're in the middle of the ocean and the sun is shining, you can have if this light. (agreed on the place where they do this kind of Ship to Ship operations, it's much shallower and hence nearly impossible to be this bright).

[Neptune]

Here is another update, from the other side. I hadn't noticed that I hadn't shown anything with the fenders before.



Aft stores crane and part of the lifeboat.


The annoying thing about a subject with which you are too familiar and of which you have too much pictures is that there is no end to such a project. Every time I think I'm nearly finished, new parts seem to pop up in my mind. Now the gyro repeaters should also be placed and also some hiding cabinets on deck for people to hide when a rain shower is coming.
Probably once these are placed, there will other stuff to put as well We'll see how far this goes.

[Neptune]

Another small update on this extremely slow build.

The water is toned down by a top layer of semi-transparent blue. I've dry brushed white around the bow, anchor "chain", fenders etc.





The thing that is slowing down this build is the construction of the railings. I'm making them from curtain, I've removed the strands to create the size and amount of stanchions which I need.
They're extremely fragile and the amount of failures is very high, certainly for long pieces. Haven't perfected the method of construction yet I guess. They're hardly visible from more than 1 foot distance though.

[Pieter]

They're hardly visible from more than 1 foot distance though.

That means they're just about right. 1ft =about 200 meters. Very nice work as always.

[Guest]

If you don't mind me asking, where did you get the deck plans/general arrangment plans for the Flanders Harmony? I work for an engineering firm and we have been contracted by a refinery and Evergas to design dock upgrades for the pier where the Flanders Harmony's sister vessel will be docking. But I have been unable to talk to Evergas directly and they're dragging their feet with sending the plans. Can you send me deck plans or send me your contact with Evergas to get them myself (preferred)? I Googled the ship trying to find photos or drawings on the net and came across this. It would help me a great deal as I was just planning on scaling the dimensions of the chocks and drum locations from whatever photos I could find. Please let me know if you can help me out.

Anthony DeVincenzo
S. T. Hudson Engineers, Inc.

Camden, NJ, USA

[Neptune]

I practically built this from an old general arrangement plan (which got destroyed in the process).
Flanders Harmony doesn't have any sister ships, so I doubt they'll be docking anywhere. She also doesn't have anything to do with Evergas as far as I'm aware. Evergas was previously Eitzen I think, they don't really have ships of this size.
If they are dragging their feet in sending you the things you need, that means they'll have a reason to do so. Most likely they haven't chartered a ship yet and still looking around or they are not sure which ship they will send. There are however a million different possibilities, might as well be the refinery who's not exactly sure they'll keep working with Evergas etc.
Anyway in a project of such size I'm sure they'll give you the appropriate sources when they are ready to do so. Obtaining them from a modelbuilder is a bit of a strange way. I also doubt my employer, owner of the Flanders Harmony would be happy with me helping a project of one of their rivals
I'm sorry, you'll have to be patient, I'm sure things will come your way when the time is right (or when you push the right people).