Wilhelmshaven 1/160 freigter ship "Conti Belgica"

[Moshe]

Hi everyone,

At first , I intended to start this thread after I finish building the kit. But, due to the recent Z space issue and in order to get rid of this virus faster, I decided to start this now.

I started building the Conti Belgica in 1/250 scale, during the early 1990's, the first picture in this thread, while still living in New York city. In 1999 I moved back to Israel, and brought several partially built kits with me in a big box, which I stored above my head in the airplane. Fortunately, the flight wasn't full and all the kits landed safely. The building progressed very slowly, and the last picture of it is below, from 2003. Since than, we moved in and out of a few apartments, until during the last move, i left a box with kits at my mother's house, just for 1-2 days. The box with the kits mistiriously disappeared. But not to worry, I already had in stock the 1/160 version of this ship. And now I hope to finaly finish building this ship.

I hope you are still awake, after such a long story

Pictures 2 - 5, are of the current build. In a few days, I'll upload the rest of the pictures. Only one crane, wires on the poles and the many containers remain to be built.

The length of the 1/160 model is 62.4 cm.

Moshe

[YuG]

It’s a reminiscent of days I was young. Around 1985 I boarded a CONTIMAR’s ship when she called Yokohama port. To my surprise she has control stick instead of steering wheel. She must have been a state of the art ship then….
I’m looking forward to your build.

[Moshe]

Here are the rest of the pictures. The larger scale is much easier to build, especially the smaller parts. The kit has written and diagram directions, in German. It looks like that in order to get this scale, the publisher, cut sections of the original sheets, rearranged and enlarged them. Thin border lines of those cut sections are visible on some of the sheets. few parts missing their numbers or are hand written and one part I could not find anywhere in the diagram directions. I searched the net for this kit, but 2-3 pictures that I found, are from angles where this part is not seen. Also,
could not find pictures of the real ship, only a similar ship by the name of 'Conti Britanica', and this probably because the 'Conti Belgica' went under in a storm some time during the 1980's near Saudi Arabia (I think).

Moshe

[Don Boose]

It's a beauty, Moshe! And compatible with U.S. and European N-scale, too!

Thanks also for the back story.

Don

[Keds_Girl_Lala]

That is a very nice model. I like the Wilhelmshavener models. I have buy many of them now from their download service. It is interesting to carry a model around so much. I am glad you finishing it now, as it is very well made and detail.

[redhorse]

Very nice model, plus I just love freighters!

[Don Boose]

Although I prefer older ships -- three-island tramps, Victories, Maritime Commission types, and so on -- I am fascinated with anything that floats and I love to watch ships similar to Moshe's Conti Belgica steaming off shore through the Delaware River Estuary ship channel when we are vactioning at Cape May.

Don

[barry]

Nice build like the crane

[Moshe]

Thanks for the compliments everyone. next (not in building sequence) are the containers. In the kit there are containers for about 1/3 of a full ship. I took a few from the PolarStern kit (Wh's polar research ship). The second picture
is of an 8 containers piece. I should have made copies of this one, saves a lot of work

moshe

[Phil]

Anything that floats on the sea gets my attention.
Nice work!