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Handcrafted Queen Mary Cruise Ship Model Boat 40"
This high quality, highly detailed, expert level, Queen Mary cruise ship model is brand new, fully assembled and ready for display (not a kit).
This Queen Mary model ship was specially designed & built by the plank on frame method (joining multiple small pieces of wood like Rosewood, Mahogany, Teak and other exotic tropical wood together on the hull). The cruise ship model is built exactly to scale and painted as an original Queen Mary Ocean Liner was with many details. The task required skillful craftsmen hundreds of hours to accomplish.
The Queen Mary was launched on the 26th day of September 1936 it was a rainy day. Nevertheless loads of enthusiastic British nationalists, ship-buffs and of course the thousands of workers and designers that had worked on the Queen Mary gathered around the titan bow. The gathering was crowned by the royal family standing on a special designed platform with a glass-screen to prevent the royalties from getting soaked. The queen dropped a bottle of Australian wine against the bow, and thereby the ship started its motion towards the River Clyde. The Queen Mary was a very long ship; the longest constructed in Britain. The river had had to be further dragged to receive the 1,018-feet hull. But in spite of this, the stern grounded on the opposite end of the river because of the unaccounted speed the ship had reached on its way down the slipway. But there were no damages and the fitting out could commence.
During the fitting out, the design of the ship became more and more apparent to the world. Supposed to be a rival to the French Normandie, the Queen Mary could not compete in modernity and sleekness. She represented the British conservatism, and one could say that she was a larger replica of the 1914-built Aquitania. But in size the Queen Mary seemed to overshadow the Normandie. At 81,000 tons, the Queen exceeded.
The Queen Mary was a modern ship, but not ultra-modern as the Normandie. If the Normandie had entered service after the Queen Mary, the Queen would possibly have been talked about as the most beautiful liner ever built - inside and out. But now it was the contrary. Every critic compared the ship with the Normandie. The British combination of traditionalism and modernity was considered too sterile by the some critics of the 1930s. But whatever said, the Queen Mary was a beautiful ship - inside and out.
Her interiors had over fifty different woods, collected from all over the British Empire. Inside the Queen Mary’s staterooms, you could easily make out that you were on a ship. Previous liners had disguised their interiors to palaces and manor houses, but the Queen was not afraid of looking like a ship. Around the vessel nautical touches were displayed and the round portholes were proudly exposed. The first class lounge was a two deck high creation with little groups of tables and chairs cosily put together around fireplaces and in the room’s corners. But perhaps the highlight of the ship was her first class dining saloon. The long tables of the old ocean liners had been long gone, and just as in the lounge the tables were grouped with two to four chairs a each. For larger companies bigger tables were naturally available. On the short-side wall a giant map of the Atlantic was mounted. It showed the exact position of the Queen Mary during a transatlantic voyage. When Queen Elizabeth entered service after the war, you could see the position of the sister-vessel as well, and thereby knowing when they would meet on the Atlantic. The first class accommodations were vast with plenty of elbow room, all with a light touch of Art Deco, the new type of art introduced by the Île de France in 1927.
On July 1, 1936, the Queen Mary set out on her maiden voyage. As the voyage came to its end, the passengers realised that the Blue Riband was in the ship’s reach. But as a touch of fate, the Queen Mary was surrounded by fog after two thirds of the voyage. The ship slowed down to a crawl and the Blue Riband immediately went out of sight. As soon as the fog had lifted, the Queen Mary pushed her engines to the fullest, averaging 32 knots for the rest of the voyage. When she arrived in New York she had completed the voyage in four days, twelve hours and twenty minutes. The Normandie had been 38 minutes faster. But considering that the Queen Mary had carried through a distance of her voyage at a very slow speed, the British knew that the Blue Riband soon would be theirs.
And right they would be. But before any new record-voyage could take place, the teething problems of the Queen Mary had to be remedied. At a thirty knot speed, she vibrated violently at the stern, and in bad weather she developed a nasty cork-screw motion. A third problem was that the funnels allowed smoke to cover some of the after promenade decks. The lower interiors of the ship were stiffened and the propellers redesigned. This reduced the vibration considerably, but the cork-screw motion could not be bettered - not yet at least. Smoke-washing devices were installed in the funnels, which erased the problem of soot in the passengers’ throats.
With the teething problems remedied, the Queen Mary made another run for the Blue Riband on August 31. When she reached New York harbour at the end of the voyage, she had managed the distance in three days, 23 hours and 57 minutes - the first time the crossing over the Atlantic had been made in fewer than four days.
During the post-war years, the Queen not only enjoyed popularity among the average passenger, lots of celebrities chose to take the Queen Mary for the voyage to America or Europe. Some of the most noted names are Charles Boyer, Spencer Tracy, Madeleine Carroll, Sir Winston and Lady Churchill and of course the beautiful Greta Garbo.
In 1961, the first aerial connection between Europe and America opened. This meant that a passenger could choose to travel across the Atlantic at 30 or 35 knots on board the Queens or the United States, or make the voyage at 500 knots in an aeroplane. More and more of the liner’s passengers now instead went across the Atlantic inside a small air-borne machine, than on a comfortable ship. Many of Cunard’s vessels now started to concentrate on cruising for tourists on voyages without destination.
But cruising could not keep up the declining Queens. In 1967 it was announced that both the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth would be withdrawn from service. The future plans for the two vessels were many. Some investors thought of turning the Queen Mary into a giant immigrant ship between Britain and Australia, others wanted to make her into a giant floating high school at the Brooklyn waterfront. But the highest bid was made by Japanese scrap merchants - $3,250,000.
Fortunately, as a touch of fate, the Californian city of Long Beach made a higher offer than the Japanese scrappers; they were willing to give as much as $3,450,000. The Queen Mary was saved! She was chartered by a New York travel agency for the voyage to California. On this last sentimental voyage she carried cruise passengers from Southampton around South America to Los Angeles. After forty days at sea she reached her destination on December 9, 1967. Well in Long Beach the Queen Mary was relieved of her propellers and underwent a $72,000,000-refit (!) into the ‘Hotel Queen Mary’ emerging in May 1971. She has remained there ever since. Some years ago she was in financial trouble, and the Japanese scrappers reappeared. She managed to get through that, and today her future looks very bright.
The model measures 40" long from bow to stern. It's a fabulous cruise ship model that will be a conversation piece for any room, office or restaurant.
Highlights about this historic cruise ship model:
- 100% hand built from scratch using “plank on frame” construction method
- Included with this expert level boat model is a solid wood base with a brass name plate
- Size: 40" overall length x 12" height x 5" width
- Condition: New (fully assembled)
- Hundreds of hours where required to finish this model boat
- Completed model contains thousands of details created by skillful master craftsmen.
- Made of finest wood like Rosewood, Mahogany, Teak and other exotic tropical wood.
- Chrome and brass fittings and ornaments constitute the excellence of this model
- Extensive research through original plans and pictures make this model authentic
- This model went through a demanding quality control process before leaving the workshop
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Capt Jims Nautical Cargo
