by Charles Daigneault
1/100 South Goodwin Lightship (Revell)
This is a combination of two different time periods of the same model kit, the original UPC from the 60’s and the Revell re-issue. The scale is supposed to be 1/100. Except for a few modifications it is mostly an out of the box build.The railings are made of straightened and soldered electrical copper wire, the masts are brass tubing, I have substituted scale chain for the anchors, replaced all stanchions between the upper deck and the bulwarks and added bits n’ pieces here and there. The original tooling for this model kit created problems with flash and numerous ejector pin marks, but the main difficulty was attaching the superstructure to the deck as most of the large parts were warped in both kits. I used screws and reinforcing members to achieve an acceptable fit. Lightships are odd and fascinating vessels that sail to nowhere, their courageous crew had to face the elements on a ship anchored over one single place in the ocean, their mission was safety at sea and their role was vital in the pre-electronic navigation era. The SOUTH GOODWIN had no propulsion and had to be towed to her station. Her career ended on Saturday 27 November 1954 when she broke from her two sea anchors during a storm and was wrecked on a shoal on the coast of Kent, England.
