by Roel Van de Velde
1/700 LPG/C Donau (Scratchbuilt)
This is a fully scratch built 1/700 Donau. She is a "handy-size" LPG carrier which can carry Ammonia, Propane, Butane, Propylene and lots of other cargoes. Her main cargoes are propane and butane though (Approx. 17,500t of cargo). She is a semi-pressurised ship, this means she can either carry her cargo fully refrigerated, like most other ships, at atmospheric pressure, or she can carry it at a higher pressure (up to approx. 5 bar) at a higher temperature (boiling point at that pressure). She has a length of 183m and a beam of 30m. She was built as "Gaz Nordsee" in 1984 in Germany and is still trading today.
The diorama base is showing a typical dangerous situation as they happen every day all over the world. Many fishermen moving around in shallow waters, where merchant ships always run the risk of grounding. Safe distances are heavily reduced in able to keep the merchant ship from grounding and the fishermen from sinking. The small fishermen are made from Styrene, the base is white cardboard, first painted with a layer of Humbrol Baltic blue, then covered with acrylic gel and afterwards again painted with Humbrol Baltic blue. After that the white was applied to create the wakes and bow waves.
I built the ship from styrene sheet and milliput. For the piping I used brass rod of 0.8mm and 0.5mm as well as steel rod of 0.4mm. The supports are made from stretched sprue. The piping was simplified a little although I tried to keep it as close as possible to the real ship. Normally the colour of the hull is more orange/light red, yet I haven't found a good colour for Exmar hulls yet.
As she is turning, I also put a 2mm layer of Styrene under one side of the hull to give her a small rolling motion. This adds to the dynamic nature of this dio. It is not so visible in the pictures, but in reality it is pretty obvious.
She is owned by Exmar, the same owner as the LNG carrier Excel which I built earlier. Some of the pictures show them together. Excel was a standard sized LNG carrier, but by now she has also become a handy-size LNG with the advent of much larger ships in that class. The last picture shows how relative the meaning of "large" can be. The tug in the front is a "large" Ocean going Salvage Tug, while the cruiser next to her is a (unfinished) Slava class cruiser (approx. the size of a Ticonderoga class cruiser in USN). They are about the same size as the Donau, although with a much smaller beam. Then there is a Excel, handy size by now, and on the top the Ultra Large Crude Carrier TI Europe (unfinished)"
