The re-birth of s/s “Hunan”.
Hunan was built in 1932 for the China Steam Navigation Company (otherwise known as “Swires”) by Scotts of Greenock. She was one of many roughly similar vessels operating around this time. I’ve often wondered if they were just pricier versions of the then ubiquitous “West Hartlepool Tramp”. But they were all of the 3 island design. At a length of around 310ft she was an ideal candidate for building at 1:48 scale.
As a cadet trotting around the various creeks and harbours of the entire Far East I was very used to seeing these ships. But when I eventually got hold of a set of Builders Drawings (coutesy of Glasgow Archives) I was fascinated by the anti-piracy measures taken. But I’ll get to all that in the fullness of time.
“Swires” (Better named “Butterfield and Swires”) were (are) one half of a fiercely competitive couple of outfits. The other being “Jardine Mathieson”.
The origins of these 2 companies was pretty well described in a book by the author of Tai Pan. Can’t recall his name. Good book though.
So. Here we go again.
Just a preliminary foray into what may lie ahead of me.
I decided to have a good gander at the interior first. Oops…something wrong here. It took me a few minutes to realise that the deck fastenings are missing. I had used 2 captive nuts, one for’d and one aft to fasten the deck/superstructure on to the hull. The fastening bolt heads were disguised under the 2 capstans. These had been removed and the 2 capstans have been epoxied in place. My first real hint that I’m dealing with the work of an ignorant idiot.
However, when I lifted the deck for a good eyeballing I was quite surprised that nothing had been removed, changed or otherwise fiddled with. Unfortunately, I can’t remember now how I wired the whole thing up.
The starboard speed controller is for the main engine, and the port one is for the variable speed bow-thrust unit. More on that in a minute. The unit at the bottom left of pic 1 is a servo operating a micro-switch for the ships whistle. But I can’t remember what some of the switches are for. I also sussed out that the 2 switches in the middle are the main power switches and have the aerial socket just ahead of them. I’ll change that and run the aerial round the inside of the hull. The 2 units at the top of pic 1 have me a little flummoxed. I think one of them is a voltage reducer (for the whistle) and the larger one is a now antique sound unit…but I’m not sure. The forward box is the size of a “Walkman”, but I can’t recall fitting a tape recorder! I’ll have to remove it to find out. That blue thing at the bottom right looks suspiciously like the top of a battery. God knows what that’s for! And there’s fuse and empty sockets all over the place. I must have had something in mind back in the mid 1990’s when I built this part.
On to pic 2.
The centre “block” with the 2 main power switches on it is raised quite high in the hull so the switches and aerial socket are easily accessible by simply lifting of part of No. 2 cargo hatch. More accessibility is gained be removing the entire hatch.
My “patent” bow-thrust unit! Power comes via a Smiths 12v heater motor connected to a Black & Decker multi purpose rotary pump unit. This thin operates very effectively in both directions. A bit noisy, but doesn’t half shift the bows either on of off the “quay”. Just aft of the motor can be seen the top of a windscreen washer pump rigged to pump out any water that leaked into the for’d space. So I guess that at least one of the switches operates that. I suppose that nowadays it could be made to work automatically….but I wouldn’t know how to go about that. Enough for now. BY.