Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Tallship on display

I've seen quite a few virtual classic tallships a la Pirates of the Caribbean. They usually suffer from the technical limitations of the virtual world. Putting so many details into a moving, sailable object is simply not possible. This one is a bit different.
Ahab and me talking about spring and blizzards
There are at least three differences. It can't sail. At least not yet. It's quite detailed, while still being work in progress. It is more of a modern ship than the typical romantic pirate ship. It looks like a somewhat modernized tallship with an iron hull and wooden decks. Technically speaking it's a Barque.
Through the window
Details, details, details... here's a picture taken through the window of the boatshop at Tradewinds. You can hardly see it, but the hull is definately not made of oak like those oldtimers we used to have, back when my country was a superpower at sea. Crazy thought btw.
Obviously a modern ship
What you can see is that there are no canons. This next shot here shows the deck house and low parts of the mast. Lots of details, and obviously it is a modern ship. Those round things in the windows, "wipers", dunno what they're called. Does anyone know? Anyway, they clearly need electrical power to function.
Interior
The interior wasn't quite finished, but here's a glimpse of it. There's a lot of tricks applied in virtual boat building. This one works quite well; Until you try to walk through the door. It's sort of a bonk-auch- wtf-experience.
Size is big
There's room enough though. The size of this thing is... It's not like the aircraft carrier, but it is comparable to this oiler. The word is BIG, and I wonder if it will ever sail. Perhaps it will be able to sail by engine, but by sail? I seriously doubt it. Hope to be surprised though.
It's tallship day at Tradewinds
Here's another shot that indicates the size. In the back left side there's a tiny Nacra sitting in the sand. Back center the Tradewinds lighthouse sticks out. Back right side there's - lo and behold - another tallship heading north it seems. I have no idea what kind of sandspeeder is hovering beside the tallship in the back, but that's the virtual world. You never know what you're gonna get.
Full view
Here's a full view picture of the ship in all it's glory. It is - of course - built by master builders over at Kiku Craft. Check the details on the Kiku site here. It appears as if Kiku Craft expect this to sail eventually. Whoa! Talk about a liveaboard. Better keep an eye on this one.

PS: You can catch a glimpse of a true classic, wooden tallship over at Timo's. Oh, and I also posted a few pics of them when I sailed the Nautilus submarine.

4 comments:

  1. Oh yes, it's the 'Eagle', sistership to German navy's 'Gorch Fock'. Yes, they aren't really oldtimers but where built in the late 50s with the purpose of sailtraining for navy officer cadets.

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  2. Ahh, a schoolship. We have some of those too only smaller. Just google for "Svanen og Thyra". Sounds like you've seen the real live Gorch Fock? What's the name mean?

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  3. Gorch Fock was the synonym of a northern german author around the early 1900s. His real name was Johann Kinau, born in 1880 and died in the battle of the skagerak in 1916. Gorch is plattdeutsch and means Georg, Fock is a jibsail.

    The guy:
    http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/FockGorch/

    The boat:
    http://www2.gorchfock.de/

    http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorch_Fock_%281958%29

    http://www.marine.de/portal/a/marine/!ut/p/c4/DcLBDYAgDADAWVyg_ftzC_VXSKENWEwRTZxec4c7_oxuzXRpM6q44hZ1Dg8c5DA4sA_rwGrCerGBaE09kfjLIzPk5lFSiwXPskwf9DZpQQ!!/

    Oooh, I just learned there are 2 Gorch Focks: the famous GF2 as the active service ship of the german navy and the older GF1, as a permanently moored museum and party boat.

    The eagle from your blogpost isn't a real sistership but was built by the same shipyard and was hijacked to the USA after the war (or something).

    ReplyDelete

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