Thanks Andy,

I find it very sad that there is no longer much interest in rank-and-file merchant ships such as this. After WWII, for two decades, most nations of the world produced a large number of very handsome steam and motors ships of all shapes and sizes that are largely forgotten today. After about 1965, it seemed like designers were competing with each other as to who could produce the ugliest ships. Things have now been dumbed down in the UK to the state were a majority vote of the British people favours the name Boaty McBoatface to be the name of the new Royal reserach ship currently being buolt at Cammell, Lairds, Birkenhead. Depressing in the extreme!

Bob

Apparently, the Royal Research put out a load of possible names for the new ship, and left it down to a vote by the British public as to which one would be used. Some joker included Boaty McBoatface in the list, and that is what the great British public voted for overwhelmingly! You can get the full story by putting it in Google search. Royal Research reserve the right not to use a chosen name, but have suggested that if it is almost unanimous, they may go along with it!

Bob

They often looked a bit "used," not surprising with the cargoes we carried, mainly coal, cement clinker or bog ore but we did have some good times. Everards ended up being one of the last long running British shipping companies surviving long after most of the other famous names had gone.

Bob

Tony

Thanks, nothing much to add really! I taped a piece of white card 24 inches by 10 inches to a sheet of plywood. I then drew the plan on it using various thicknesses of fibre-tipped drawing pens. If I made a mistake, I painted it out with white acrylic artists colour, and corrected if after it had dried. The plan was just black on white. When complete, I propped it against a wall, and took a photograph of it with a digital camera. I then opened the jpeg image in Adobe Photoshop, and coloured it in with Paint Bucket. Nothing too complicated or stressful. I do not have CAD or anything like that. From what I have heard of it, I don't want to waste a load of money on something that would be mind-boggling and time-consuming to learn to use! For the longer curved lines, I used a cheap plastic dressmaker's curved ruler obtained from Ebay. Not much use for colouring in though. The plan only has yellow, red, green and a tiny bit of brown! The Preussen only has a bit of brown on the 'midship siland bulwarks, the rest is black and white!

Bob