Please help with identifying this vessel.

[Terence PullenParticipant @terencepullen28279]

Hi All. I recently bought this model ship on a whim as I liked it as a static display item. I thought at first that it was a tug owing to the rounded bow and the overlarge fender. Then I noticed that it was rigged with derricks and hatches. That got me thinking 'Clyde Puffer' but all of these have their castles astern. I then tried the tug boat scenario looking for any Hull registered tug names WIBO but no luck there either. Maybe this was just a scratch built model? It's rigged with a R/C engine but no handset.  Regards Terry

Edited By Terence Pullen on 24/01/2016 00:15:31

Edited By Terence Pullen on 24/01/2016 00:21:21

Edited By Terence Pullen on 24/01/2016 00:22:16

[Terence PullenParticipant @terencepullen28279]

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Afraid it is totally inacurate and does not represent anything that was ever built! I would imagine that someone just built it based on what they thought a ship looked like.

Bob

[The Long BuildParticipant @thelongbuild]

In fairness if built as what they thought a ship would look like how can it be inaccurate. A Inaccurate model can only be inaccurate if based on an actual vessel…And when you look through ships photos there are some really odd ball vessels which you would never have thought would have been built.

Does it sail, as it does look very top heavy ?.

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

In my opinion it is inacurrate – in fact very inacurate! I have seen some "oddball" ships, but none as odball as this one

I may be mistaken, of course, but why do you think it may be accurate?

Bob

 

Edited By Bob Wilson on 24/01/2016 09:13:49

[Malcolm FraryParticipant @malcolmfrary95515]

A freelance model of no known prototype can still be a good model if it looks like it could have been a real one and the bits and pieces do the job that they were intended for. I

t might be something built from a vague memory of something seen a long way up a large tropical river, or a distant photograph without too much appreciation of perspective, so it has become a 3D cartoon instead of a model. It looks like an amalgam of either several boats or one that started as one type and got rebuilt into something else.

[The Long BuildParticipant @thelongbuild]

Posted by Bob Wilson on 24/01/2016 09:13:30:

In my opinion it is inacurrate – in fact very inacurate! I have seen some "oddball" ships, but none as odball as this one

I may be mistaken, of course, but why do you think it may be accurate?

Bob

Hi Bob And that is great.. However if it is built to someone's imagination then it is totally accurate, if it was built to represent a known vessel then I would agree, it is probably not accurate but a freelance vessel by its own definition is Freelance, so there for accurate..

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

Bob

We seem to have got hung up on the word "accurate". Might I suggest respectfully that you withdraw it and substitute the word "unrealistic"? Maybe a pair of eyes and a big smile painted on the bow would improve it – "Charlie the Cheerful Coaster", perhaps?

Terence

Not to everyone's taste, it seems!

Dave M

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

I am not sure if we should be arguing the toss over the accuracy or otherwise of a freelance model. Terry likes it and that's why he bought it. To answer the original question, no, its not an identifiable vessel.

Terry, put it on your shelf and enjoy it. Models don't have to super accurate to be enjoyed, and indeed an amount of quirkiness adds to a vessels attraction, as I well know.

Ashley ​

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

OK, I will change my definition, and call it inaccurate and unrealistic as well!

The problem is, most of you are talking "boats" I am talking "ships!"

I wont change, so may as well leave it at that!

I wouldn't even have commented, if the person who posted the image had built it themselves. But it "appeared" to me that he thought it might represent a real ship. This is understandable for someone who has no knowledge of ships, and what they look like. I was just putting him straight rather than leaving him to conduct extensive research into something as inaccurate and unrealistic as the Wibo model!

Painting eyes and a big smile on the bow and calling it "Charlie the Cheerful Coaster," as Terence suggests

would solve the problem, as then it would be know for what it is – a cartoon caricature!

Bob

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

You do see models like this from time to time. They are probably what in the art world would be referred to as 'naive' being intended to give an impression of the original subject rather than faithfully reproduce it. In this instance the name Wibo is probably of Dutch origin and the ship may be intended to represent a typical Dutch East Indies coastal trader, it has that sort of look about it.

Colin

[Terence PullenParticipant @terencepullen28279]

Hi all. Thanks for the wonderful response. I imagine that 22 years in the Merchant Navy would count as having a vague awareness of what a ship/boat looks like. (Ships carry boats. Boats do NOT carry ships.)

The ship must float as it has what I am told is a very expensive engine fitted.

I am WAY too old to mess about on boating lakes, in fact I make the Ancient Mariner look like a Deck Boy, so on the shelf it stays. Regards to all. Terry

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Terry,

With your sea time in the MN, you are no doubt well aware that nothing like that was ever built for real!

Why did you buy it, especially as it looks quite large? Did you like the look of it for some reason, or was the engine of greater interest to you? What are you going to do with it?

What company did you sail with? I hardly ever come across anyone these days who knows the difference between a ship and a boat Generally, anything that floats is referred to as a "boat" even if it is quarter of a million tons!

Bob

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

I too was always told that 'ships have boats but boats don't have ships'. My old colleague Capt Chris Pratt (HMC&E cutters) referred to just about anything as a 'boat' so I suppose the distinction matters less these days….

HOWEVER

Don't let me hear anyone refer to a transmitter as a "handset" – now that DOES annoy me!

Dave M

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Dave,

By general use, the term "boat" has become accepted and I often think that when this subject come up, it is just to wind people like myself up (which it does). So I will say no more on the suject of boats and ships, at the moment!

I wondered myself about the term "handset" but realised he meant the transmitter (or whatever you want to call it), but can't say that it bothered me!

Judging from the colour of the Wibo, maybe it sould have been Wibo Castle!

Bob

[Terence PullenParticipant @terencepullen28279]

I'm still of the opinion that this could be representative of a real vessel. When I was in the Inland Sea running between Wakamatsu, Nagoya and Kobe we had smaller lighters come alongside to tranship cargo. That was my first thought.

I started in 1956 training on the old Vindicatrix at Sharpness and my first ship was the Carnarvon Castle as Bridge Boy (Very important post; fetching Club Sandwiches to the Officers on 12 – 4 watch). After that it was on anything going anywhere. I have been everywhere accessible by ship with the exception of the Isle of Man. I went through the ranks; Deck Boy, EDH, AB, Bos'un's Mate and ended up as Bos'un on the Bristol Steam Navigation Co. when I decided to return to Home Trade.

The reference to handset was the only semi-technical term I could come up with as I have never had a R/C ship before.  It's too big to fit into the bath so it's an ornament now.  It's 100cms long, 27cm beam and stands 70cms keel to mast top and weighs 9 kilos.

Edited By Terence Pullen on 24/01/2016 12:19:13

Edited By Terence Pullen on 24/01/2016 12:22:06

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Terry,

Pleased to see you here! I too was in Union-Castle, but a long time after you, sailing in Richmond, Transvaal, Windsor, Pretoria, Edinburgh, Pendennis and Good Hope Castles as well as Reina del Mar (Union-Castle charter).

It was very sad when they sold them all in 1978!

Still, I try to keep their memories alive.

Bob

[Terence PullenParticipant @terencepullen28279]

Check out the bow on this one.

[Dave MilbournParticipant @davemilbourn48782]

I'm truly sorry, Terry – I didn't spot that you'd used the H word! I usually attribute it to spotty nerds who wouldn't know a ship from a sheep or a boat from a bottle. Any former matelot is OK by me.

Just to clarify things, a transmitter is a hand-held device (or sometimes held by a strap around the neck) which has sprung sticks and transmits a radio signal to the receiver and servos in a model via electro-magnetic radiation. A handset is a nasty cheap Chinese toy connected by wire to an equally nasty electronic box in order to play brain-numbing video games. As far as I'm concerned, along with 'Reality TV' shows and BEC, they are the devil's work…

DM

[Terence PullenParticipant @terencepullen28279]

Seek and ye shall find. What can't speak can't lie. (According to Del Boy)If that's a converted ship it Must have existed.  One of the perks of retirement is the ability to surf the Internet for hours.

Edited By Terence Pullen on 24/01/2016 13:16:22

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

It's not a children's playground is it?!!! Pity the name cannot be read.

Colin

[Terence PullenParticipant @terencepullen28279]

Min and Bills Dockside Diner, SS Down the Hatch boat, Echo Lake, Disney MGM Studios, Orlando, Florida,

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

It does look like a children's playroung exhibit.

I looked in fotolibra and could not find it! But I am quite certain that it is not a converted ship, it was built like that for some sort of theme park! Like a bouncy castle does not represent a real castle!

The yellow one has a similar bow, but is obviously of modern design.

Bob

[Terence PullenParticipant @terencepullen28279]

This explains it.

**LINK**

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

It is very similar to the model. So maybe someone visited the SS Down the Hatch diner, took some photographs and built the model. But then mudied the water by calling it Wibo!

I would be inclined to change the name to Down the Hatch, and leave it at that, because we know the diner existed, but nothing will convince me that it has anything more than a passing resemblance to a real ship!

Bob

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