The white squares are plastic covering the magnets, trying to take the twist out of the wood by clamping and using fiberglass Matt and epoxy.
You’re going to need some gap between the props and those skegs or the ship will only stop by running into the opposite shore, if no gap is possible then fair them in to come to a point
So, I'm a bit confused - does IRC no longer have the "scale rudder size" exception, or does it not apply to convoy ships?
Anyone have dry dock pics of midway, focusing on the stern? This is the “as-built” version, not sure how much was changed with the angled deck
Gone from what I can tell. Wouldn't apply to a convoy anyway due to the way the rudder rule for convoys is written with a separate rudder table and no exceptions listed for that table.
The scale rudder size was removed during one of the wholesale increases, since it would not apply with the larger sizes. I wouldn't think the underhull or propulsion train would change much over the life of the ship. Here's a quick picture I found which shows the skegs coming to a point. It's hard to tell from Lou's picture what the distance is between the props and the skegs, but something close to the picture below would be good, and I would still adapt the skegs to come to a point, otherwise they'll be a huge brake for reverse trust
I will adapt the design to fit something that looks more like this. No, there is no "scale rudder" exemption. Convoy ships, even this large, get 3" of rudder. That's it, all outta rudder. The bilge keels "un-scale-ness" is partially due to design and construction constraints. The rear end of the midway doesn't provide a ton of good spots to add bolts/etc to hold the last section on. So the bilge keels were kept big and beefy farther aft to allow a heat-set + bolt to attach section 7 to section 6. I can see now that this may have been a bad idea, I have reduced the thickness of the keels as much as possible and have also pulled them forward away from the props as much as I can with still allowing that heat set + bolt connection. This is the resulting modification of the design: I'm sure that Lou can make his prototype work just fine, and there is plenty of room for oversized props. There is also a lot of beef in the skeg area that could be sanded/dremeled/etc for clearance. Just make sure to plastic weld/abs juice/etc fill back in what you remove.
I'm really looking forward to how ridiculous this massive convoy boat arms race gets in the next few years. combat boats on 2/5 are gonna have to be recruited as tugboats to get all of the monsters turning enough to get back to port. hell I bet some of us will be able to start our turn as soon as our 30 seconds are up.
thinned, epoxy putty on the infill, epoxy with fiberglass cloth covering everything (kinda rough, I expect to make further adjustments)
