Building a Model
Some five years ago initial thoughts on building a model of the Imperial Yacht Standart materialized; basis for building a historical correct and impressive working model are of course detailed plans, (technical) descriptions, a vast collection of photographs and last but not least a good fundament of ship model building experience. With some twenty years of all-round modeller's experience and the motivation to build models of all vessels to the entire Imperial Russian Navy I started the search for the Holy Grail: detailed plans to the Imperial Russian Yacht Standart.
After a search of some two years I finally got hold of six plans of Standart through the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, United Kingdom. Additional plans were found in Denmark at various locations and the always helpful and enthusiastic Mr. Tonny Andersen of the Burmeister & Wain museum at Copenhagen supplied me with a vast amount of historical technical descriptions of the Yacht. Mr. Georgiy Rogachev, Curator to the Central Naval Museum at Sankt Peterburg, made it possible for me to view their 1:48 scale model of Standart, built in 1903, although this model is sadly enough not part of the permanent exhibition of the museum. Hundreds of photographs of the Imperial Family on board the Standart were acquired through the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, New Haven and are a unique source of information on details of the Yacht.
The plans acquired through the National Maritime Museum are in a scale of 1/4" to 1' (1:48) and very quickly I decided that my model should be build in that same scale. Building Standart in a scale of 1:48 means that she has an overall length of almost 3.0 metres (10 feet) and has a waterline correct weight of some 50 kgs; more important I'm of the opinion that building a model in scale 1:48 offers the possibilities of a highly accurate and detailed model. On the basis of these six plans I started the preparation of all construction drawings in AutoCad as a further support to building a highly accurate and well designed vessel. After all she is supposed to be a working model so keeping track of weight and weight distribution is utmost essential.
Standart - Status as per November 2002
Standart - Status as per February 2004
Looking Forward from Aft
A Look into the (future) Engine Room