Tom Schell's exceptional model of the Washington State ferry M.V. Hyak is complete, but this is not new news:
It has been convenient these last few years to be able to blame various personal and business failings on COVID, but, alas, I cannot use that excuse to justify the three years, two month's hiatus between my first M.V. Hyak blog post and this second one. The delay is curiously a result of the precision craftsmanship of the ferry's builder, Thomas R. Schell. When he handed over the completed model to me for photography I planned to show each deck. I did not realize, however, that in removing the sun deck I had inadvertently taken the restaurant deck with it, so perfectly were they joined, yet with no mechanical attachment. Thus, I missed it entirely in the photo shoot and proceeded straight to the passenger deck. Since this photo shoot immediately preceded my moving away from our mutual hometown of Tucson, only recently has it been possible to rectify the error. The lack of any other blog entries whatsoever is another matter altogether.
Considering that Tom Schell's entire model is designed and constructed “from scratch,” the tight fit of each of the decks is quite amazing. Due to the lightness of the thin bass wood used throughout, even the slightest distortion of a single deck would result in defective mating with gaps amidship or fore and aft. For instance, the passenger deck had a slight upward bow at its ends when finally complete. Tom placed small thin lead weights on either end until it settled upon the car deck below, and then he glued these to the underside of the passenger deck resulting in its perfect mating. Likely, removing these today would make no difference. To ensure that a light breeze would not send decks sailing, we added some hidden weight to the topmost deck, the sun deck. I bored out the bottom of the two stacks in order to insert lead split shot. Do review the previous post for Tom's own description of his work and other deck photos. So, without further ado here is the missing restaurant deck:
Three closer views of the restaurant deck, pleasantly, a light passenger load:
Some notes:
● All windows in the vessel are actually glazed. Tom describes his method in his notes in the Nov. 30, 2020, Hyak post, i.e. sandwiching clear plastic between two pieces of 1/32” thick bass wood. Note that all walls had to be shaped to match the contours of the hull. Well, OK, you may say it's not rocket science, but I beg to differ, as that was, in fact, Tom's career path.
● Hollow punches were used to cut round objects from thin bass wood such as the stools found in the dining area.
● This model is constructed entirely in the traditional handmade manner with no CNC machinery or laser printers employed.
● The perimeter dado in the solid walnut base, made by yours truly, (see the restaurant deck photo above) receives the custom-made plastic dust cover which protects the model. Tom was most kind to include a brass plaque on the base attributing my contributions.
● I asked Tom recently how he counted 5 decks as I only counted 4. He pointed out that the car deck is actually composed of two levels with ramps leading up to a “mezzanine.” Here you can barely see the cars tucked underneath this second deck, again more authenticity:
I conclude with a note on global warming and ferries. The Washington State Fauntleroy Ferry Terminal in Seattle, for instance, is being rebuilt to accommodate higher tides. Here is view down the car deck of a B.C. Ferry on a recent trip after which we passengers had to exit via the car ramp due to the tide being too high to use the normal passenger ramps:
