Saturday, February 03, 2018

Boat Building

I was going to write about how I stay sane ...

But then Stellaris happened ... And that's one of those games that's really good at grabbing the attention. Anyway, one of those ways of keeping myself sane is to build things ...

What's the latest construction to arrive ? I did a teaser picture the other day ...
That has just enough information to tell you what it is (if you take the 42074 code over to the lego websites).
As always, click for bigger. These are pictures transferred straight from the phone again, so there's lots more pixels to look at. Just don't mind the dust on my couch !

Every ship build starts with a central point. A keel. It's typically the bottom centre of the boat, although modern ship building techniques are usually more about module builds, where they put together the ship in big blocks and then weld the blocks together. There are a number of fascinating videos about building modern warships and ocean liners, I'd thoroughly recommend them if you're interested in the engineering behind the ships.
The aft section comes in to encase the rudder.
Ocean racing yachts tend to be dual control machines, where the rudder is controlled from either side of the boat. That's to make sure the weight distribution is right. The wind tries to push the boat over, the sailors all try and be on the other side to balance the forces from the wind.
I think my helper is wanting me to photo him like those French Dragon Ladies he's heard about. I must be more careful with that internet search history.
The central hull starts coming together. We'll come back to the mechanism in the centre.
And 4D the dragon helps us take a better look at the almost complete bow. The odd looking Lego thing hanging off the front actually recesses back in to the hull when the yacht is complete.
The hull of the yacht is all complete now, with the bow area enclosed. That's where the sails go on a real racing yacht, with the sailors sleeping around the sails.

Hmm. 4D looks like he has designs on that yacht in the same way as a sea monster Kraken would. He must be seeing things in that internet history again.
And the completed yacht with her sails !!!

I quite enjoyed this build. Lego can be very cathartic to play with as it starts from totally unconnected bricks and gradually unveils its mystery of what's coming together. For a technic kit, this one was quite simple with just a few moving parts but it's still one of the better kits. Most Lego Technic tends to be cars and trucks which for me are : Seen one, seen all of them. The yacht is something a little different.

Let's have a look from another angle :
4D helping out again.

The boom of the mainsail moves (the mechanism from earlier) and the yacht has a working rudder. It's lovely to see and touch the moving parts and how they intricately interplay with each other.

A simpler kit but that's ok. I had as much enjoyment out of seeing this one come together as some of the bigger kits. What's next ? Could be another car ... Maybe.

Until the next kit !

Haha, could be this one, rebuilt as the catamaran double hull yacht.

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