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Paint scheme for Gorch Fock

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  • Member since
    June 2005
  • From: Walworth, NY
Paint scheme for Gorch Fock
Posted by Powder Monkey on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 10:20 PM

I am about to start on the Minicraft 1/350 Gorch Fock. Looking at pictures on the internet, it appears there are at least two paint schemes for this ship. One is with the deck furniture, masts and parts of the hull painted spar color. The other is with the deck furniture and lower masts painted white. Does anyone know which is the current paint? It looks like the bulwarks and lower portions of the cabins are gray and the belting line is blue. Can someone confirm?

Thanks,

Pete

  • Member since
    May 2003
  • From: Greenville, NC
Posted by jtilley on Thursday, March 18, 2010 9:53 AM

Interesting question - with (like most interesting questions) no simple answer. 

There have, of course, been two German sailing schoolships named Gorch Fock.  The first one, built in the thirties, went to the Soviet Union as war reparations and was renamed Tovaritsch.  If I'm not mistaken, she's currently under restoration somewhere or other; I confess I've lost track of that story.  The second ship was launched in 1958 and currently is in service with the German navy.

I've never compared the plans of the two vessels.  They certainly look extremely similar in photos - but just how similar they are in real life I honestly don't know.

I haven't looked at the Minicraft 1/350 kit in a long time.  I know it was one of the series that Imai released in conjunction with the notorious "tall ships" extravaganza in 1976.  And I know Imai recycled hulls and various other parts to make several "different" kits - the USCG Eagle and the Portuguese Sagres, for instance.  (Those ships are in fact near-sisters - but not quite.   As we've discussed several times here in the Forum, all those German schoolships of the thirties differed in length.) 

I'm wondering whether Imai used that same hull in its Gorch Fock kit.  If so, it's probably a reasonably accurate rendition of the first ship - the one from the thirties.  I have an extremely vague recollection, though, that there may have been a kit specifically labeled "Gorch Fock II"  (and another one labeled Tovaritsch) in the Imai series.  If so, did Imai produce a different set of parts to represent the 1958 ship accurately?  I have no idea.

Anyway, as for the color scheme - the best I could come up with (going the same route Powdermonkey did, I imagine) is the ship's German-language website:  http://www.marine.de/portal/a/marine/kcxml/04_Sj9SPykssy0xPLMnMz0vM0Y_QjzKLNzKODwxxBcmB2d5mIfqRcNGglFR9X4_83FR9b_0A_YLciHJHR0VFAFDI-qo!/delta/base64xml/L3dJdyEvd0ZNQUFzQUMvNElVRS82XzIzX1FTVg!! .  On the homepage is a photo of the ship dated 2007; it seems to show all the spars, down to deck level, in "spar color" or something similar to it.  (I think that color terminology is distinctive to the USCG, but the color in the photo certainly looks like it.)  If you click on that photo you can enlarge it to full-screen size and see quite a few details in it - probably enough to turn a 1/350 model into a nice exercise in frustration.

Later edit:  the web gremlins are at work.  If you click on the above link, you get sent to the homepage of the German Navy - not the page of the Gorch Fock.  The quickest route to the latter seems to be the one I used:  start with the Wikipedia article:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorch_Fock_(1958) .  Scroll down to the bottom of that page and click on "Official homepage of the Gorch Fock."  That will bring up the picture I was talking about earlier.

The German navy website does have a search function.  Type in "Gorch Fock" and you'll get some news releases about her - including one about the appointment of a new CO.  It's accompanied by a quite recent photo, which does show the tan-colored lower masts.  I didn't try that search function beyond that, but it might well yield some other useful stuff.

I don't imagine any of that helps much.  Sorry.

Youth, talent, hard work, and enthusiasm are no match for old age and treachery.

  • Member since
    June 2005
  • From: Walworth, NY
Posted by Powder Monkey on Thursday, March 18, 2010 11:28 AM

Actually, it did help. Poking around a little more led me to this page: http://www2.gorchfock.de/index.php?option=com_joomgallery&Itemid=61

There are a lot of pictures here, including a gallery for modelers.

  • Member since
    February 2009
  • From: Klaipeda, Lithuania, Europe
Posted by Wojszwillo on Thursday, March 18, 2010 1:19 PM
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