I’m trying to figure out how far below the deck I should place the waterline for the boat. I want it high enough that the hulett crane can reach the bottom of the hull, but low enough that it can clear the deck.
(Basically how tall is it in the middle?)
Great Lakes Ore Boat - Resin Kit
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/696-10501
Don,
I think you have a ‘how big is a dog’ issue here. When a Great Lakes ore boat is loaded and they start unloading, it is low in the water. By the time it is unloaded, it is riding much higher, I would suggest you go to the following web site:
http://www.decc.org/william-a-irvin/
Note how high it is riding in the water at dockside - it is unloaded and does not have any fuel on-board(museum). Now, scroll down and look at the B&W picture of the same ship ‘loaded’ - the waterline is much higher - maybe 2 course below the anchors. This is about the same as the picture you provided from Walthers.
Jim
Hi, Jim’s reply photos of real old Great Lakes ore boats shows how the loaded and unloaded height of the ship deck varies. I have the dock level at the same height as the boat deck height. The two Huelett unloaders are manually operable, with fascia levers and rubber band tension retrieval. Try various height levels with your Huelett unloader, to average the optimum height. Click on ohoto to enlarge it. Then, click on “Previous” or “Next” to see other views of my layout. Do you have the rest of the Iron Blast furnace, Blower engine house,Rolling Mill, and Coke and Gas complex ? Bob Hahn 
Three or four inches.
They sell a section to extend the length of it. That piece is 10 inches long. Eyeballing it from the picture, it looks to be about 30 or 40% as tall as it is long. Maybe less.
Note that the waterline of a loaded laker will be about twenty feet higher on the side than the waterline of the same ship empty. This is equally true of other large ships, but is even more pronounced in a vessel that is basically nothing but an assemblage of big, empty boxes. (Tankers have complex plumbing, containerships have rails and more closely spaced bulkheads, increasing the tare.)
More to the point, the antifouling `bottom’ paint is carried up to the loaded waterline, so the top of that reddish (copper-bearing) paint would be well clear of the water when a partially-to-fully unloaded ship is alongside the unloading facility. For an HO scale model, that might be 20 scale feet below the main deck. [EDIT - the color shown is good for bottom paint. Above the waterline, a less expensive paint would be used, usually black, sometimes white.] If the hull is 60 feet deep, that would place the top of the double bottom about 16 feet below the surface of the water when the Bobcat is running around scraping the last of the ore into piles the Hulett can lift. So, that’s how far below the water surface the Hulett should be able to reach. Note, too, that there are no tides in the Great Lakes, and seasonal level change is insignificant.
Chuck (Former Merchant Marine cadet modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Boat-nerd.com Great pictures of all kinds of Great Lakes ships.
LOL
Thanks guys. I kind of knew a boat waterline rises and falls with it’s load. (Hence the numbers on the keel going up the bow)
I was looking for actual dimensions of the middle of the model itself so I knew how tall to make the clapboard seawall siding. (Too little clapboard and the boat sits too high, and too high and the boat sits too low.)
I’ll just have to buy the model now, and then build my clapboard lip based on it.
Someone beat me to the boatnerd.com. If you go there, search the Paul Tregurtha and you’ll find pics of it docked at various locations arounf the Great Lakes. Or at bing maps, look at the St. Clair River from Marine City to Port Huron and you’ll see plenty examples of Great Lakes docks.
The seawalls actually aren’t very far off the water, in most cases. I’ve fished here on the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers for years and have watched many of the freighters do their thing - including the Tregurtha, which just stands out from its size and name which stuck in my head for some reason. Eyeballing in my head, I can’t believe the walls at the power plants could be more than 6 ft above waterline. Fishing out of my bass boat, I’ve never seen a sea wall as some tall, intimidating feature that would keep me from landing there if needed.