SS ANDREA DORIA ocean liner
model
an icon of
Italian national pride
Not all ship models are
equal. And a lot of them are junk. For those who have
seen some cheap Andrea Doria models out there and felt
the urge to go cheap, be forewarned. Those models are
wrong in many ways. The hull is so wrong (and shiny like a plastic toy) that no words can ever
describe. The all-important funnel is erroneous on many
counts. Name and home port on the stern are either
missing or crooked. One shop even puts a lot of light
bulbs on deck like huge mushrooms. The light is supposed
to come from the lamps on the walls, not the
deck. It
took us a mere 15 minutes to spot those errors on two
different models that pop up everywhere on the Internet
and we did not want to spend more time looking at the
perhaps ugliest things ever seen. The gorgeous ship
suddenly becomes displeasing in the hands of the me-too
sweatshops.
Our Andrea Doria models
are build by high skilled artists. They are constructed
one by one for the ship's admirers whose standards are
high and for those who value accuracy and intricate
details. Have a look.
Of all Italy's ships
of the time, SS Andrea Doria was built to be the largest, fastest and
safest.
Andrea Doria had a
revolutionary design: the fore-body section incorporated
a radical flare, which terminated forward in a knuckle
and a bulbous
bow - a feature
designed to reduce drag and increase speed. The
well-immersed cruiser stern allowed for a free flow of
water over the propellers.
The Ansaldo yards used
a new technique of prefabrication in association with
electronic welding. The hull was divided into eleven
watertight compartments, with a collision bulkhead
carried to the upper-deck level. The ship had a double
bottom extending almost the entire hull.
When collided by MS Stockholm on 25 July 1956, the
safety feature helped a great deal. Hit, Andrea Doria immediately list severely to starboard and half of
its lifeboats unusable. The superior design allowed her
to stay afloat for a very long time. 1,660 passengers
and crew were rescued. Only 46 people died. Only after
11 hours of floating, she capsized and sank, the
following morning.
With that kind of safety features, the Andrea Doria
managed to pack mind-blogging power and speed. Her
massive twin turbine engines were fired by
high-compression steam and two auxiliary boilers. She
cranked out 35,000 horsepower and could maintain an
average speed of 22 knots for the duration of her
Atlantic crossing!
As far as creature
comforts, the Andrea Doria had no equal. Antiques and
modern art by Salvatore Fiume, Luzzatie, and Ratti were
evident everywhere. Paintings, murals, mirrors,
ceramics, and crystals adorned the walls of the massive
ship. The 31 public rooms provided an average of 40
square feet of recreational space for each of the 1,290
passengers that the ship could comfortably accommodate.
The Andrea Doria looked
like a handsome yacht. Her jet-black hull, and the
gleaming white superstructure, the rakish single
smokestack emblazoned in Italy's colors of green, white,
and red made for entrancing a sight. Those long elegant
sweeping lines would forever characterize Italian
design.
The
following photos are of a 6' long Andrea Doria model:
Our
primarily wood SS Andrea Doria
model has the following distinguished features:
- Authentically built
based on plans and blueprints. Bulbous bow (all other
shops
have this important feature wrong.)
- Red and green
navigation light.
-
Hollow hull
construction. This construction method gives
accurate hulls, as artisans create the frame of the
hull exactly like in drawings. The solid hull
method, on the other hand, employs most guesswork on
the degree of curvature.
- Windows and portholes are cutouts (not black decal
which will curl up eventually), uniform, and on
straight lines.
36" long x 14" tall x
7" wide
$3,990 Shipping and insurance in
the contiguous USA included.
Other places: $400 flat rate. A
copy of this
model was featured in Disney's
Sydney to the Max,
season 3.
72"' long x
23" tall x 12" wide
$8,960, Shipping and insurance in
the contiguous USA included.
Other places: $900 flat rate.
Models are built per commission only. We require only
a small deposit to
start the process. The
remaining balance won't be due until the model is
completed,
in several months.
Lighting feature is included.
A ship is
not an ocean liner without beautiful lighting.
Be sure to check out our
beautiful, authentic
SS Rex
model and
TS
Michelangelo
model
Learn more about the Andrea Doria here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Andrea_Doria
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