Good luck with the comp

Good luck Robin, I look forward to it.

Mark

Good luck with the comp Robin, be interesting to see what you come up with.....

Regards

Alan

Sounds intriguing

Many thanks to Andy, Mr T, Mark, Graeme, Alan, Ken and the two Phils! for all their kind words.

Before I get going on this one (got some wood stain/varnish to get first) here's a brief outline of what I'm planning to do.


"We had stood off the shore three hours and a half, with a pleasant breeze, and therefore knew that we could not be very near it, and we had too much reason to conclude that we were upon a rock of coral, which is more fatal than any other, because the points of it are sharp, and every part of the surface so rough as to grind away whatever is rubbed against it, even with the gentlest motion. In this situation all the sails were immediately taken in, and the boats hoisted out to examine the depth of water round the ship: we soon discovered that our fears had not aggravated our misfortune, and that the vessel had been lifted over a ledge of the rock, and lay in a hollow within it: in some places there was from three to four fathom, and in others not so many feet ... During all this time she continued to beat with great violence against the rock, so that it was with the utmost difficulty that we kept upon our legs; and to complete the scene of distress, we saw by the light of the moon the sheathing boards from the bottom of the vessel floating away all round her, and at last her false keel, so that every moment was making way for the sea to rush in which was to swallow us up ... We had indeed some hope from the next tide, but it was doubtful whether she would hold together so long, especially as the rock kept grating her bottom under the starboard bow with such force as to be heard in the fore store-room. This however was no time to indulge conjecture, nor was any effort remitted in despair of success: that no time might be lost, the water was immediately started in the hold, and pumped up; six of our guns, being all we had upon the deck, our iron and stone ballast, casks, hoop staves, oil jars, decayed stores, and many other things that lay in the way of heavier materials, were thrown overboard with the utmost expedition, every one exerting himself with an alacrity almost approaching to cheerfulness, without the least repining or discontent; yet the men were so far imprest with a sense of their situation, that not an oath was heard among them, the habit of profaneness, however strong, being instantly subdued, by the dread of incurring guilt when death seemed to be so near."

The above is a quote from the journal of Dr. John Hawkesworth, one of the Royal Society members assigned to the voyage of the Endeavour and his graphic description forms the basis for my mini diorama for this competition. The Endeavour ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef at 11.00pm on the 11th of June 1770, her situation was dire and a frantic operation to heave overboard anything that would lighten the ship took place under moonlight. In the end, over 48 tons of equipment and stores went over the side including Endeavour’s six deck cannons and one of her anchors. Eventually, after about a day of incessant pumping with the ship rocking about on the sharp coral ‘sanding her bottom off’ the crew managed to tow her off the reef and sail her to land where they spent weeks repairing her damage to get her sea-worthy again.
You can tell from the above how urgent their situation was – if a British Jack Tar is too busy to swear…..!!

The photo below illustrates the main components of the diorama – a 6x4 inch MDF base, the cannon kit and an Amati anchor kit for company with a duo of plastic sharks from the National Marine Aquarium down here in Plymouth (not sure about the stingray yet!) Lastly on the right, a ‘bucket’ of beach sand. Not shown here as it was bigger than the entire cutting mat is a large block of Thermalite concrete insulation which I’ll be hammering and chiselling to form the coral reef itself.
Hopefully I’ll be starting this tomorrow with the MDF base getting its sanding and multiple layers of varnish to smooth off the fluffy edges!(However I've now decided to try wood staining it as well so a slight delay there).

See you all soon!

Robin.

Looking forward to seeing how you pull this together

Good luck

Jase

Look forward to your build start.....

Chris

Looking forward to this Robin.

Mark

Hi Robin

Nice idea for the underwater dio.

Mantarays are found on the Barrier Reef, but not so sure about the scale of that one against the sharks.

One thing that may help though is that aquarium / marine fish suppliers will stock coral sand. It`s fragments of coral that could be built into a reef without to much hassle.

Regards
delboy271155
(Derek)