Great Site!

[CliffsVictory57]

Dart Containerline Model

Greetings,

Newbie on deck. I just received this Dart Containerline model (7.25"), and have ID'ed her as the SS Manchester Challenge (2).
Assuming it was made for the Dart Containerline, can anyone shed light on who/when/where this detailed waterline model was made?
I'd been looking for a small container ship model like this for awhile, and love this one for its fine lines and chrome plating.

Growing up on the Great Lakes, I have an avid interest in many types of ships/boats. I've limited my collecting interests to these; SS Manhattan, Bremen & Europa, Cliffs Victory, Argentina (Bermuda Star), and USS Alaska (one of the three CB-Class Battle Cruisers from the end of WW II). And a wee bit of the SS Normandie when I can afford it. LOL.

As for the Dart Containerline model, we just started shipping mid-'50's collector cars to Thailand for restoration. I'm a sucker for anything to do with transportation, and have been a scale model buff for decades. Our shipper in Long Beach had a waterline model on his desk, so I had to have one, too! From now on though, we'll be shipping the cars to BKK from Charleston, SC, closer to home.

What a great site!

Thanks,
CV57

[K urgess]

Welcome aboard from northern England, CV57.
I'm sure someone in the crew will be able to help with your query.
Find your way around the ship, join in and enjoy the voyage.

[Bruce Carson]

From Michigan, a warm welcome to Ships Nostalgia, CliffsVictory57.
Saw her many times--a favorite of many on and around the Lakes.
Here's a particularly good picture of her at the Soo:
http://www.mhsd.org/photogallery/cliff.htm

Bruce

[ssr481]

Greetings from Annapolis...

I'm partial to the lake boats myself... "my" ship, the SS JOHN W BROWN did a cruise on the Great Lakes back in 2000... the BROWN sailed there from Baltimore to get about 40000 rivets in the bottom, below the engine room, replaced... the yard in Toledo (from where the BROWN would fly riveters to Baltimore) had a long stretch of open drydock time.. so the BROWN went there, did a cruise off Detroit/Windsor, Ontario, Cleveland (where I flew to work the cruise).. and then back to Baltimore.

[Gulpers]

CliffsVictory57,

A warm welcome to the site from the Isle of Anglesey.
I guarantee you will thoroughly enjoy the SN experience!
Since you share common interests with many of our members you will undoubtedly be exchanging messages before long. (Thumb)

[benjidog]

Welcome from Lancashire UK.

I hope you will enjoy the site.

Regards,

Brian

[CliffsVictory57]

Thanks y'all,

I can see this will be a nice site for the exchange of info. As for the Cliffs Victory, I just picked up a blueprint of the Victory Ship she once was, the Notre Dame Victory. It should arrive in the mail in a few days.

My great-uncle worked for the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company from '48-'72 (at least) on many of their boats, and after his death in '99 I found almost of all his discharge papers along with some other things. He was a proud, quiet Finn, an oiler for his whole career who never married. My favorite possession is his retirement gift from CCIC, a German-made barometer flying the company colors, pictured below.

He loved tending his acreages of woodland in the U.P., cutting his own firewood and thinning it till his passing. Every year, he sent us a calendar that said,
"Old woodcutters never die, they just fade away," paraphrasing MacArthur's famous West Point Commencement speech. A measure of a man's worth in those parts was a neat and trim woodpile, and his were the finest.

His name was Yalmer (Matt) Moilanen, born in 1918 to Finnish immigrant parents, one of 10 children and the youngest son. In those days, the kids from the U.P. usually left to seek their fortunes, so after the war he took to the Lakes.

Whenever they were in port, he'd buy fine clothes from the best men's stores in town; I have all his silk ties, the thin ones that are again in vogue, and they're all I wear when I need a tie. The labels on them read like a roster of Great Lakes Ports of Call. Though he was somewhat smaller than I, his Hughes & Hatcher (Detroit) topcoat fits me perfectly, though I only get to wear it rarely here in the South.

Boy, if those garments could talk!

CV57

[gdynia]

Welcome onboard to SN and enjoy the voyage