Late Victorian / Early 20th Century Sailing/Steam Ship Idea for Pulp Gaming

[Sakuragi Miniatures]

I got the idea to share this after reading the SS Avantura thread for building a 15mm pulp steamer and the suitably pulp ships thread. A good pulp gaming ship needs to be small enough to fit on the table but look big enough to pass as an ocean-going vessel; I think a lighthouse tender or mail ship suits that role perfectly as it’s built for a smaller cargo. You would still need to drastically smash it down to fit on a table, but I think it’s a good starting point.

My reference here is the Scottish-built Meiji Maru. It was built in 1874 as a two-masted topsail iron schooner with twin steam engines by Napier Shipyard in Glasgow, Scotland for the Japanese government. Its primary job was tending lighthouses, but also acted as a mail ship and courier for government missions. It became a training ship in 1897 and in 1898 or 1901 was re-rigged to its current configuration.

If interested, I wrote more about it here:
https://www.wayfarerdaves.com/?p=6174

It’s hard to get Meiji Maru’s full (playable) length not counting the bowsprit, which was shorter upon completion, so I’m going off her original length for making her a game piece. At construction, she was 223 feet (68 meters) long and had a beam of 30 feet (9.1 meters); her draft was 22 feet (6.7 meters). I’m a writer, photographer, artist, war veteran, balut enthusiast, and historical exhibit curator, but I’m not a math magician. By my math, in 1/56 scale that would be about 48 inches long and about 6.3 inches wide. I think it could be “smushed” into a more manageable length like 36 inches and potentially be widened out by an inch for gaming and still look like a realistic ship.

To do your own math, or maths for those in the UK, the stats and history can be found here: https://kaiyou-juku.org/siryou/Meijimaru.pdf

Meiji Maru itself is still with us because the Emperor Meiji graced it with his presence in 1876 thereby creating a national holiday (Ocean Day and I’m not joking) and in turn it became a training ship after a 20 year career. I’d imagine other vessels just like her where still working long past this time into the 20th century so reasonably could make for good “old” pulp tramps and such. What do you guys think? Does anyone want to give this a try?

For a comparable sized ship, Star of India has a 212 foot deck (LOD), 35 foot beam, and 21.5 foot draft, though it out masses Meiji Maru by 300 tons (1300 tons vs 1010 tons at time of construction).


Schematic onboard the ship as she is now.





These photos were taken moving from bow (front) to stern (back):

Looking aft from the bow


Looking aft at the pilot house


Looking forward from the pilot house


Looking to the bow from behind the pilot house


Looking aft


Stern


Meiji Maru has two decks; this is the only one open to the public. Below and aft of the pilot house are the guest cabins and galley.


Forward of the pilot house is the cargo hold; it was later used as a classroom.

[Hitman]

I think maybe the Maiji Maru is a wee bit too big to use for wargaming, but would be awesome to have just to game in!! 😉

Beautiful photos of a beautiful vessel. Thanks for sharing.
Regards,
Hitman
😎

[Sakuragi Miniatures]

I agree with you. Though I'm not the one to build it, I'm looking at ways to practically scale it down.

[huevans]

What would be its role in the game?

[Sakuragi Miniatures]

What would be its role in the game?

It's essentially the board, you act within the confines of the ship and on its deck.

[Marine0846]

It would be really cool if you could build the ship to play a game on it.
A number of year a friend built a zeppelin, to play Pulp Alley.
It was if I remember, a MDF kit, about four feet long.
Had some great games on it.

[frd]

That's a beautiful ship. I kinda want to try building it, but I still haven's finished the SS Avantura, so I should probably focus on that first

I did a little digging, and it seems that there was a 1/96 scale model produced of it, but has since been discontinued and is hard to find (the only one available for sale I was able to find was sold last December in Japan and went for over $200!).

I wish that the model kit was more common, because 1/96 scale is pretty close to 15mm. However, even at this scale it is quite big - almost 80cm long! (the dimensions are on the box on this auction).

For comparison, my SS Avantura is roughly 45cm long, and I think it gives plenty of space for skirmishes.

It wouldn't be too hard to "smush" it a bit to make it more playable. There's plenty of space both up front and in the back that could be sacrificed. I wish there a 3d model of it available to experiment a bit, but my quick search didn't find any. I also couldn't find proper plans (the best I found is this pdf, but it doesn't show the hull curves). Maybe it's a pretty common hull construction and could be replaced?

...well, it seems I'm going in too deep into a new ship, when the last one is still waiting.

I would love someone to give building it a try. It would be a sight to behold on a wargaming table!

In the meantime, here's a build log of the 1/96 model on youtube: , , .

[Sakuragi Miniatures]

It would be really cool if you could build the ship to play a game on it.
A number of year a friend built a zeppelin, to play Pulp Alley.
It was if I remember, a MDF kit, about four feet long.
Had some great games on it.

Thats a cool piece to see on the table, or as the table, as it were!

[Sakuragi Miniatures]

That's a beautiful ship. I kinda want to try building it, but I still haven's finished the SS Avantura, so I should probably focus on that first

I did a little digging, and it seems that there was a 1/96 scale model produced of it, but has since been discontinued and is hard to find (the only one available for sale I was able to find was sold last December in Japan and went for over $200!).

I wish that the model kit was more common, because 1/96 scale is pretty close to 15mm. However, even at this scale it is quite big - almost 80cm long! (the dimensions are on the box on this auction).

For comparison, my SS Avantura is roughly 45cm long, and I think it gives plenty of space for skirmishes.

It wouldn't be too hard to "smush" it a bit to make it more playable. There's plenty of space both up front and in the back that could be sacrificed. I wish there a 3d model of it available to experiment a bit, but my quick search didn't find any. I also couldn't find proper plans (the best I found is this pdf, but it doesn't show the hull curves). Maybe it's a pretty common hull construction and could be replaced?

...well, it seems I'm going in too deep into a new ship, when the last one is still waiting.

I would love someone to give building it a try. It would be a sight to behold on a wargaming table!

In the meantime, here's a build log of the 1/96 model on youtube: , , .

I banged out the numbers for making it "gameable" awhile back, it has length that can be cut like you said and would work at 36" long with a 6.5" beam. If I could find a sectional 3D print hull, a bow section, some identical straight sections and a fantail section, I could just tack on the Oshiro steam ship bits and it would almost be done.

Thanks for sharing the 1/96 video, I wasn't aware that model existed but that is big!