If you’re a fan of models, then this has got to be for you. Its is the biggest ship model every built and you will need andenormous amount of space in the house if you’re going to keep it, there is quite a story behind the Lagoda is a half scaled down model of a whaleship dating for the nineteenth century, when whaling was a massive business. Its scale is exactly to half that of the original. It sits proudly in the in the Jonathan Bourne section of the New Bedford Whaling Museum Massachusetts USA. To be honest if you were looking to keep it for them then you’d have to look at a Loft conversions Bristol firm at http://www.caineslofts.co.uk/. Even then the Boat would be the size of your loft no doubt.
Why was such a boat built? Well it was about the legendary whaling ship the Lagoda. The Lagoda was a part of the hugely successful Bourne Fleet where the section derives its name. The Lagoda was a robust ship especially as it had to withstand a variety of environments. Originally it started out a plain merchant ship but with strong oak reinforcement and the fusing of iron to the hull it became a whaler. These ships need to be extremely strong as they would be expected to hunt in the artic and Antarctic sea. They would also have to operate in the hostile North Atlantic Ocean none of its storms and extremes of weather. The ship was also a hero as it narrowly avoid a whaling disaster in 1871. Scores of whaling boats were cut off when a freak ice flow in the Artic cut of 33 chips. The ice crushed many of the ships and the Lagoda ran rescue missions to save who they could. Its end was as bit ignominious. Sold by Bourne in 1886 the ship left the Americas to go to Japan. There it would become a simple coal carrying vessel to get fuel to the new steam ships. Sail power was no more. It was broken up in 1899 no longer commercially viable anymore.
The model was commissioned by Bourne’s daughter Emily as the primary addition to the section devoted to her family name. It is Eighty-nine feet long and remains the largest model vessel in the world. It sits in a brick berth but one of its best features is not only there to look at, it is there to inspire. It is actually an interactive exhibit, one of the first of its kind. Scores of school children visit and get to handle the tiller and pretend to steer this might ship over the Oceans. The original Lagoda may not be with us but its spirt lives on in this remarkable model.
