River Steamers

Sidewheel River Steamer

Abbas
is a large sidewheeler built professionally by David in the 1980s for Jack Hulsey. Abbas is about 13" (33 cm) long, with a 5.25" (14 cm) beam. This is larger than the Ouargistan group generally uses, but her size was not a problem on Jack's enormous gaming table. Her decks are foamcore and her superstructure is Strathmore card. Railing stanchions are new-shirt pins.

Figures are Ral Partha small 25s painted by Jack Hulsey (unless he paid somebody else to do them).

Abbas was intended as the centerpiece of the game, not an adjunct to land action. Her design is inspired by the familiar passenger steamer which has been used in a number of motion pictures, including Khartoum and Death on the Nile, but she is built for complexity of play, with two separate cabin structures on both the upper and lower decks. The entire upper deck, as well as the roofs of the deckhouses, lift for access to interior playing areas. Abbas has generous deck area around the deckhouses to accommodate Jack's oversized 1" (25mm) figure bases.

Press for a closeup of Abbas hard-pressed in action.

Strong points include details such as cables, railings, cleats, barrels, and fire buckets, as well as three 27mm crewman figures and a separate hull for very easy waterlining, (although the shallow, flat-bottomed hull would not look too bad just sitting atop the water). The decks and roofs can easily be arranged to lift off - just don't cement them.

Disadvantages include the square prow for pushing barges down the Mississippi; the best thing might be to discard the hull and build a new main deck piece from foamcore, with a proper prow. The kit has typical cost-conscious '50s-'60s diework - planking detail with ridges instead of grooves separating the planks; now there's a highlighting challenge. The twin boilers look great, but take up most of the open area of the main deck (in shadow in the picture), which could be used for figures or cargo. The boilers could easily be shortened, or eliminated and the stacks run down to imaginary boilers below the waterline. Alternatively, the stacks, or one of them, could be relocated amidships, and the deck space ahead of the upper-deck cabin used for figures or a Nordenfelt.

The biggest problem is availability. The kit gets rerun occasionally as part of Lindberg's classic series. Mine is from a 1985 reissue; I got it at a plastic-modeler's convention for a reasonable price. Your local hobbyshop owner might know a kit collector who could be persuaded to part with a copy; if not, try an ad on the shop's bulletin board. The plastic modelers' online discussion group (rec.models.scale) or online auction houses are a real possibility - eBay has a separate Plastic Kits - Ships and Boats category.

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