While looking at reerences I noticed that the anchor chains are guided off the ship via hawse pipes.

 

 



On the Pola the hawse pipes are hoops through which the achor chain passes. When raised, the anchor sits in the loop.These were made using 4mm plastic tube which was cut short. The base was trimmed and the half pipe squeezed into shape. Then they were glued into position and strengthened with styrene filler and a little superglue. Some sanding improved the shape.

 

 

At the same time I noticed the area in front of the anchor capstones were painted deck grey, probably to protect the red and white stripes. These were masked and painted.

 

 

I decided to look at the ships boats next. They are very simple things, mainly a hull and cabin section. The hulls look OK, but the decks are terrible, with massive ejector pin marks.

 

 

For the smaller boats, sanding nearly got rid of the marks, but I added a little tamiya filler and sanded the tops smooth.

 

 

The medium boats are next. These also had pin marks which were too deep to sand, so I cut circles of styrene and glued then into place before sanding. Looking at references, these boats don't have an open helming position so I build small cabins with styrene. These boats also have small hatches in the cabin roof, so I cut some smaller circles and glued them into place.

 

 

The largest of the boats are open topped. They have small cabins near the back shich were replicated from more styrene before adding.

 

 

Next the tops were glued to the hulls. A litle sanding was needed for the join. I'm not sure the arrangement from the instructions are correct but they should look OK.

 

 

Don't think I can avoid it any more, time to paint the superstructure.