I have become very fond of this class of little ships. My father served on the USS Duxbury Bay AVP-38 from 1952-1953 when she swapped duty with two other AVP's USS Greenwich Bay and USS Valcour as flagships for Commander Middle East Forces. These ships of "The White Ghost Fleet" were painted white.

I am most grateful to Commander Series Models, Inc / Iron Shipwright for creating a 1/350 scale model of this class of seaplane tenders small. Their resin kit has been a valuable base for modifying and depicting my Dad's Duxbury Bay in her 1953 configuration.
I am also grateful to NavSource.org for collecting so many images and information about the ships of this class. Many of these AVP's went to the Coast Guard and served as WAVP's and WHEC's. Some served as survey ships, as well.

I have only seen two other builds of ISW's Barnegat/Mackinac AVP kit. Mike Taylor made one that is in a diorama in the Gallery and Richard Sliwka's USS Absecon AVP-23 has been most valuable to me as reference for my build of the Duxbury Bay. Richard's Absecon is also featured in the Gallery.
I am wondering who else has purchased this kit and if they have built them yet. I'd love to see them!
This is my build of the USS Duxbury Bay AVP-38, so far. I am almost done. I have spent about four months on it, so far, and it involved a lot of scratch building of gun tubs, spray shields, superstructure, and decks. This has been my first real attempt at scratch building my own pieces and my first exposure to the after-market detailing products.
At commissioning in 1944, The Duxbury Bay only had one 5" gun turret. In 1952 my father report aboard while she was in Norfolk Naval Shipyard, the 5" gun turret was removed, air conditioning was added to the ship, and it received its first coat of white paint.



Please share your AVP models with me.
Thanks!