Every historically important ship design has many fathers. This is even true for the humble liberty ship. Doxford, Burntisland, Thompson and serial liar Lithgows, who also claimed the MAC and CAM ships, all said to have designed the UK tramps that went into series production in the US as the Ocean an Liberty ships. Now that Lloyd's is putting drawings of all pre-war tramps online it is possible to compare the designs and see who was right. Looking through all of them it becomes clear that the Thompson series of tramps of the mid-1930s are the only pre-war tramps with the typical streamlined and relatively narrow hull,and high-ish speed, of the Oceans and Liberties.
This is a trumpeter liberty in grey with an Empire B in comparison.
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Some more searching and good read of British Tramps by I.G Stewart came up with SS Embassage as the first of these Thompson tramps. So when over at Britmodeller someone started a 1920s and 30s group built I decided to backdate a trumpeter Liberty to 'granddad' .
The rebuild turned out to be quite straightforward. All decks over crew space needed to be planked.
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Prewar tramps had a foc'sle, a split superstructure and tumblehome.
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I had to make my own decals as the owners, Hall Brothers of Newcastle on Tyne, had a rather complex but beautiful funnel design.
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And I had to replace the rather heavy cargo gear of the Liberty ships, which were designed for self unloading tanks and trucks, by light prewar gear.
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I added a simple base and that's it. A nice looking pre-war tramp for my collection. Unfortunately Embassage herself never saw the vast fleet of Forts, Oceans and Liberties that were based on her design. She was sunk in august 1941 by U 557.
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