New Model:Tugboat Delta-Linda

Scale: 1/4

Length: 27” Height: 21” Bredth: 9”

Tug Boat

Price: $465

Shipping: $55

Featured Boat:USS Illinois

USS Illinois (BB-7), the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the 21st state, was a battleship, the lead ship of her class.
Illinois was laid down on 10 February 1897 by the Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company of Newport News, Virginia. She was launched on 4 October 1898, sponsored by Miss Nancy Leiter, daughter of Chicago multi-millionaire Levi Leiter^[3] and commissioned on 16 September 1901, Captain George A. Converse in command.


After shakedown and training in Chesapeake Bay, the new battleship sailed on 20 November 1901 for Algiers, Louisiana, where she was used to test a new floating dry dock. She returned to Newport News in January 1902, and from 15–28 February served as flagship for Rear Admiral R.D. Evans during the reception for Prince Albert Wilhelm Heinrich of Prussia. Bearing the flag of Rear Admiral A.S. Crowninshield, the battleship departed New York City on 30 April and arrived at Naples on 18 May, where the Admiral took command of the European Squadron. Illinois carried out training and ceremonial duties until 14 July, when she grounded in the harbor of Kristiania, Norway and had to return to England for repairs. She remained at Chatham Dockyard until 1 September, then proceeded to the Mediterranean and South Atlantic for fleet maneuvers.Illinois was detached from the European Squadron on 10 January 1903 and assigned to the North Atlantic. In 1906, under the Command of Captain Blocklinger the Illinois was the first ship to win the famous Prince Louis Battenberg Cup. She engaged in fleet maneuvers, gunnery and seamanship training, and ceremonial operations until December 1907, when she joined the "Great White Fleet" for the cruise around the world. Following a Presidential review, the mighty battleships sailed from Hampton Roads on their important voyage. The Atlantic Fleet joined the Pacific Fleet on 8 May 1908 in San Francisco Bay, and after a review by the Secretary of the Navy, the combined fleets continued their cruise. The ships visited Australia, Japan, Ceylon, and other countries, arriving at Suez on 3 January 1909. At Suez, word of the 1908 Messina earthquake sent Illinois, Connecticut, and Culgoa to Messina. After rendering valuable aid to victims of the disaster, the ships rejoined the fleet, returning to Hampton Roads on 22 February. President Theodore Roosevelt reviewed the fleet as it arrived, having given the world a graphic demonstration of America's naval might. Illinois decommissioned at Boston, Massachusetts on 4 August. Illinois underwent a major modernization, receiving new "cage" masts and more modern equipment

Scale: 1:8

Length: 46” Height: 23” Bredth: 11”

Battleship

Price: $1150

Shipping: $165

Featured Boat: Calypso

With Calypso in 1951, Captain Cousteau found a ship that would let him realize his vision: to use his inventions as a pioneer in unveiling the continental shelf.

Calypso was transformed by Cousteau from top to bottom into an oceanographic vessel. So it is only right that, in her retirement, she should tell the story of her magnificent history, inseparable from that of Captain Cousteau.
 

 

From one legend to another

Calypso was, according to Greek myth, the nymph who held Ulysses captive on the island of Gozo for ten years. Today, the name is linked to another legend, that of the Cousteau ship. This floating legend is known throughout the world and sailed the ocean planet for nearly half a century to reveal its beauty and fragility. She is the symbol of human hopes to understand Nature, the better to protect it.
 

Cousteau meets Calypso

In Malta, Jacques-Yves Cousteau discovered a former Royal Navy mine-sweeper that had been converted to a ferry and named Calypso. The ship was christened in 1942 but her first prosaic name, J-826, belied the exceptional life she would lead. To Cousteau, she was the ideal ship for his plan to explore the seas. Thanks to the financial help of Loël Guinness, the sale contract was signed on July 19, 1950. Calypso left immediately for the shipyard in Antibes, France, where she was transformed into an oceanographic ship and a new Calypso was born. One of her many innovations was the " false nose ", or underwater observation chamber built around the prow and equipped with eight portholes for viewing.

Much of the equipment was donated by the private sector, including many companies, and the French Navy. Jacques Cousteau and his wife Simone also devoted a major part of their personal resources to the ship.
 

First trials, first expedition

In June, 1951, Cousteau decided to put the ship in the water and run her first trials off Corsica. On board, the improvised crew was made up of a few friends. The whole Cousteau family made the trip: 12-year-old Jean-Michel and 10-year-old Philippe served as cabin boys.

On November 24, 1951, the real adventure began. Calypso sailed from the Toulon arsenal, headed for the Red Sea to study corals. The crew brought back valuable topographic and photographic documentation and samples of theretofore unknown fauna and flora. Cousteau came back convinced that there was only one solution for understanding the sea: " We must go see for ourselves. " Calypso was the ideal tool for that challenge.
 

A film platform

In July, 1952, Calypso left Toulon for Marseilles. She shuttled back and forth to the little islet of Grand Congloué where the team was studying a shipwreck from the third century BC, lying 40 meters underwater. That was when a young Albert Falco joined the crew. Thousands of amphorae and pottery shards were brought to the surface and taken back to the Borely Museum and the Roman Docks Museum of Marseilles.

During the summer of 1953, Calypso was used to test new underwater cameras and electronic flashes invented by Dr. Harold Edgerton that made it possible to photograph deep water animals, pushing the limits of underwater exploration. The ship was ready for the fantastic film and television adventure that lay ahead of her. These 42.35 meters of floating wood became a laboratory, a film studio and home to a crew of 28.
 

The Silent World

In 1954, the ship left on expedition to look for oil, resulting in the discovery of a rich oil field in the Persian Gulf. The year 1955 saw the production of The Silent World, which later won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar. Calypso, by then famous, began a series of scientific cruises, studies and expeditions that would require further modifications to the ship. She was equipped with submersibles, a helicopter and all the tools needed for her mission. With her huge crane, bristling antennas and knobby underwater observation chamber, the ship looked like no other in the world and was known to everyone in the world.
 

The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau

For 40 years, Calypso carried Captain Cousteau and his teams to explore all the riches and the fragility of the oceans. At once a vessel, an operations base and a home, the ship sailed from the warm waters of the Indian Ocean to the ice of Antarctica. She towed the Conshelf structures, sailed up the Amazon River, housed film teams and became the symbol of a world to be explored and cared for.
Breakdowns, hurricanes, storms, ice, sand banks—through them all, Calypso was the leading actress of the " Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau ". She surmounted many an adventure and challenge. In the Suez Canal, she was almost sunk by mistake during the 1956 Egypt-Israel conflict.
 

A second life

It was three o'clock in the afternoon, in the port of Singapore, January 8, 1996, when a barge, in the process of being moved, seriously damaged Calypso just as she was about to depart for a Yellow River expedition. Her hull perforated, the grand old lady who had traveled through so many challenges heeled over and sank. The hearts of all her crew members over the years sank with her. It took 17 days to get the ship out of the water. Forever wounded, proud Calypso was now headed for one last mission: to bear witness for future generations of the extraordinary life of Captain Cousteau. Born of war, Calypso has become the messenger of peace and of protecting the water planet for future generations. Expeditions continued with her younger sister, Alcyone, daughter of the wind, launched in 1985.
 

Calypso Saved!

Calypso did not belong to the Equipe Cousteau when she was sunk in the port of Singapore. She was actually leased by Loël Guinness to Captain Cousteau and then to his organization. After her tragic sinking, she was brought back to France and sold to Equipe Cousteau for the symbolic sum of one franc by Loël Guinness’s grandson and heir, which precipitated a flurry of legal problems. Equipe Cousteau was finally recognized as owner of the vessel with full rights to undertake her restoration, which was begun on October 12, 2007.

Scale: 1/4  Metric: 1:48 

Length: 36” Height: 16” Bredth: 7” 

Price: $450 

Shipping: Free