August 23, 2006: Former coal miner builds scale cruise ship in his back yard
 

http://cellar.org/2006/cruiseshipbuilder.jpg

Many thanks to bargalunan, who noticed this item and remembered us!

Men build stuff; it's what we do. Somehow, it's a natural tendency; it's in our dreams. Sometimes one of us follows through on the dream.

http://cellar.org/2006/cruiseshipbuilder0.jpg

François Zanella was a coal miner in Lorraine, France. He would sometimes build model boats.

Then he decided to build his own dream, a 1/8 scale replica of a Royal Caribbean liner, the Majesty Of The Seas. 33.50 meters long, 4.75 m broad, 6.60 m high.

He first conceived of the project and started drawing it in 1993; began construction in 1994; and finished it in 2005.

http://cellar.org/2006/cruiseshipbuilder2.gif

Much of the project is documented in French, and with very small pictures, on Zanella's own site; another related site thankfully offers an English version, which gets me more information than Babelfish translations.

http://cellar.org/2006/cruiseshipbuilder4.jpg

Zanella got a lot of help from a lot of people who heard of the project - and he's now met a few of the real Royal Caribbean cruise ship captains too. As far as I'm concerned, he's the real Captain. Hats off to this gentleman and to all gentlemen everywhere who set off to build their dream.

http://cellar.org/2006/cruiseshipbuilder3.jpg

so, um, now what? does the town now become know for having the "world's giant-est cruise ship model"?

and i wonder if it floats...

Sometimes, when I see people like this guy who has this life-long dream and then goes on to make that dream a reality, I wonder, "What kind of weird life-long dream is that?"

Now he just needs a BIG fucking bottle to put it in.

He launched it.
Pictures are kind of small.

I believe it's already in the water. See

http://bateau-francois.site.voila.fr/18a/index.htm

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

I get a lot of sappy stuff in my inbox from various relatives, but just yesterday I got an email from a friend purporting to be from Dave Barry titled 16 THINGS THAT IT TOOK ME OVER 50 YEARS TO LEARN.

Number 3 was:
There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

I'm not sure why, but I thought of that email just now. :)

But does it have a radio control motor?

Hell no, it's got a crew. :lol:

Oh, he's not fooling me with the 33.5 meters....I know it's 73.27 Cubits long.

That's a pretty strong statement; I'm not sure there's actually a boundary.

Is it the lollipop guild? or the lullabye league?

Any minute now, he's going to have to deal with a real small fire, a little bit of food poisoning, and a mild case or two of Legionaire's Disease.

No, he needs a 1/8th scale chamagne bottle to christen it!

Any pictures of that miner guy in which he isn't covered in soot? If the idea was to let us know what he looks like, it isn't working :neutral:

That's heavy!

I wonder what it's made of?