Tell me, Mr Kraft, how do you build a scaled-down ocean-going racing yacht?
I built the hull from three polystyrene parts for which I had developed milling files, i.e. the hull, deck and cabin superstructure. I initially used brass square profiles for the mast. But the boat was originally supposed to sail in realistic waves in the new Patagonia section off Cape Horn and would have fallen over there. I then used polystyrene. The rigging is made from 0.3-millimetre thread and the railing from 0.5-millimetre brass wire.
And the sails?
We received precise drawings from the Malizia team, which helped a lot. I then used them to print on self-adhesive photo paper, and for the curvature I glued the two sides over the bend of a rubbish bin.
Why is the boat sailing in the Mediterranean after all?
It didn't fit between the fishing trawlers after all, and as Monaco is one of the home ports of the big sea explorers, it now swims in front of the private yachts, skyscrapers and the Formula One race.
And everything is to scale?
The boat itself is. However, the mast is 29 metres high in the original, which would be 33 centimetres in our 1:87 scale model. But because all the visitors are looking from a drone-like perspective, that would have been too high, so we compressed it to 30 centimetres. That's one of our biggest tasks, to make the houses and landscape look harmonious. Monaco's skyscrapers, for example, are stretched in height like many of the buildings on the layout. That's because the commercially available model figures are 20 to 22 millimetres high, which is always a little too tall for full-scale storeys.
Are the typical Monaco motorboats among the more popular objects for modellers?
I'm currently working on a container freighter, but I'm only milling new container packages. The ones from the model railway sector are only available on a scale of 1:87, but our freighter is on a scale of 1:100, otherwise it would be too big. I make whole walls out of containers as a complete panel. And I only build one part. I really enjoyed the Seaexplorer because I could do everything: From the planning to the construction, milling, painting and finishing to the sponsor stickers.
On the main boom of the Seaexplorer ...
... Excuse me, what is that? I confess, I have no idea about sailing ...
... the horizontal bar lengthwise. How big is the sponsor lettering on it?
About 1.5 millimetres high. You can just about decipher them.
The modellers' honour?
Absolutely. Our aim is to be more detailed. At the airport, for example, we have retrofitted fire extinguishers in the buildings.
Okay, nobody sees anything like that until you dismantle another part of the system.
Exactly. And sometimes I discover things that are only visible to us, where the modellers have had fun. There are quite a few copulating model figures in hidden places.
