Hello, dear friends !

I am a german steamboat enthusiast and steamboat modeller.
I grow up at the Rhine river, in the 60s there were some passenger paddlesteamers and also a great sidewheel tug.
From this time I got the fascination of steam driven ships.
I startet model building of paddlewheelers when I was 13 years old in 1966 with "Hjeilen", "Rigi" and by plan I build "Marieville" and "Chaperon".
From beginning I was very interested to drive the models by steam, but in this time in Germany it was nearly impossible of the financial and craft skills of  young boy to realize this.
Later the interest of steamships went to background but never disappeared, I studied art and education. I did some long travels through Africa and Asia in the 80s and 90s.

I restartet modelling 1989 with "Victoria" by Krick and shortly later "Pilat".
Since this time I have build 12 models of paddle- and screw steamers, all steamdriven. The model of the blockade runner "Hope", beeing at Sinsheim steam meeting is also made by me

At time I am finishing the CSS ram "Manassas" in 1 : 33, although screw driven, a very interesting  ship.

I am very glad to enter Paddleducks and I hope that I will able to contribute some informations in resarch and model building.


Thomas

Thanks for the introduction Thomas - I'd certianly be interested in seeing some photos of your models if you could post them in either the gallery on here on the forum. It sounds like you've made models of some unusual subjects, so I'm sure they would appeal to a lot of our other members too!

So welcome to Paddleducks....