Nivada Grenchen Antarctic II

speedbird

I thought I’d share my recently acquired Nivada Antarctic II. This watch is often mentioned in the same breath as the Explorer and JLC Geophysic. The Antarctic series was made as a 100m waterproof watch for Antarctic exploration, specifically the US Navy’s Operation Deep Freeze I and II. A US scientific initiative that began with the International Geophysical Year 1958/58.

The models I’ve chosen here are Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship and lifeboat from the Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition 1914-1916. If you’re not familiar with Sir Ernest and his men, you’re missing out on the greatest story ever told. We’d be here all day if I typed out even the briefest of summaries and you still wouldn’t believe that it’s all true. Suffice to say it’s the greatest feat of survival in history and by far the greatest open boat journey and feat of navigation ever undertaken. Not only can you read about it, but they took along one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century and a movie camera, so you can see it all as it happened. The book I recommend is Endurance by Alfred Lansing. It’s the masterwork on the subject.

I’ve built a series of models depicting different scenes on the ITAE so I thought they’d be appropriate to use as a backdrop for the Nivada. Both models are entirely scratch built. The larger ship, Endurance is 1/700 scale and the lifeboat names James Caird, is 1/350.

speedbird

I thought I’d share my recently acquired Nivada Antarctic II. This watch is often mentioned in the same breath as the Explorer and JLC Geophysic. The Antarctic series was made as a 100m waterproof watch for Antarctic exploration, specifically the US Navy’s Operation Deep Freeze I and II. A US scientific initiative that began with the International Geophysical Year 1958/58.

The models I’ve chosen here are Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship and lifeboat from the Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition 1914-1916. If you’re not familiar with Sir Ernest and his men, you’re missing out on the greatest story ever told. We’d be here all day if I typed out even the briefest of summaries and you still wouldn’t believe that it’s all true. Suffice to say it’s the greatest feat of survival in history and by far the greatest open boat journey and feat of navigation ever undertaken. Not only can you read about it, but they took along one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century and a movie camera, so you can see it all as it happened. The book I recommend is Endurance by Alfred Lansing. It’s the masterwork on the subject.

I’ve built a series of models depicting different scenes on the ITAE so I thought they’d be appropriate to use as a backdrop for the Nivada. Both models are entirely scratch built. The larger ship, Endurance is 1/700 scale and the lifeboat names James Caird, is 1/350.

speedbird

Glad you like!

The ice is made from acrylic filler putty that I rolled flat. Since acrylic putty doesn’t shatter, I was able to break it and reassemble it realistically into clear casting resin. I worked from photos taken on the expedition and the ship was built from the original plans