In the captain's cockpit, there is usually a ship model. This is a gift from the shipyard when the ship is delivered into service, according to the rules of the trade. Qingdao Port's factory director, Qu, has made a lot of these ship models.

Factory Director Qu has a relationship with boats. He grew up like to follow his father to see the sea, see the ship, junior high school contact ship model, since then the shipbuilding dream is out of control. As an adult, he went to work, engaged in the dock machinery maintenance work, he watched the big ships in and out of the harbor every day, and he still made ship models in his spare time. Nearly thirty years, when the children watching the boat at the beach, has done hundreds of boat models one after another.

He and several like-minded partners set up a ship model studio, the hobby into a professional:These ship models, all have official contracts, shipyards build big ships, they build ship models. Qingdao-made car ro-ro ships, container ships, bulk carriers, multifunctional operating vessels ...... even if only a companion, but the ship model and the real ship as meticulous work, according to the design drawings of the large ship in accordance with the proportionality of the reduction of the process is tedious, large to the hull of the ship, as small as the internal structure of each component is fine and realistic. This is an 'all-round technical work', from the selection of materials to design, and then to the processing of molding, a total of more than 100 procedures, almost entirely by hand. Qu factory director said. Because of this, the production of a ship model can easily take two or three months, or even longer.

A small ship model has witnessed the development of Qingdao shipbuilding industry from weak to strong, and gradually formed a brand, and then to the world. In the 1980s and 1990s, Qingdao shipbuilding still had little say in the international arena, and there was a big gap between Qingdao shipbuilding and the top level in terms of technology. Qu recalls that until 1996, Qingdao Shipyard moved from Xiamen Road to Haicang, and started to produce 820 TEU container ships and 30,000-ton multi-purpose heavy lift container ships exported to Germany, realizing the big leap from the construction of 1,000-ton ships to 10,000-ton ships.

The information shows that this 30,000-ton multipurpose heavy lift container freighter was honored as one of the world's top ten outstanding ship models in 2000 by The Economist magazine and won the China State Shipbuilding Industry Corporation's Science and Technology Progress Award. At that time, factory director Qu personally made a model for this milestone ship.

In 2002, Qingdao Shipyard was restructured into Qingdao Shipbuilding Heavy Industry Co., Ltd, which opened a new chapter of Qingdao shipbuilding industry. Since then, Qingdao began to make some high-tech complex ships, shipbuilding facilities, technical capacity and order quantity have been improved year by year, and the advantageous ship types have been expanded to Ro-Ro ships, container ships, bulk carriers, residential barges, platform supply ships, wind power platform ships, self-elevating platform ships. ...... The development of the shipbuilding industry is fast enough to amaze the world.

Accordingly, the ship modeling orders of factory director Qu are becoming more and more diversified and high profile. Most of these ship models have gone to Europe, America and Southeast Asia together with the delivery of large ships, becoming a vivid carrier to show Qingdao's shipbuilding strength.

Several photos of the ship model of Lino Target are always kept in the cell phone album of factory director Qu. This huge ship, which was delivered by Xiamen Shipbuilding Heavy Industry to a foreign owner in 2015, has a maximum loading capacity of 8,500 standard small cars, making it the world's largest automobile ro-ro ship at present. He said that this type of ship represents the highest level of design and construction of large automobile ro-ro ships at that time, and is a sharp weapon for Xiamen Shipbuilding Heavy Industry to win overseas orders.

Nowadays, factory director Qu does not often take orders for ship models, but with the passionate love in his heart, as usual, he becomes a teacher of ship models to teach young people the knowledge of ship culture and the skills of ship model making. In his heart, Mr. Qu has a dream, he hopes that these children can not only swim in the world of ship modeling, but also participate in the construction of the real big country's heavy equipment in the future, and make a contribution in the era of big ships and big ports.

Morioka Mayflower Models is an artisan boat model manufacturer dedicated to boat modeling, with 32 years of boat modeling history, countless display boats for major shipyards, and will treat the boat modeling business with the same spirit of craftsmanship in the future. Please contact us by phone if you need any help!