3286 Ships
The 3286 Ships are by far the best looking ships (IMO) Playmobil has to offer. They are the most detailed, have bowed deck lines, high stern, and, unlike its 3050 style cousin, make good use of the below-deck space with the addition of a lower gun deck which accommodates starboard and portside batteries totaling 8 cannons which deploy through opening cannon ports on the side. This is everything one could hope for in a toy ship that can really float! Right?
Well, one thing is true: the 3286 ship can float. Check. The 3286 ship can accommodate a robust crew, cargo, supplies, sails, rigging, and a battery of no less than 8 cannons. Check.
However, it CANNOT do both at the same time! It can’t float AND accommodate a crew/accessories. It can only do one or the other, sadly.
The 3286 does not have a built-in ballast like the 3050 ship does. Instead, it comes with a detatchable ballast that clicks onto the bottom of the ship ONLY when the ship is to be floated in the water. The ballast itself extends a few inches below the ship’s hull, presumably to help counter any top end weight. However, it is either not heavy enough, or not low enough. In either case, the ballast is NOT sufficient to counter the top-heavy nature of the ship when the ship is fully loaded with crew and cannons, and the ship will capsize because of this instability—even in the still water of a bathtub.
The only time I was able to get the 3286 ship to stay afloat in rough waters was to completely remove all crew (save for the captain at the helm), all cargo, all cannons, and the entire gun deck and captain’s quarters from the ship. By removing everything, the ship floated very high above the water (made the ship very shallow on the draft). I wish the ship floated this way when fully loaded, but it won’t.
The ballast itself doesn’t weigh very much when compared to the ballast from the 3050 style ships. My thoughts were to either lower the ballast, or increase the ballast’s weight. Since the latter is easier to test, I tried adding weight first by tying various weights to the existing ballast until I could get the ship to stabilize. It got to the point where any amount of weight I added was still not enough to compensate for a full crew and compliment of 8 cannons. I also wanted the weight to compensate for crew members who were up high in the tops and on the ratlines. I mean, what kind of ship would it be if it were only stable as long as its crew did NOT climb up high to adjust sails and rigging?
Additionally, I wanted the ballast to be able to compensate for auxiliary crew, cargo, and an extra compliment of 6 additional cannons on the main deck.
SO, I took the ballast from a 3050 ship and just for test purposes tied it to the existing 3286 ballast. With the ship fully loaded with all deck, crew, and cannons, I put her in the bathtub.
Success! The ship was finally STABLE. However, the added weight raised the water line very close to the bottom of the gunports. So while she can finally float without tipping over, there is the inevitable danger that ANY small wave will cause the ports to take on water and sink her.
Not to mention, now that the water line is much higher, the ship’s profile above the waterline no longer looks right; it looks like the bottom half of the ship is “missing.”
To compensate for the the cannon port problem of being too close to the waterline, the ports must be plugged somehow. The easiest solution to this is to close them off. However, this defeats the whole purpose of wanting to make the ship stable AND keep it’s cannons. So we have some options: Faux cannons. As in, keep the cannon port hatches in an open position, but essentially plug the ports with recessed seals (to create the appearance of depth) and faux cannon TIPS sticking out. This would mean that in reality there aren’t 8 real cannons onboard, replaced with faux cannon tips to only give the appearance that it has cannons. This would give you the look of a fully-armed ship while preventing the ship from taking on water.
However, if you’re like me, you want realism, and it will bug you that there aren’t REALLY any cannons there. PLUS, you will no longer have the ability to draw the cannons and close the hatches for peaceful times when the ship is not at war.
So here is my other idea: clear windows on the cannon ports that have a custom-cut hole that will allow the cannons to still stick out through the holes, but the surrounding “empty” space around the cannon tips will be effectively sealed and prevent water from coming in even if the cannon port does happen to delve below the waterline when the ship rolls.
However, even if this works, it still doesn’t change the fact that the ship’s profile is compromised, and still bugs me that the ports are right at water level. This was the downfall of the Vasa, afterall. Not realistic at all. It bugs me.
SO……my next idea is to actually give the ship a REAL hull line BELOW the water line. This will add more displacement for the overall ship and theoretically help raise the ship higher (and the gun ports higher above the waterline), but it will also help compensate for the ship’s roll, and also cover up the ugly ballast hanging below the ship (because I would incorporate the ballast as part of the new lower hull).
Ideally, somehow, this lower hull might be detatchable (much like the ballast) so the ship can still be played with on the floor….unless, depending on the aesthetics of the new lower hull, it is made flat-bottomed and can still look good attached out of water.
This new lower hull would also give me the opportunity to add a true keel to the ship, which will not only help compensate for roll (and help prevent capsizing), but also keep the ship on a truer course rather than be easily blown off course by lateral winds so easily.
I’m awaiting arrival of my second 3286 ship hull from ebay. I have seen MacGuyver’s extended hulls using two ships joined together to increase the ship’s length, but I am toying with the idea of using the lower hull to somehow add to the ship’s DEPTH.
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