IN 1969 HMAS Vendetta sailed into Vietnam’s Da Nang Harbour firing on targets. In doing so it became the first and only fully built Australian Daring class warship to fire on the enemy at war.
On five tours between 1969 and 1970, the destroyer’s main role was providing naval gunfire support to assist ground forces. It had a crew of 360.
By the time it was decommissioned in 1979 after 21 years of service, Vendetta had travelled 670,952 nautical miles. It was ultimately sold to ship breakers in Taiwan in 1986.
On board during the Vietnam days was a navy diver George Zio, who decided, like many sailors, to construct a scratch-built model of his favourite ship.
“I always liked modelling and thought it would be nice to do a model of the Vendetta. I began by sifting through old photos as well as putting a call out to the ex-crew members appealing for some detailed photos, and there were many contributions,’’ he said.
“The materials used were plastic sheet, evergreen pieces, brass rod and other bits and pieces. I decided to build then paint, which turned out to be quite a bit of fun, to say the least.”
George has a passion for model building, which is essential as the amount of work involved in taking on such a project is enormous, and painstaking. It took two decades to complete.
“I worked on it from time to time over the 20 years – sometimes it became very frustrating and it ended up in the too-hard basket,” he said.
“I came to realise that a model ship is really not just one model but a collection of numerous smaller models combined into one – guns, turrets, directors, boats, masts, stacks and so on.
“On a few occasions I would go to the SurreyPark boat
club (in Box Hill) to get some inspiration from those magnificent men and their floating machines. It’s a fact that all model boat builders are a great bunch of guys.”
Seeing some incredible models in the pages of magazines also spurred him on.
When a photo of his finished model was sent to the Model Boats magazine in the UK, its editors were impressed enough to feature it as the cover story in March last year, with a four-page spread devoted to it.
“I was astounded – the magazine goes around the world. It went viral – I got emails from all sorts of places.
“I thought it was a bit of an overreaction, but people are very interested.
“There’s a lot of problem-solving involved and the amount of detail and work required wasn’t always easy. But I felt like throwing a party when I’d finished.”
