Gerry Westernberg started building warships to the 1/600 scale when he was in his early teens and then one day purchased a set of plans for the modified Leander Class cruiser HMAS Perth (I) that were drawn to 1/192 scale. This combined with the discovery of balsa wood set him on the path of accurate scale model scratch building that has seen him build well over 100 ships during his career as a ship modeler.
Gerry has always kept to the same scale which has had its good and bad points. The scale is large enough to provide the opportunity for detail but small enough that he does not have to house them in a huge shed.
If he is building a ship from a class of ships, he will often choose one that sank, as a way of paying tribute to those who went down with the ship. Unfortunately, this can be quite challenging, as there is usually a small number of photographs that he can use as a reference. he uses photos as much as he can to inform his model building, as he has found over the years that many plans are drawn incorrectly and this is usually only discovered when you are half-way through the build.
Gerry built the Fremantle World War II diorama in xxxx and exhibited it in the Naval Seapower in Minature exhibition at the Shipwreck Museum in Fremantle between February and April in 2021.
It is a complete diorama of the secret World War II submarine base in Fremantle Harbour, 1942 - 1945, with two submarine tenders, a tanker, three workboats and eight submarines.
