Malle Hawking, a 36 year old IT consultant, husband (how this marriage survived I don’t know) and father of two spent 13 months and (wait for it) £10,000 pounds building his dream LEGO ship: a floating 1:48 scale version of the USS Harry S Truman nuclear powered aircraft carrier.
The largest Lego ship in existence, it is comprised of 300,000 (!) Lego bricks, stands at 1.2 metres tall, is 4.7 metres long, and weighs over 160kg.
Ignoring the enormous scale, here’s where you’ll really be impressed. The L.E.G.O. Harry S Truman includes a full complement of crew (5,000), 54 aircraft, electric lights on the flight deck, support vehicles, movable lifts and radar dishes, five decks that are viewable, and (the crème de la crème) a motorised catapult to launch the planes!
To top it off, the perfectly colour-matched light-grey bricks were not being made when Malle started the project, so had to be purchased off eBay or the Brickshelf community.
Since it’s launch in 2006, over 200 websites have carried pictures of this incredible labour of love. Here’s the best:
- Brickshelf (all the photos & newspaper clippings)
- Brick Journal Issue 5 Summer 2006 - Interview (PDF - link to the article on page 50 is in the index)
- Brothers Brick - Coverage of the launch
