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Our readers will probably remember the previous work of Yumi Watanabe from Japan, which reported on our website at the time, and which he did to create a 3D model of the ocean liner JUSTICIA (ex-STATENDAM II.) for the computer game Roblox called Tiny Sailor’s World. Well, the naval engineering student has since come up with a new project, this time reconstructing the plan-set for the giant steamship NEDERLAND (which was started to be built in 1914 for Belgian order, but ultimately cancelled due to the World War I.), and published it on November 1, 2025. Dr. Tamás Balogh, the president of our association asked him in an interview on this occasion.

T.B.: I find your latest work extremely interesting, since reconstructing the plans of ocean liners that were planned but ultimately not built is not a self-evident task at all. After all, the plans – if they have survived in any public collection – are likely not publically available, or can only be researched with difficulties (they are most likely stored in the unprocessed part of the public collection material). This is especially true in case when the ship’s plans were not finalized before the keel laying, and were modified during construction. This is also true in the case of NEDERLAND, whose construction history was previously known to readers of our association’s website. You have now published the result of your recent work, the reconstruction of the ship’s plan set, on November 1, 2025. With this, you were able to successfully complete a research project that lasted more than a year. Could you tell the readers why and how you started this work? 

Y.W.: The history of the ocean liners built for the Low Countries - Belgium and the Netherlands - at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries has long interested me. When I contacted you in the summer of 2021, I was researching the history of JUSTICIA (ex-STATENDAM II.), the ship about which you wrote a book three years before that. In August 2024, I was working on obtaining a high-resolution copy of the STATENDAM plans when I wrote to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum in Northern Ireland, who informed me that they had general arrangement drawings of the decks of the cancelled ocean liner NETHERLAND in their collection. These documents are a real novelty for researchers, as they were not available at the time and have not been available since than, and the museum also said that they did not know when they would be digitized the set. However, they sent me photographs taken by the museum staff on the plans. Seeing these, I had the idea to use the images to reconstruct the plans of the NEDERLAND and share them with all those interested in order to make changes in public interpretation of the ship.

In addition, I was then in the second half of my first year at the university, where we have been tasked with creating something for our projects. Among the several sets of plans in my collection, such as those for Project 305 and Awa Maru, I chose to restore the NEDERLAND’s because of my deep attachment to the ships of the Low Countries. So, when I first learned of a fourth sister ship of the JUSTICIA, of the BELGENLAND, and of the later STATENDAM (III), my curiosity was immediately captured, despite the limited details that survived. The mystery surrounding her, only strengthened my determination to bring her back to life through careful reconstruction work, so I have decided to go with creating a rendition of the NEDERLAND from the retouched plans. I hoped that one day, someone might wish to model her in full form. Since you had made dozens of ship drawings, and I was curious about what you would suggest as to how I might be able to reconstruct the plans to a level suitable for modeling, I turned to you for advice in October 2024.

Fig. 1: The main parameters and building of the NEDERLAND in the initial stages of construction, and the almost fully completed double bottom (photo source: Ulster Folk and Transport Museum). Notice the ship under construction on the adjacent slipway, which is the BELGENLAND. In the background, another ship, the EURIPIDES, is visible.

T.B.: Which you managed to achieve essentially entirely on an independent way, as a result of a lot of detailed, thorough analytical work. In the case of NETHERLAND specifically, before the plans were identified in Belfast, very little information was available about the ship's structure and the general arrangement of her decks. What challenges you faced while achieving the result and how you were able to handle these challenges appropriately?

Y.W.: Recreating the NEDERLAND’s plans was a grueling yet deeply rewarding process. Working from limited and distorted source material, I set out to reconstruct what little remained of her design. I had possessed photocopies of the original plans for about a year in the fall of 2025, but had done little with them. In early September, I decided to publish them, though the condition of the surviving material meant they required significant cleanup. It became a matter of respect to present the NEDERLAND as accurately and beautifully as possible, preserving the essence of a vessel that might have been.

The NEDERLAND was intended to be the largest ship ever constructed for the Red Star Line. However, her construction was halted in the autumn of 1914 due to the outbreak of World War I. At the time of cancellation, the ship was still in the design stage, leaving several areas of the general arrangement unfinished or incomplete. This reconstruction of the NEDERLAND is based on surviving deck plans and incorporates design influences from several contemporary liners, including the BRITANNIC, JUSTICIA, BELGENLAND and STATENDAM (III). Due to the quality and condition of the original sources—photographic reproductions taken at varied angles—some adjustments and interpretive reconstruction were necessary to recreate the plans as accurately as possible. The analysis required for this was the bulk of the work. Once the analysis had answered a question, the rest of the work – the drawing – went quickly.

Fig. 2: Above are photographs of the general arrangement plans of NEDERLAND received from the research service of the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, and below are the results of digital manipulation to eliminate distortions due to perspective (source: Yumi Watanabe).

Fig. 3: General arrangement drawings of NEDERLAND after digital corrections of distortion of perspective photos received from the museum. This drawing was the starting point for further work, which resulted the reconstructed plans shown on the right by September 2025 (source: Watanabe Yumi). (source: Watanabe Yumi).

By 7 September 2025, I had completed the boat deck and most parts of decks A and B, and by 15 September decks C-D and by 27 September decks E were also completed. A detailed analysis was necessary and some modification and fine-tuning needed based on its results in case of the aft hospital, the bowdeck and the third-class promenade on deck C, and in case of the area reserved for the aft third-class promenade and the forward crew accommodation, as well as the area around the anchor windlass on deck D. By the beginning of October, 90% of the work had been completed, and by the middle of the month the porthole mapping of the hull was also finalized. After that, only the reconstruction of the rigging plan was required, which was a particularly difficult task, since no such plan had survived in the plan set made for NEDERLAND.

During the reconstruction process, several issues were noted. For example, the hull had to be redrawn several times to correct for errors resulting from the varying quality of the reproductions of the original plans and the perspective distortion present in the source material, particularly a) in the aft part of the lower decks, around the ballast tanks, and at the forward third-class entrances and staircases, as well as b) at the stairs connecting the A-deck pantry to the first-class galley, and the crew compartments on F Deck to the engineers’ spaces on E Deck, and c) in some areas within the interchangeable classes. With these corrections, the size of the cabins on deck also changed.

T.B.: How did the analysis work on the critical parts proceed? 

Y.W.: Regarding the layout of the pantry and the galley, the plans of BELGENLAND and the other two reference ships, JUSTICIA and STATENDAM (III), had to be compared. BELGENLAND had much more detailed and comprehensive general arrangement plans. These plans provided clear delineations for the many specialised rooms within the galleys, unlike those of JUSTICIA and STATENDAM (III), which were largely schematic and presented only the general layout of the spaces. Selecting which rooms to include and how to adapt them for the NEDERLAND proved to be an interesting challenge. The process began by listing the various rooms found aboard all three vessels and identifying the common features between them, while also striving to maintain the characteristic placements unique to each ship. Vegetable, meat, fish, and butcher rooms were typically grouped together between both galleys. Fruits and flowers were located close to refrigerated spaces, as seen on BELGENLAND and STATENDAM (III), where these rooms adjoined the meat or fish storage areas. Bakers and their ovens were positioned parallel to the pastry shop, which was placed nearby for operational efficiency. The BELGENLAND included a dedicated bread room, a feature absent from the other vessels. Bars were generally located at the corners of the galleys, while the coffee pantry occupied the forward section of the first-class galley or, in some layouts, the after end of the second-class galley like on the STATENDAM. The Chief Cook’s Office was situated on the starboard side, in the aft portion of the first-class galley or pantry.

Fig. 4: Analysis and analogies used to design the group of rooms in NEDERLAND's kitchen (bottom left). Top right: JUSTICA, middle: BELGENLAND, bottom: STATENDAM (III). (source: Watanabe Yumi). 

Fig. 5: In the surviving original general arrangement plans of NEDERLAND shown above, only the outer boundary walls of the kitchen space are visible. This space had to be filled with content, as a result of the analysis shown in Fig. 4. This is how the theoretical reconstruction shown below was created (source: Watanabe Yumi).

T.B.: And what was the situation with the porthole-mapping, the rigging- and the machinery plans? 

Y.W.: The porthole arrangements proved particularly difficult. By examining the patterns seen on the BELGENLAND and comparing them with JUSTICIA’s rigging and general arrangements, several consistencies were identified that influenced the final porthole layout aboard the NEDERLAND. One area of interest was the second-class promenade on C Deck, which, according to the surviving material, lacked a protective screen. In keeping with the JUSTICIA’s development history, where she was originally designed without a screen but later fitted with one during her outfitting phase, it was decided that the NEDERLAND would feature a similar design modification. 

Fig. 6: Definition of the porthola arrangement. Above is the C-deck detail of the original general arrangement plan and longitudinal section of JUSTICIA with the 2nd Class promenade, and in the photo next to it is the windscreen portholes installed during the fitting out. Below left is the same part of the original general arrangement of NEDERLAND, and below left is the theoretical reconstruction corrected using the analogy (source: Watanabe Yumi).

When it came time to creating the ship’s profile and rigging plans, no original materials had survived. This made the process both challenging and interpretive. The rigging reconstruction was particularly intricate. To determine a plausible configuration, reference was made to the BRITANNIC, JUSTICIA, and BELGENLAND. The arrangement had to be mapped using surviving rigging plans, builders’ models and period photographs. Initially, I adopted a configuration similar to JUSTICIA’s; however, further analysis revealed that this design would have interfered with the operation of the cargo booms and gantry davits. Returning to the drawing board, BELGENLAND’s rigging plan proved more adaptable and was ultimately selected as the foundation for the NEDERLAND’s reconstruction. The placement of the cargo booms presented further complications. As no such fittings were shown on the ship’s surviving elevation plan, dimensions and arrangements were derived from JUSTICIA. The NEDERLAND was therefore designed with 45-foot (13,7 m) long derrick booms and 60-foot (18,3 m) long main booms. Their stowage posed a design challenge, as their length conflicted with adjacent fittings and lifeboat davits. After several iterations, an optimal—albeit slightly unconventional—stowage configuration was devised to maintain visual balance and operational practicality.

Fig. 7: The rigging plan of the NEDERLAND, influenced by the general arrangement of the JUSTICIA (top left) and BELGENLAND (top right) (source: Watanabe Yumi).

NEDERLAND’s propulsion system was of particular interest, as evidence suggests she would have shared similar—if not identical—machinery to that installed aboard the BELGENLAND and JUSTICIA. 

Fig. 8.: Comparison of JUSTICIA, BELGENLAND, and NEDERLAND's boiler- and engine rooms according to their respective general arrangement plans.

The NEDERLAND was designed to feature twelve double-ended boilers, divided into three evenly arranged compartments. The boilers would have supplied steam to a combination of triple-expansion engines and a central low-pressure steam turbine. With such an arrangement, NEDERLAND likely would have demonstrated performance comparable to her contemporaries. Her cruiser stern, a more hydrodynamically refined feature than the counter sterns seen on JUSTICIA, would have allowed for improved water flow and potentially enhanced propulsion efficiency. Judging from the operational speeds of ships of similar tonnage and machinery, NEDERLAND would probably have achieved a service speed equivalent to that of JUSTICIA, possibly with marginally better fuel economy and smoother handling at sea.

After completing these researching-, evaluating- and drawing work processes, the final reconstructed set of plans was put together, which everyone can see to get an idea of what this ship would have looked like if she had been built.

Fig. 9: The reconstructed set of general arrangement plans of the NEDERLAND (source: Watanabe Yumi).

Fig. 10: The reconstructed rigging plan of NEDERLAND (source: Yumi Watanabe).

Fig. 11: The exquisite profile of the NEDERLAND. Work of Yumi Watanabe.

T.B.: Now, there was nothing left to me but to thank Yumi Watanabe for being at my disposal for this interview and for his work, which has produced truly great results. I am glad to have been able to report on it. It is an honor, as I will always remember the letter he wrote to me in 2024 after I was able to present his work on the 3D model of JUSTICIA (ex-STATENDAM II.) to the public in a similar way to what I am doing now in case of his NEDERLAND-reconstruction:

„Dear Dr. Balogh, I am deeply touched by your articles, seeing how I went from such a small enthusiast to my position now, collecting various pieces of data from all over. I couldn't be more grateful for your work in the beginning, had you not published it before, I would've taken a whole different career. ...no words can explain my joy. Because of this, I have gained the motivation and encouragement to pursue writing more articles on ships. Some in mind are the series of the 3-funneled ships of the Low Countries (Justicia, Belgenland, Nederland, and Statendam). [...] I will continue to research through my years in university and I hope to one day publish a book of my own.”

I am convinced that Yumi Watanabe, with his great work in the reconstruction of the NEDERLAND plans, has taken another important step towards achieving his goals mentioned in his letter. I wish him continued good work and fruitful research!

Eirc Okanume, founder of the OCEANIC Historical Society, has honored me by sharing excerpts from an earlier study I wrote about the planned ocean liner OCEANIC III, on the website he created and operates as the premier online source of information on the history of the ship, it's building and demolition. Pleasantly touched that my work recognized in this way, so I seize the opportunity to take a closer look at the work of the person who made it all possible.

Fig. 1.: The part of my study concerning Lord Kylsant is on the Oceanic Historical Society website. Eric Okanume took special care to offer the source of the detail published on the website - the entire original study itself - to the attention of those interested, which is a very rare but, for me, an all the more precious gesture from his side.


Eric Okanume is an important figure in today’s oceanliner community, as his persistent interest and tireless drive help to keep alive – and indeed enrich with new and even more information – the story of the last great ocean liner of the famous White Star Line, the planned, ordered, but ultimately unfinished OCEANIC III.

We first got in touch in the summer of 2019, and I remember well that he tirelessly analyzed the plan-variants, mechanical and design solutions made for the ship at different times, and shared the results of his analyses with those interested on his first website dedicated to the history of the ship.

Between 2019 and 2023, Eric conducted an enormous amount of research, reviewed and analyzed many, many sources, and created an ever-expanding and increasingly spectacular new websites to present his results, until last year he presented his latest, now third, website, which is the most suitable for sharing the knowledge he has gathered so far.

Meanwhile, Eric has mastered spectacular new visualization techniques through self-education, and thus has become capable not only of creating high-quality 3D images of his favorite ship, but has also trained himself in the use of the most modern 3D design and printing processes, so that he now produces series of models of the ship in various scales, the production technology of which he is constantly improving.

Eric's perseverance is commendable for achieving his results alongside his medical studies and after moving from Brazil to the United States, while having to cope with a new environment that was significantly different from what he was used to in many ways. Moreover, Eric carries out his voluntary work on the history of OCEANIC III in fair cooperation with other experts in the subject, aware that this kind of openness can multiply the effectiveness of research and educational activities.

In the next phase of the work, Eric intends to supplement the results he realized so far with the analysis of documents preserved in the most important archives but not yet scientifically processed, which he plans to publish in the near future, not only on his excellent website, but in a book that will be a worthy memorial to the ship and the professionals who worked on its design and construction.

Thank you for working together, Eric, and for the mutual inspiration!


Fig. 2.: Digital painting of the ’Super-Oceanic’ by Eric Okanume and Sheridan Finnegan (source). A version of the image imitating a motion picture taken with a 1930s film camera is also available here.

The "Reader Meets Writer" occasions always offer the Readers the opportunity to evaluate (or re-evaluate if necessary) their subjective relationship to the written text (the experiences lived while and the lessons learned from the reading) in the light of the questions asked to the Writers and the answers received from them, or gain new inspiration from them to think everything further. A simple analogy: if someone looks back now and recalls the reading experiences of the childhood, there is a good chance that among them there will be some that later turned out to have had a lasting impact on the personal life - for example, when choosing hobby, profession, or vocation, etc. The president of our association is now reporting on such a case, presenting the result to which one of his previous work may have contributed, providing inspiration to the young mind, which is looking for the exciting and which is receptive to the new. Hereafter, dr. Tamás Balogh's reminiscence with a personal tone and a description of the work of the Japanese Yumi Watanabe follow.

Fig. 1.: A rendering of the 3D model of the STATENDAM (II) ocean liner featured in the Tiny Sailor's World video game devloped by user GalaxyExpress with the contribution of Yumi Watanabe.

Great Book of Ships by Imre Marjai, the Hungarian maritime historian is a vivid memory for me, as I was so interested in its content that I eventually learned to read from this book, and I currently lead the association which Imre Marjai also helped to establish thirthy years earlier. Remembering this, I was very touched when a young shiplover from Japan sent me a letter and thought a story further that I had the good fortune to cover in writing before.

When my book dedicated to the history of the ocean liner STATENDAM (II) was published in 2018, based on the feedback from those who were interested, it quickly became clear that I was able to work on a topic - was relatively unprocessed till then - that aroused very keen interest among a wide range of fans of history of the ocean liners. In addition to the honorable letters from readers, several valuable professional feedbacks were received, which drew attention not only to the virtues of the work done, but also to the possibilities for further improvement. Among these, one of the most pleasant surprises for me was caused by a Japanese reader.

I received a letter from Japan on 29.05.2021. A certain Yumi Watanabe - based on the profile picture on his Facebook profile, a very young shiplover - inquired about my book published in 2018, presenting the history of the ocean liner JUSTICIA (ex-STATENDAM II.). My correspondence partner contacted me again after more than a year - on 28.08.2022 - when he was inquiring if I had ever seen any original motion picture footage of the ship during my research for the book. On 03.29.2023, he published his own research results, first in a public Facebook group dedicated to the ship's history, which has been operating since February 2014, and on 04.03, now in an expanded form on his own website. He contacted me again on 26.04.2023 regarding the details of the ship's dazzle-paint war camouflage and the ship's nomination, and these details interested him to such a depth that it became clear to me that his curiosity about the ship far exceeds that of the average person. Two days later, it became clear why: the young man reported that he was planning to make a non-commercial documentary about the ship, and asked me to appear as an interviewee in it. Unfortunately, by the middle of May, it became clear that the show was not feasible within the available time and financial frameworks. In his next letter, dated 29.12.2023, Mr. Watanabe nevertheless inquired about the design of the ship, which suggested that perhaps a more generous undertaking was taking shape. In the first quarter of 2024, more and more questions regarding further details of the ship followed, and on 24.03.2024, Watanabe Yumi proudly announced that "I am working with a small game developer and they want to add Statendam into their game as a playable ship".

Fig. 2.: Different views of the completed - still unsurfaced - model (top left) and the colored object (bottom left and right). Courtesy of Yumi Watanabe.

The game is the Tiny Sailor's World (TSW), a Roblox game where each player can control their favorite ships modeled after real ships in a virtual world. (Roblox is an online game platform and game creation system developed by Roblox Corporation, which allows users to program games and play games created by other users. In this sense, TSW is a so-called: sandbox-game, i.e. a video game with game elements in which a predetermined goal must not be achieved, but instead provides a high degree of creativity to the players, who can freely explore the possibilities in front of them, interact with each other, and modify the game's environment or goals). In the case of STATENDAM (II), "majority of the modeling was done by the teach of Tiny Sailors World" (the user behind the user name "Galaxy Express"). Yumi Watanabe "was there to help translate the plans and create reference modelswhere needed".

At the beginning of April 2024, the 3D ship-model developed for TSW was already completed up to the level of the promenade deck, and on that only the details of the general layout had to be refined, such as the door-and-window system on the inner walls of the promenades, the exact outline and height of the boat deck superstructures, or the number, size and type of deck ventilators, as well as the number and position of the bollards, bitts and fairleads. On April 14, 2024, the work was still in full swing when the following letter arrived: "Thank you Dr Balogh! I am grateful that you have taken all this time to answer my questions regarding Statendam, I know you are a busy person but doing this has made me the person I am today. I am attending a naval engineering course because of you sir, so I couldn't thank you enough. The dusk is almost upon me so i need to get some sleep but thank you again for inspiring me. With best regards. Watanabe”.

Fig. 3.: The rendered object from different angles. Courtesy of Yumi Watanabe.

It is an exceptional opportunity for a writer to be experienced with the impact of his work on others (i.e. the experience attributed by Readers to reading his writings). According to Yumi Watanabe, he chose the naval engineering profession because he was inspired by the story of STATENDAM (the story that he found out about on the Internet when my book was published and when he learned about it such a way that he does not have the book to this day, thus - mainly through his own efforts - he acquired detailed knowledge of the ship, supplemented occasionally by our correspondence). At that moment - after reading the letter - I was found myself in the position of the Reader (suddenly I had the task of thinking about my personal relationship with the text).

All I could think about was how small the world had become. When writing my book on the history of the austro-hungarian cruiser KAISERIN ELISABETH, I had the pleasure of personally researching in Japan, where the surviving members of the crew of the cruiser sunk in the First World War spent their time as prisoners of war. It was then that I met Mr. Atsushi Otsuru, professor of history at Kobe University, whose openness and willingness to help made a deep impression on me and basically contributed to the fact that I was able to visit the area of the former Ono POW camp and its existing buildings. Fourteen years after the research at that time, Yumi Watanabe's letter serve as a remindeder that it is not at all unimaginable for the citizens of countries such as Japan and Hungary, located at a significant geographical distance from each other, to be inspired by their mutual enthusiasm.

The 3D model of STATENDAM was completed by April 24, 2024, and published in the game on May 18, accessible to connected users.

Fig. 4.: Data sheet of the new model available in the game. Corutesy of Yumi Watanabe.

The successful design of the well-done creation that players can enjoy is not only due to the accuracy of the external representation, but also the fact that – like in case of all the other ocean liners in the game – at least three of its interior spaces had to be made accessible, that is, they had to be developed in detail. There are currently 71 historic and immaginary ships and 15 airplanes available in the game (26 of the ships are free). There can be no doubt that the story of STATENDAM (II) will become known to an even wider circle through the game, and this is primarily the merit of Watanabe Yumi, who created a 3D model of the ship in an exciting form, whic is accurate and well-detailed,  therefore pleasing to the eye. The manner and the determined, competent enthusiasm with which he did this, together with the result of the work, confirmed everything that I wrote to him in my previous letter on May 17, 2023 (when it became clear that the filming of the documentary could not take place): "Dear Mr. Watanabe, Thank you for the kind information! I am sorry to read that the current constraints prevent you from making the planned documentary at this moment, however, I believe that the kind of enthusiasm that I experienced on your part, despite your young age, will definitely find the right time and way for to gain expression sooner or later. It was a particularly great experience for me to see that the interest in the history of STATENDAM/JUSTICIA was awakened in Japan, of which you also enhanced by your work, so it was quite natural for me to make available (within the limits of possibilities) to you all those information of which you needed to fulfill your interest. If you are still interested in the topic in the future, you will find me. All the best, Tamas Balogh".

Seeing the 3D model made by the contribution of Yumi Watanabe, I think that he gained the right way for expression and by viewing the pictures of the finished model (which, by the courtesy of him, I can share with our readers outside the game), everyone can decide for themselves whether it really happened that way.

Congratulate to Yumi Watanabe and wish him success and good health in his further work!