Tag Archives: submarine

The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau

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Naval officer, film maker, oceanographer, author, and Palme d’Or winner, Jacques-Yves Cousteau was surely one of the world’s last great adventurers.

And his legacy is one that is still felt every day in the marine biology and diving worlds, with Jacques accurately predicting that animals such a porpoises can echolocate, and inventing the first ever piece of SCUBA equipment – the Aqua-Lung – in the 1940s.

He is perhaps most famous for his oceanic mapping and discovery of numerous wrecks, with much of this work carried out on his American-built, wooden-hulled, ex-British World War 2 minesweeper the RV Calypso.

This stunning brick-built replica of Jacques’ iconic ship – which now languishes dismantled in Turkey – comes from previous bloggee Alex Jones aka Orion Pax, who has both constructed and presented it beautifully.

Measuring 50cm long Alex’s model is packed with details, and you can take a closer look at his recreation of one of the most important ships to ever sail via the link to his photostream above.

The Great Exhibition

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Held in an enormous temporary structure in London’s Hyde Park, the ‘Great Exhibition ‘ of 1851 was a triumphal showcase of the British Empire. Sponsored by the world’s first soft drinks company, featuring the world’s first public flushing toilets (which cost a penny to use, hence the phrase ‘spend a penny’), and with the world’s largest diamond at its centre, the equivalent of one in three of Britain’s entire population visited the exhibition during its five-month run.

Exhibits ranged from art, jewellery, and ornaments from across the Empire, to the world’s first fax machine, the world’s first voting machine, prototype Colt revolvers, and a weather forecasting machine powered by leeches. Because 1851.

Cue this astonishing creation by bartsbrickworks of Flickr, who has reimagined the Great Exhibition (and the remarkable Crystal Palace that housed it) in a LEGO Adventurers / steampunkish universe. There might not be leeches, but a steampunk submarine, space rocket, and time machine are amongst the varied exhibits on display to an enthralled crowd of mini-figures, with much of the model motorised to bring the contraptions to life.

There’s so much more of this incredible build to see at Bart’s ‘The Crystal Palace’ album, and you can purchase your ticket to an amazing exhibition of wonder and whimsy via the link above.

LEGO Technic H1 2025 | Set Previews

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It’s a few weeks before Christmas
And all through LEGO’s HQ
TLCB Elves have been sneaking
Finding sets to preview.

Yes it’s that time of year once again, when a crack team of ‘volunteer’ Elves are thrown over the LEGO Company’s perimeter wall to uncover next year’s new Technic sets. This is the complete H1 2025 Technic line-up!

42197 Backhoe Loader

LEGO Technic 42197 Backhoe Loader

We kick off the 2025 Technic range with this, the new 42197 Backhoe Loader. A neat counterpart to last year’s 42163 Heavy-Duty Bulldozer, 42197 includes a raising front bucket via a worm gear and a roof mounted cog, a posable backhoe, and deployable stabilisers. Just 104 pieces are needed, it’s aimed at ages 7+, and it fulfils the starter-set brief beautifully.

42198 Bush Plane

LEGO Technic Bush Plane 42198

Trebling the piece-count is the 42198 Bush Plane, a welcome and too-rare foray into fixed wing aircraft.

Aimed at ages 8+, 42198 includes a flat-4 piston engine linked to the propellor and powered – we think – by an intriguing push-beam mechanism that simultaneously operates working ailerons (flaps) that flip in opposing directions to make turns.

Besides the rather clunky-looking landing gear, 42198 looks like an excellent small-scale set, with zebra-stripe stickerage and some good parts too, including propellor blades, new white beams, and a surprising number of gears. We like.

42199 Monster Jam DIGatron & 42200 Monster Jam ThunderROARus

After a short break away from Monster Jam for the Pull-Backs, LEGO is returning to the partnership for 2025. And that’s no bad thing, as these sets are really only designed for one purpose; being launched down a hallway and over a ramp made of books and a cereal box.

42199 Monster Jam DIGatron and 42200 Monster Jam ThunderROARus will no doubt perform said task admirably, and – outfitted with both stickers and teeth – they’re perfect for their 7+ target.

42201 Deep-Sea Research Submarine

On to one of 2025’s most unusual Technic sets, the 413-piece 42201 Deep-Sea Research Submarine. Reminiscent of the largely forgotten 1997 Divers sub-theme, 42201 looks rather un-Technic-y, despite being constructed almost exclusively from Technic pieces. A selection of cogs operate the pitch of the propellors and the grab-arm, and you’ll be able to scoop up the remnants of the Ocean Gate Titan when 42201 dives into stores from January 2025.

42202 Ducati Panigale V4 S Motorcycle

Wait, haven’t we done this already? Almost.

The 42202 Ducati Panigale V4 S moves one letter down the alphabet from 2020’s 42107 Ducati Panigale V4 R, and in doing so ups the piece-count by a thousand, the target age by eight, and the price by $100.

Measuring over 40cm long, the new 1,600-piece Ducati will arrive with a foot-operated three-speed (plus neutral) gearbox, a V4 engine chain-linked to the rear wheel, functioning steering, and working suspension, plus some spectacular looking bodywork.

Joining LEGO’s previous 1:5 scale Technic motorcycles (the 42159 Yamaha MT-10 SP and 42130 BMW M 1000 RR), the new 42202 Ducati Panigale V4 S is expected to cost around £170/$200 when it arrives next year, and whilst it does look to somewhat repeat its smaller 42017 brother, there have been dozens of red Ferrari sets to date, so a second (and much larger) Ducati is fine by us.

42203 Tipping Dump Truck

We complete* the new 2025 Technic line-up with a neat mid-size truck of the type LEGO has built for decades. The new 462-piece 42203 Tipping Dump Truck features ‘HOG’ steering, and hand-cranked tipper, and, um… that’s it. Perhaps for £45 we’d have hoped for some basic oscillating suspension or something, but we’re in the minority. LEGO know it’s aesthetics that sell their products today, even Technic ones, and thus 42203 likely loses that extra feature in favour of decals and visual detail. And on those counts it scores rather well.

Aimed at ages 9+, the new 42203 Tipping Dump Truck will join the rest of the new Technic range in stores from early next year, with a few of the new sets (including this one) available to pre-order via the official LEGO website from now.

*Plus of course the 42204 Fast & Furious Toyota Supra Mk4, 42205 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray and 42206 Oracle Red Bull Racing RB20 F1 car sets already revealed here at The Lego Car Blog, and the enormous new LEGO Formula 1 line-up of which the latter is part.

Battle of the Atlantic

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This TLCB Writer can think of little more terrifying in the Second World War than being part of an Atlantic Convoy, traversing the frigid waters all the while knowing that death lurked beneath at any moment. Little more that is, other than being on the aforementioned submerged death itself.

Nazi Germany built around 1,100 U-Boats during World War 2, of which almost 800 – or 2/3 of the fleet – were sunk.

This superb diorama of one of those 1,100 ships, depicted here breaking the waves of a choppy Atlantic, is the work of Ralph Savelsberg, who has captured not just the U-Boat but also the ocean in which it operates in spectacular realism.

Built as part of a display for the Brickfair Virginia show, there’s more to see of Ralph’s beautifully presented model at his ‘U-Boot Diorama’ album, and you can head out onto the waters of World War 2 via the link above.

Wetter Than an Otter’s Pocket

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We all know that James Bond can seduce any woman in less time than it takes to read this sentence. Yup, if you’re a girl (What? We have female readers! Probably…), you’d already be, well.. you know.

Cue László Torma, and this magnificent Speed Champions Lotus Esprit S1, the star the 1977 Bond film ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’. Of course in the aforementioned movie, Bond’s Lotus was fitted with a few optional extras courtesy of Q-Branch / the Pinewood special effects department, which meant that his Esprit could get rather more aquatic than most.

A car submarine chase of utter ridiculousness was the obligatory result, in which Bond seemed to spend as much time no-doubt-successfully seducing his female passenger as he did trying to evade the generic goons sent in pursuit.

Eventually 007’s Lotus sprung an inevitable leak (because even non-aquatic Esprits would do that), but by then he’d already defeated his adversaries and secured certain relations with his glamorous fellow submariner.

With building instructions available and the ability to become (well, be rebuilt as) a submarine, we’re looking forward to the effect László’s Lotus Esprit will have on the females here in TLCB Office. You can give it ago yourself via the link above, plus you watch the real car submarine in the iconic movie scene here.

Das Boot

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15,000 pieces, 4½ years, and 1.8 metres. A few of the astonishing statistics associated with Ciamosław Ciamek‘s breathtaking 1:38 scale Second World War U-Boat.

Constructed in six sections, each with a removable sides to reveal the spectacular detail within, Ciamosław’s incredible mini-figure scale replica of a German ‘Typ VII C U-Boot’ accurately recreates the control room, front and rear messes, bow, engine rooms, and stern, all of which were designed digitally before being built from thousands of LEGO pieces.

A crew of dozens of mini-figures are shown throughout the interior of the boat, many operating the equipment, engines, and weaponry, whilst others are off-shift in the mess.

It’s a jaw-dropping creation, with hundreds of images across two albums required to capture the model’s scale and complexity, and you can check out the first of these on Flickr via the link in the text above. Click it, sit back, and take in the most amazing World War 2 creation you’re likely to see in 2022…

The World’s Most Expensive Recovery Truck

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This astonishing creation is a fully working replica of the U.S Glomar Explorer, constructed by Master MOCer and world-renowned builder Paweł ‘Sariel’ Kmieć, and you’re in for a truly remarkable story…

It’s 1968, and the Soviet ballistic missile submarine K-129 has been lost with all 98 crew, plummeting over 16,000ft to the ocean floor. It’s just a few years after the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War is very real indeed. The Soviet Union is looking for its lost submarine, but 150 miles in the wrong place. The U.S. however, knows where it is…

And so begins one the strangest and most expensive recovery efforts in history, as the CIA commission the building of a ship designed solely to pluck the wreck of K-129 from the seabed to learn its secrets, without the Soviet Union knowing.

Costing $1.4billion, it was one seriously expensive recovery truck, although of course its true purpose was hidden behind a ‘drilling for magenese’ cover story, fronted by millionaire aviator and film-maker Howard Hughes.

Six years later and the 50,000 ton 600ft long ship was ready. Named the Transocean Glomar Explorer, it was positioned above the wreck using radio beacons (GPS being some way off) and the CIA began the enormous recovery of the 330ft, 2,700 long ton (before it was filled with water) nuclear-armed submarine.

A giant claw dropped through a moon pool in the centre of the ship, gripping the wreck of K-129 and winching it to the surface. However during the 16,500ft ascent a mechanical failure occurred, and two thirds of the submarine broke loose and sunk back to the ocean floor, taking with it the sought-after nuclear missiles and code book. However, two nuclear-tipped torpedoes and cryptographic machines were recovered, along with the bodes of six crew members, which were not returned to the Soviet Union, but back to the sea.

The Glomar Explorer was purposeless after the mission was (partly) completed, and in 1976 it transferred to the U.S Navy for storage in a dry-dock. In 1978 however, the ship was leased to test prototype deep sea mining equipment, before being converted to a drilling ship in the 1990s. It was finally scrapped in 2015.

Recreating this incredible feat of engineering is Sariel, whose floating brick-built replica of the Glomar Explorer measures over 3 metres in length, uses 60kg of LEGO pieces, and can really (partly) recover a lost Soviet submarine, thanks to a fully working recreation of the monumental grapple crane fitted to the real ship.

We won’t write too much more here as there’s really only one way to appreciate this spectacular build – take a look at the video above (or click here to find it in the Eurobricks discussion), and watch how one of the most impressive Lego creations of all time was built, and how it can recover nearly all of a brick-built submarine from the bottom of a swimming pool…

Wet Nellie

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The second most famous Bond Car of all time is actually the best. Discuss. This is ‘Wet Nellie’, the Lotus Esprit S1 from 1977’s ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’, that ‘transformed’ – by the push of a button – into a submarine. And nothing in the world is cooler than that.

Suggested by a reader, this is Paul Nicholson‘s fantastic recreation of the aquatic sports car, and not only does it look absolutely spot-on, it transforms too, with the wheels tucking in to reveal submarining fins, and the rear fins and propellers also folding out from within. Of course it wouldn’t be a classic Bond Car without some evasive weaponry too, and Paul’s Esprit duly replicates the front missile launcher, mine layer, and the rear missiles (that really fire) used by Roger Moore to escape Karl Stromberg’s henchmen.

It all adds up to something that would make a superb official LEGO set, and whilst LEGO don’t have a Lotus license, they do have a 007 one, with Paul’s model constructed in a matching scale to the 10262 Aston Martin DB5 ‘Goldfinger’ set. Plus how cool would it be to add Lotus to LEGO’s ever growing list of vehicle manufacturer partners?

There’s much more to see of Paul’s incredible creation at his Flickr photostream, where you can ask him to add it to LEGO Ideas where it would surely get 10,000 votes so we can all buy it one day. For what it’s worth TLCB would be at the front of the queue. Get wet via the link above.

Floatus

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Lego Lotus Esprit Submarine James Bond

James Bond might be a dark and moody character these days (as he was in the books too), but there was a time when spying was a little more… extravagant.

The height of 007 ridiculousness was the late ’70s, when Bond went into space, spent more time on one-liners than actually secret agenting, and – in 1977’s ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ – drove a sports car underwater.

It was a ludicrous scene, but one that cemented both Bond and Lotus into vehicular film royalty. Bond’s Lotus Esprit S1, modified by Q-branch, featured some rather ingenious optional extras, and – as Q always somehow seemed to manage – they were exactly what was required for the mission. What luck eh?

This brilliant recreation of the iconic movie car/submarine was suggested to us by a reader and comes from Luis Pena of Flickr. Luis’ ‘Wet Nellie’ as it was called (stop sniggering at the back!) includes all the cunning features of Q’s finest creation and there’s more to see on Flickr. Dive in via the link above.

Unterseeboot | Picture Special

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Lego U-Boat VIIc

Britain in the Second World War was under siege. V1 flying bombs dropped out of the skies, the Luftwaffe bombed cities relentlessly, and a deadly terror lurked unseen under the waves offshore…

Lego U-Boat Submarine

Germany’s U-Boat, shorthand for Unterseeboot (which literally meant ‘under sea boat’ – the allies were definitely better at naming things) was a stroke of genius. Able to destroy a military ship (plus a few civilian ones too…) almost undetected, it must have been a terrifying time to navigate the cold waters of Northern Europe.

Lego U-Boat VIIc

Awfully effective though the U-Boat was, it’s not often we see one in Lego form. Discovered by one of our Elves today, this superb mini-figure recreation of U-Boat VIIc comes from Luis Peña of Flickr. Beautifully constructed inside and out Luis’ model features a wonderfully detailed interior underneath the cleverly sculpted hull, including a submariner using a torpedo for weights training, the captain manning the periscope, and a fully stocked galley complete with rat (aka tomorrow’s dinner).

Lego U-Boat VIIc

It’s a stunning build and we highly recommend visiting Luis’ photostream to see the complete gallery of images. Get ready to dive via the link to Flickr in the text above.

Lego U-Boat VIIc

Ocean Custodian

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Lego RV Calypso Research Boat

Built by TLCB debutant Luis Pena, this is a 1:100 scale replica of the research vessel ‘Calypso’, complete with a helicopter and ‘diving saucer’ submersible vehicle.

The Calypso was originally a US-built wooden-hulled British minesweeper that served in the Mediterranean during the Second World War. Following the Allied victory the ship returned to US hands before being recommissioned as a Maltese ferry.

Within a year however, British millionaire Thomas Loel Guinness purchased the ship and gave it to the diving pioneer, film-maker, conservationist and adventurer Jacques-Yves Cousteau for use as a marine research vessel, a role the Calypso fulfilled for five decades. During an incredible half-century of oceanic exploration Cousteau and the Calypso made numerous discoveries, including the wreck of the HMHS Brittanic sunk during the First World War, the ability of marine mammals to use echolocation, and halted the dumping of radioactive waste in the Mediterranean Sea.

In 1996, almost fifty years after it entered service with Cousteau, the RV Calypso was accidentally rammed by a barge in Singapore and it sunk in the harbour. A week later the ship was raised and transferred to a shipyard, however Jacques-Yves Cousteau died the following year of a heart attack aged 87, and the Calypso was left to rot as various parties fought over the boat’s ownership, its restoration, and unpaid bills.

Today the ship, which has featured in film, documentaries, song, and even has a namesake in Star Trek, is still quietly dissolving in a shipyard in France, a victim of mankind’s inability to put progress over profit. However Cousteau’s legacy remains almost unfathomably huge, and continues to today via the environmental protection foundation that he created which now numbers over 300,000 members.

This beautiful homage to a ship which as done probably more than any other can be found in greater detail at Luis’ photostream on Flickr, and includes both above and below the waterline versions (each pictured here). There’s more to see via the link above, and you can read more about the Cousteau Society that continues Jacques-Yves’ work today by clicking here.

Lego RV Calypso Research Boat

It’s in the bag

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Lego Submarine

We all live in a yellow submarine…

This post stretches our blog title beyond its intended scope somewhat, but it’s worth it today for the brilliance of this MOC. But was is it?

It might look like a yellow box with a bag stuffed inside it, but it’s actually a fully operational submersible vehicle. Builder tke1 has used all-Lego parts (save for the bag) to create this masterpiece, utilising magnets to transfer motion through the bag to the propellers in the water.

Lego submarine

…A yellow submarine, a yellow submarine.

To see more of this astonishing creation check out tke1’s Brickshelf gallery.