KAWABE, Wakayama Pref. -- As the biggest battleship the world had ever seen, the Yamato is still remembered by many Japanese even half a century after it was sunk off Cape Bo-no-Misaki in Kagoshima Prefecture.
And that is the reason why Keiichi Yamamoto, 71, chose to transform a chunk of ancient camphor into a magnificently detailed working model of the legendary Japanese dreadnought.
As a 30-year veteran of radio-controlled boat racing, Yamamoto had a basic idea of how to make a miniature motor-driven boat, but what he completed is probably unprecedented in the annals of Yamato model-making, he said.