Windling World: April 2004

Rebel from Canada – Starlet Occasion A Chalk and Cheese pair – Mustangs of ’88 The Tippecanoe Story – The sexy Mary’s Tom Thomas the Craftsman on the World by Ellen MacArthur, It may not be everyone’s cup of cocoa, but it is profusely illustrated and those “’m very pleased to be here” ( George Burns once said) “Let’s face it, at my age, I’m very pleased who enjoy both cruising and ocean-racing, | think will find this gutsy little English lady’s record to be anywhere !” I’ll be seventy soon…well, June is soon enough, and I’ll be looking more and more like the helmsman on my ketch Marigold seen above. Someone wrote, “Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened !’ Last Christmas, dear friend Cliff Hawkins gave me a very special Christmas card of one of his truly of adventures highly This issue, as you will ob- very partial to. There also ap- just a barquentine painted totally out of his head. A real and lovely work of art, one treasured editor. | don’t have time to read books much these days, more magazines, and letters from many of you guys, but an enjoyable book was Taking serve, is a bit on “heavy! schooners, which as some of you know, | am fine watercolours, done while he was in Cairo in 1941. It is of no particular vessel, a enter- taining. pears to be growing interest in schooners, from — my observat 10 Ns, There is a new one (Rebel) from Ken Lockley in Canada, and the kitted out Mary J Ward schooners, a fullsize Guyana jungle-built boat and “Swede’ Johnson’s lovely Pinky schooner on page 18. Progress (1 guess ?). WHEEE ! | have learnt a few more computer identifications |! Fer instance, it’s no longer the ‘clicker thingy’, it’s called a “mouse’. That’s progress ! Do | hear rumours of a diploma ? In reverse ! You agree or don’t agree…that the most unfair thing about life (according to George Constanza) is the way it ends…with death ? “What’s that (he asks) a bonus ?” He suggests we should die first and get it out of the way, live life in reverse, get our gold watch when we start work, simply end up as an orgasm. Barrelling along ! The photograph at right sent to me by someone in UK, totally disputes the claim that Thames Sailing Barges are always slow ! Enjoy ! taken the Well, we have first of three steps in a new year, Windling World’s ninth, and | have to be honest and say that | don’t know how much longer we can continue. We are totally dependent on subscriptions which are falling rather than increasing, there are too many ‘in hope! courtesy copies, too much “freebie reading’. On top of that, Middle East lunatic-fringe manner, please ! A weekend fun project perhaps ? Winter moaning. Our summer is over now and very soon winter will be upon us, our twenty-eighth one since moving to New Zealand. | was younger then and coped with winters to a point, but the dislike by me for that annual period has grown. | said to my wife last year, “What the hell am | moaning for 2 It is interupting my shivering and | can only do. one damn thing properly at a time !” In Starlet company ! A week later than planned due to bad weather, we had a great fun-filled sailing day for (Vic Smeed) Starlet boat owners at Onepoto in Auckland. See pages 23 and 24. And there’s the Tippecanoe story which is quite an amazing one. Visit their website, you’ll enjoy it. WW’s postage is astronomical ! If you enjoy it as much as | enjoy producing it, well…let us enjoy it while we can. Slooping. Christchurch Model Yacht Club members will remember Earl Boebert who is editor of the US Vintage Model Yacht Club publication The Model Yacht. | have “‘borrowed’ his story on the Gypsy sloops (see page 19). It is a small in size plan, but one can always | guess “blow it up’, but not in the Mark Steele Publisher/Editor Front Cover Many model yacht sail- ferent formats. Ready ors will have heard of the Mustang, a single (mainsail) sheeted boat designed in the UK by David Hollom (who was also to go without radio at UK Pounds 96, and upwards in cost to a ready to sail with all RC and complete with batteries for 198 Pounds. responsible for the design of the Mickey Finn). The boat came about at the request of Eric Nuttall and the German model supplier Heiner Gundert who wanted a simple but larger yacht to add to their range of powerboat hulls and fittings. The 55″ long Mustang was launched by a full page advertisement in the June 1988 issue of Model Yachting News, and was offered in four dif- The manufacturer was Def ie. k Priestley, currently — Presi- dent of the Model Yachting Associa- tion in the UK. Several old hulls have now come out again, and the pic (top of page) shows some ten Mustangs being raced at Fleetwood in June last year, the centre photograph of skippers Baker, Ship- _ 4 ton and Forster just prior g to the event. & Many of you will have seen their ads in US boating publications, but the Tippecanoe story actually started when Will Lesh (photo top right), built and sailed a 24-foot yacht called Gimble (pic directly above) across the Atlantic from Chesapeake Bay in the USA to Faial in the Azores in 1981. same morning, he happened to discover Will and wife Cynthia at a retail show, and that was shortly be fore they launched their website, He was joined there by friend Cyn- thia Rogers and a year later Will and she became husband and wife, and together founded the company known as Tippecanoe Boats. One person had told Will, that he had woken up from a dream of sailing a beautiful model yacht on an equally beautiful lake. He could find nothing on the internet, but fortnunately at about 10.00 am that Today over 50,000 of their little mainly free-sailing yachts have been sold, and Will finds it difficult to know who has enjoyed the yachts more, the thousands of youngsters who have grown up with them, or the thousands of adults who enjoy their workmanship, sailing performance and display qualities. (Continued overlead) (Continued from page 5) boat kits together, then the whole group meets on a weekend at the As Will Lesh says, parent/child teams, as well as grandparents with their grandchildren, tend to be unbeatable combinations. It is quite amazing paying a visit to the Tippe- start of the summer for an overnight camp on Horseshoe Lake near Gig Harbor in Washington. Almost 100 boats turn up some years, and the kids race their boats in a friendly kind of atmosphere. canoe website, and reading the logbook with the reports of fun and adventurous times that families have had with their boats over the years. Left: Come on Dad Skipper Will Lesh’s boats are now sailed in Eng- sailor. Top right: At the Bellevue regatta. Below:left: ada, Italy, France, . Denmark, Belgium, Below right: Ocean blasting lia, Hawaii, Aruba, Costa Rica, Indone- and crew. Above: Sarah the Just a Crush (and Donna), at Kauai and, Ireland, Switzerland, Can- Austra- sia, Saudi Arabia and Japan, and of course in many US The Tippecanoe range comprises a T Class racing sloop, a 115 racing sloop and a T12 Cruiser, all freesail mod- els, as well as a 137 RC rac- ing sloop shown at right. There are now over 75 of these sold and up and sailing. There are a few annual regattas held, like the annual Bellevue YMCA Westerners Regatta now going into its eighth year. Parents and children build the states. That they are a success story is beyond question, and whereas (like = most products) they won’t be all things to all men) the amount of them sold seems to indicate that they are popular with a lot more than just a few people here and there. to date On The Wind What’s the first rule of sailing ? (NO, NO, it is not “to win at all costs’) it’s to keep the ocean out of the boat ! The Classic Windler Thanks to Bill Bithell in Swampscott, MA, comes this “long time back’ photograph. Ains Ballantyne (left) and nephew, Bobby Ballantyne It is quite the perfect photograph of with their A Class boat were in Detroit, Michigan for a cup race. a windler absorbed in relaxation. “She starts, she moves, she seems to feel, the thrill of life along her keel, and spurning with her foot the ground, with one exalting joyous bound, she leaps into the ocean’s arms” Longfellow Irwin Schuster (see Bearings) produced this 3D caricature model to order, The old codger in the “Ican see the bottom Mr Percival !”” “Indeed, so can I dear ! So can I” Rozinante yawl seems fond of sailing for some unknown reason ! Mark is a very skilled modelmaker and read- UK’s Mark Tindall is hard at work on his RC model of the Bellona built at Chatham, Kent ers may remember see- ing his model of the sailing warship HMS Invincible in the April in response to an urgent need at the time by Britain. The ship’s career was long and_ varied, her main claim to fame being chasing the French 2001 issue of WW. He ship, Courageux for 14 hours before engaging her in fierce combat. She lasted until 1814 when she was broken up in the same yard where she had been built, and it is believed that her timbers form several of the old buildings which remain in the dockyard to this day. was awarded an Abe! that year for the same boat. His model of the Bellona is 60″ long from stern to cutwater but with an overall length of 79″ including the bowsprit. The masts will be removable, and he is hoping to have the upper cannons firing with sound effects. Both regular windlers with Auckland, New Zealand’s Ancient Mariners fleet, Ron Rule (at right) and Murray White (below) can best be described as “extremely innovative model builders not afraid to experiment with their own designs rather than sticking to boats that have been built by others before.’ Both Ron and Murray are keen Footy builders who have built probably some eight to ten such boats of their own design between them, and Murray was the winner of the Brass Footy canalto-pond Classic race last August, : issue : of Ron’s pilot cutter was featured in the August WW, his bottle boat Schwepperwhatsit in the December issue, and Murray’s model of the New Zealand trading scow Alma that graced the cover of the August issue, This story is however about their latest ‘builds’, Ron’s Lady Fortune square-rigger (seen sailing in tandem in the top photograph. (Continued overleaf) Murray’s Black Joke (of Onepoto) he describes as a ‘modified-file bottom-wishbone ketch-rigged skipjack, the hull of ply glass with a profile like Phil Bolger’s flat bottom schooners. He | think there is a bit of a ‘pirate side! to Ron Rule, certainly he is a humourist, | mean who else would ever so willingly put on a bandana and an eypatch, and blacken a couple of teeth for the editor’s camera ? Why, he even wanted to pose with an artificial peg leg ! conceived it in the graveyard W. aha; ‘te2e =f somewhere between ‘the devil and a nightmare! and he. then built it in seclusion at an undisclosed shipyard in the underworld of a suburb called Bayswater where he lives. He wanted it to be shallow-drafted, and parting with tradition he opted for a windsurfer rig. am the Sa aT With little wind It does not always sail all to greatly, (but then pirate ships rarely did) and Lady Fortune 1.1m Io neg model is no doubt ‘quick’ and has a “most carefully = selected’ crew “from all over the world’ comprised of Chump the Chimpanzee, Grill the grinder (still looking for the winches!), Nipper the mushroom fed on bullshit down needs a reasonable puff of wind to get going, With that crew shuffling around on deck it is more than likely a case of their having drunk “too much of the rum’ and a_ lack of seaman- in the sewer, and Double Brain, the two-headed tactician (above). ship = as op- posed to laying blame on Ron Le Patch Le Grand Rumbo the mighty pyrate responsible for her construction. (That will cost him a swig or three Black Joke is nicely built and goes well, but above all it is an excellent example that shows we don’t take life too seriously, one of the key attributes to both happy windling, and (sometimes) a long life ! of Captain Morgan’s stuff ! – Ed) (Continued on page 20) 10 Reaching up the No-Fun Fellows. Yup, it Der- sounds as though the John Spencer Funfellow programme with Yachting New Zealand, has went. Thirty-three years ago, the John Spencer designed, Sir Tom Clark owned Buccaneer raced up Tasmania’s for whatever Derwent River to take line honours in the *71 Sydney to Hobart Ocean Classic. | have to wonder where she is now ? reason or All ended. reasons, twenty five to thirty boats are now languishing inside a container in an Eastern suburb of Auckland, and the training programme for youngsters is no more. Nothing lasts forever, eh ? Very disappointing YNZ ! | thought youth training was a priority ! Worth mentioning. | heard from six readers who thought the December issue cover was the best ever. Well ! Sean Footy fears. With the Auckland Ancient Mariners Footy fleet’s first two of three canal to pond races likely to be held in March and April, some doubts of participation have been expressed by two or three regular Footy entrants who feel that it has got all too serious, and believe it has drifted away from the original concept of a “fun event’. Something new ! This can well ap- ply to ship modellers: Never be afraid to try something new. Re- member that a lone amateur (Noah) built the ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic. The same “things’. T’is said, that the things that come to those who wait, may be the things left by those who got there first !’ Being built by Wim Moonen in Den Haag, Nederlands (seen above) is his Prins Willem. There is at least a couple more years of work left on the model says Wim, who last year took time off to visit his good friend, Rick Mayes in Australia. Wim’s models have been in issues over the years, and he is now a WW subscriber. Carrying 8OO square inches of light Egyptian cotton sail, Ken Lockley’s new Grand Banks type schooner is a trend-setter that has already attracted then had a friend build the mould, thus making the GRP hulls available to others. four other members of the Victoria Model Shipbuilding Society who are building similiar (but differ- Ken has not entirely finished the model, bits of detail still to be added and he is looking ent deck structure) boats. Ken produced Rebel as a stand off scale boat, and elected to use an Alden schooner hull design of 41′ when building the model at a scale of 1 inch to the foot. He knew the hull design would provide good sailing, as long as he kept as much weight deep in the hull and kept the remaining construction as light as possible. After building a plug of the hull he forward to seeing a fleet of the Rebel schooners _ sailing on their Beaver lake venue in time. Some specific details are: Hull fully rigged —_ including bowsprit is 48″, extreme and beam is 11 a _ quarter inches, draft is 7″, total sailing weight 14lbs and she carries 8 and a half Ibs of lead ballast. Ken is an excellent craftsman whose models have been featured in WW on several occasions over the years. He is also a previous Abel Award winner. He and wife Lois also | am occasionally asked “what is windling” and “where does the word class model yachts. who sails for pleasure, fun and friendship, from those who are only sail and race their own Star come from 2”. It does not exist in any dictionary and is a word “created’ if you like by the Editor to differentiate the model yachtsman interested in serious, highly competitive racing. | like to describe ~windling’ as the Radio Controlled For the “quickers’ RACING SAILBOATS Those readers with an added interest in the racing side of model yachts, Chris Jackson, editor of Marine Modelling International, has written a book on RC _ Racing Sailboats. Just under fifteen pounds for UK readers, US$24 for those in model yacht equivalent of fullsize sailboat cruising, and since windlers are also dependent on the wind, and we are all engrossed in something that involves an ing of some sort, it just seemed an appropriate word. It was better and safer than saying that we are “model cruising’. Our way, we are not going to be wrongfully described as ‘perverts’ by way of the ‘cruising’ reference are we ?(Editor) Sending photographs America. from available Published and Go to their website Traplet. www.traplet.com for ordering details Send scans email in greyscale as a jpg attachment, resolution of 150 PPI and no larger than 2Ocms wide by 15 cms deep. Thank you. windlingworld@xtra.co.nz 13 The Mary| Ward…a small American inshore Story by the editor, photos by Mark Johnson If you fall into the category of a person who has a genuine love of schooners, particularly those of vintage style, and if you have a yearning for a model of one that you can manage to put together without going bananas in the process, then just perhaps, Victor Model Products’ Left to right, George Nelson, Mary Ann McLellan, Model Yacht Club members with their Mary J We Mary J Ward, should be seriously considered. Now | must add that | have a sort of “addiction’ to schooners, but NO, | have not seen a Mary J Ward first hand so | could be accused of ‘talking through my hat’ (the one that | don’t wear !). What | am guilty of is having formed an “appreciative opinion’ based on a host of photographs seen on the internet, photos that include a great many fine ones taken in South Daytona where a fleet of these boats is growing fast. The absolute purists and the extremely skilled model yacht builders will yell, “Not for me !” when they read that the model is plastic hulled. That is understandable, but it is not everyone that has the plank and frame abilities, and were it not for hulls of various kinds, there would be a great deal less enthusiasm for model sailing today , and far less boats on the water. 14 fishing schooner of the late 1880’s, and What of the kit itself ? The Deluxe model from Victor as already mentioned, has a molded plastic one piece hull, a birch wood deck, shaped wooden parts, finished dacron sails (the sail area is 660 square inches) and a complete hardware package. There is also an option to have a two channel radio supplied with it. It seems that the model lends itself to a wealth of detail limited only by ones imagination, as the photograph below of one of the boats in the South Day- Herb Harris and Don Hawes, South Daytona RC 1rd schooners at Reed Canal Lake, SD, Florida. Carrying it is easy | heard of this model from AMYA Webmaster, D ay jivd Goebel who has one himself. See, it fits ! Pic by Dave tona RC Model Yacht Club M/W fleet suggests. | have often felt that detail, provided it is not carried to extremes, adds to appeal. What’s with the “sex object’ bit, you might well ask ? Read on (overleaf) for the “juicy’ bits ! (Continued overleaf) (Continued from page 15) Each of us sees our own beauty and the Mary J Ward is (in my eyes anyway) a right sexy little boat. Victor Model Products appear to have captured the sheer beauty and working boat ruggedness of one of these fishing schooners of the period. The original boat was built in Essex, Massachusetts and her home port, we are told was Scituate. T’is said that she was no slouch, and she was once credited with outsailing the fast Boston Pilot boat, Hesper. Length of the boat is 34″ (with bowsprit 41″) the beam is 10 5/8″. The sail area is 660 sq.in. and it displaces 9lbs sailing. Height when sailing is 51″. Windling is sailing, | know, and this model built up by UK modeller, David Semper is a display one. Just imagine however, what a great sailing version Le Pourquoi Pas, froma Constructo Atlantic Series (Wooden) kit would make. The model is 75Omm, and was featured in the Dec 2003 issue of Marine Modelling International magazine. Photograph You can check it out on the Victor website www.victor-model.com/ maryjward.html at . aN, t. a by Lynsey Piff of Traplet Publications, MMI publish- ers. Clipping ! | am oft kept amused by the humorous on-screen antics of ‘Periwinkle’ — Clip, mg) LS = staff member of Mi- crosoft. When I’m waiting for a lengthy email with attach- ments to go through, one that | am_forwarding that seems to take ages, this ‘paper-clip’ figure then sits, squats and slumps while scratching it’s ~head’ and raising and lowering it’s eyebrows in 4 utter boredom. Fun eh…life ids online ? LET Neds: Here’s another absolute beauty of an RC model of an (approx) 1918 Here’s a nice looking new schooner from the state of Queensland in Australia, Blue Peter is built and owned and sailed by Richard Mayes who was featured in the last issue of Windling World Australian pearling lugger built by UK modeller Ray Davis who has made a lovely job of Bintang. Ray was on a Rick is retired and admits to now having more time for his boat building mantle in Western Australia and was so im- hobby. Blue Peter is constructed on the same hull pressed by a pearling lugger restoration — tak as his ketch Allora G (Dec O3) and her rig is based on a real yacht named Orion of 1910 vintage. The model ing place there that he obtained some plans and oe has overlapping jibs, visit to Free- photos. The result, this stun ning model, is Cc Oo nm At left is Jose Medina of lowa in trolled by three the schooner U,S.A’s Emily 8.5′ which long he sailed in the 2002 Vintage channels Traditional Watercraft regatta held at Solomons Calvert Marine Museum , Maryland. and is 9 in kgs weight. (Continued overleaf) 17 built it where, when and so on. For the time being, it lives as a fine display model in the home of (Continued from page 17) Sarginson. Owned by the Woodbridge Model Boat Club in the UK is this free-sail 1920’s Southwold Beach Yawl long-term Here’s friend and subscriber, Lloyd “Swede’ Johnson’s truly delightful Pinky schooner seen below in two separate photos. (I just love it, and were | in California and had the money, I’d be pestering *Swede’ to sell it to me !) Black Joke (shown above) which was oft sailed to victory in its class by Judith Cooper way back then. This striking looking totally vintage sailboat (below) should possibly be referred to now as “the boat that no longer sails.’ Euan Sarginson 58″ overall, the skipper is actually steering the boat through a linkage to the servo below. While | think of of New Zealand’s city of Christchurch, bought it from a Dunedin antique shop but has no information as to its history, where it was built, who 18 which bank | can rob, have another look at Pinky going t’other way, even drool a little, it’s allowed ! db tier Ld Back in the 1950’s, Comet £ Model Hobbycraft was a prominent supplier of stick and paper model aircraft. They also offered two boat kits, the Gypsy Sloop and a smaller ‘Junior’ version. The former was 15″ LOA and cost a dollar, the smaller at 10 3/4″ cost fifty cents. The smaller one was the first sailboat | made at the age of eleven or so. Comet made a proper boat of it at a size when most sailing boats consisted of a stick mast in a slab of wood. | remember she sailed like a dream, affording me many happy hours hours in a variety of pud dles and tide pools up and down the West Coast of the US. The simple plans provided should be sufficient to build a rep lica. The original was made from 1/32 inch balsa wood, but she would look very nice in mahogany. The practiced eye will note that the boat seems severely over-canvassed. Comet solved this problem by pro viding an open-weave gauze-like material for the sloop’ssails, enabling a scale-like plan without excessive heeling. 19 (Continued from page 10) Back to Black Joke and | hope none of the ‘politically correct! morons of the world chance upon this. Perhaps | should refer to the boat as *Dark’ Joke for safety sake, as any reference to ‘race’ these days is likely to be classified by lunatic word assassins as Ron shaped a piece of polystyrene into a half hull then cut through at every 3″, then transfered the shape onto paper to get a pattern. The a NO NO! keel is kauri, bulkheads ply and Tongue in cheek, Murray says of the the 30″ LOA hull (42″ with appendages) is strip planked. From trials with the smaller model, he launching: “Complete with security skirt, eresat in the water like a half- tide rock and after a week of trialling, Nipper that they should remove sailing !’ suggested it before The boat is easy to rig and light in weight to handle. She carries a bolt-on keel 400mm in length with a bulb weighing 1.134 kgs and has a sail area of 3614 sq cms. “Her crew weigh next to nothing, they have all been permanently enrolled at Weightwatchers except for Nipper who continues to feed on bull droppings which blockbuster film initially labelled as Pyrates on the Pond. A fairytale-ish draft script however suggests, that the boat’s owner has to agree to have his leg amputated and a genuine peg-leg fitted which puts the film in some doubt ! as mostly everyo decided that rotating masts was the way to go; removing the need for a multitude of rigging. The beam is 11″, a 12″ drop-keel with a 4 1/2 lb bulb keeps the boat upright. A Hitec sail arm servo is used, another for the steering. The boat is tricky and tender to sail, with care to be taken when going to windward. There are 14 (ex firemen) crew aboard, all re-shaped, carved up and repainted in order to turn them into the motley, cut-throat crew they appear to be. The vessel has ten inboard cannon, 4 deck cannon, and 4 swivel monkey cannon. ne In summation, Murray wanted to build a boat that was quick (as in fast), Ron wanted to build one Exciting news __ that Lady is, the For- tune is to star in a five million dollar 20 quickly (as he always does). They enjoy ‘leg pulling’ and humour, and Black Joke and Lady Fortune suggest they both achieved their objectives. admirably. a wide range of private and commercial clients. You’ll find him under “nautical art’ on the internet and his handmade commissioned replicas have been as executive gifts, gifts for weddings, birthdays and anniversaries, and as racing awards by boating clubs. organisations and yacht Each item takes a hundred or more hours to complete and are one-of-a- kind works of art even if they don’t actually sail. Tom has been creating artwork of various kinds all his life, and received a degree in art from Peru State College Peru, Nebraska in 1978, As publisher of a magazine such as this, rarely does anyone ever approach me with At left catboat wick 1930’s offers or suggestions of story material, and it is just as well that | enjoy the hunt and the thrill of discovering something or someone with a story to tell. To this end, surfing of is a little – a Fen Williams model of a boat called Leg acy, the 25″ long model having been built at a seale of 5/8” to 1′, the internet has been most useful, Take Tom Thomas (above) whom you won’t find under ‘model yacht Since he started building models as ing’ on the “gizmo! though he does a business, in addition to models of boats (including half models) he has build delightful and highly accurate models of them to special order for (Continued overleaf) 21 also built detailed replicas of buildings. Tom believes that in this high tec world of today, hand made ob- he makes models of them. As a kid, Tom read all the Horatio Hornblower books, and as he puts it, “When | am working on a model, | jects are a rarity, and provide an_ invaluable way of keeping in touch with our past. The model at can hull imagine the slicing through the water, right is one he built for Owen Kratz of and | can feel the Texas – a 1928, fiftyeight foot John Alden in my face, the creak schooner spray kicking up hear and groan of taut lines Teragram as nature struggles to equalise the forces driving the boat”. built to a scale of 1/2 inch to the foot. ‘Other examples of his work are shown here and they depict his versatility of subject matter. | have enjoyed our email exchanges’ Tom lives with his wife Lori in the state i: Sunday Music (above) is a 15 1/2″ long model of a 1969 Cheoy Lee 31 offshore ketch, a model with amazing detail considering its size. Tom is not a sailor – not yet, rather an artist who recognises the beauty in sailing boats, and he is a person with an enthusiasm so contagious, that as someone said, you want to take him sailing. Some people believe that it won’t be long before he buys his own sailing boat. For now 22 about of Missouri, 20 miles north of Kansas City. They have two children, a boy Jansen, 21 who will graduate from college this Spring, and a daughter, Mariah 14, currently a freshman in High School. He owns Spotwood Studio where he creates his models and other items of exciting, largely nautical art. Rr, Bryan iI Owners assemble with their Starlets The idea spawned after | read in and different sized helmsmen sug Yachting World of a gathering of 18 gesting differing scales. What the gatta. With more and more Vic Smeed designed Starlet yachts appearing, it seemed like a good idea the windler, but the objective of this group is to preserve ‘Starlet’ basic hull design. hell, it’s a free world, the world of Swan yachts for a Caribbean fun refor an Ancient Mariner special assembly in Auckland, New Zealand. << \ You could say that what was envisaged, was a “fun event for the not-so-competitive'. Then the scheduled regatta was wiped out by a rain front with 2Omm's of the *wet stuff! falling and the regatta was held on 10/12/03. Les Thompson and Starlet The Starlet is a one design concept, but yet, within this fleet in Auckland it is not, to the extent only that some Ten owners assembled with their Starlets on a nice day with a good Smeed's original hull design. Keen eyes will also detect some boats with differences in cabin structure speed trial with two boats going off together duly timed, took place, have made alterations to fresh breeze prevailing, Following a Vic period of windling, a short-course (Continued overleal) 23 From the second pair off the line was to emerge the medal winner of the Starlet 2003 speed trial, Ron Rule sailing his Rhythm and Blues to the fastest time of 1 minute and thirty-nine seconds, Des Pittams Moonlight at 1.42, Starburst third. Bob event. The Starlet is a 34" long hard —— chine boat put out in 1966 It was designed for Model Boats's ~Boating for beginners' series and intended for either RC or freesail. It has a design displacement of 10.7 Ibs. Walters’ A nice laidback happy atmosphere prevailed and the ‘round all the outer buoys of the pond' race took place, Des Pit- tams leading the fleet home with Moonlight (at right) ahead of Roy Lake's Pud, and not a great deal in it in terms of distance between the remaining eight boats in the fleet. Vic Smeed would have been pleased if present, just to see how much some Aucklanders display a liking for his Starlet design of some thirty years ago. At the conclusion of the regatta, two Moonlight additional sailors were already talk- The boat has a growing owner base in Auckland, and enjoys a following also in various ing about building such boats, there's evan talk twice-yearly parts of the world. Several Onepoto of a such He =| ===) Rhythm ond Blues 24 Starlet owners hold plans including the Editor. "They are so grand -tres beeg", these sail against each other several times 1:10th scale AC Cup boats raced in France, and from what | have read in Marine Modelling International, the class is about the nearest that on a ‘round robin', random selec- model yachting can get to the fullsize boats, ‘real' America's Cup The boats are about 2.48m_ in length, O.50m in beam, they have a 25kg displacement and about 3.70 sq m of sail area on a mast 3.25m in height. competition. The type of course sailed is on the same lines as the America's Cup also - a windward/leeward course of about 15Om in length, rounded at least once but normally several times in a race. During a full week of regatta sailing, all the boats tion basis. The final is settled over the best of five races. Monsieur Michel Ruffier had in fact held the cup for four consecutive years, and was again the winner in the most recent series held. (Facts and photo courtesy Bernard Gillier. 25 Built on a river at a place called Charity... half. It needed further work, and Baldwin, who is also an accomplished boatbuilder was there at the time aboard his own 28' yacht Atom and he agreed to help. James Baldwin is a_ sailor/writer whose articles on cruising | have en- joyed in magazines such as Cruising World, more recently on the net at www.yachtatom.com (his website). | was attracted by a story of his about a 60! schooner Zoriada, built in the land of my birth, Guyana, on the banks of a river where mosquitoes tend to try to eat one alive. That place is called Charity in the Pomeroon American area. Doug Tyson, an had gone to Guyana in pursuit of cheap wood and cheap labour, with a plan in his head to build a boat on the lines of a 19th century Scottish Zulu fishing lugger. A year later he sailed the boat to the island of Trinidad in the West In- dies, where having spent all his money, he was to eventually leave the gaudily painted pink and purple vessel with friends to sell on his be- 26 He would eventually take possession and managed eventually to sell the boat to two French Canadian brothers. Renamed Zulu, the schooner was eventually sailed by the brothers to Canada, ending up being impounded by Customs in Nova Scotia, on a charge of declaration of false value. James Baldwin's story Saga of a Jungle Schooner is an interesting story well told, and those readers who en- joy cruising adventures will enjoy an internet journey where several other stories by Baldwin are on the same website. My appreciation goes to James for having granted me permission to run this shortened " version, and to use the photograph. (Editor) sors Z Footy, shown again “hoofing it' (below) ona Queensland , Them glorious early days... Australia lake Many readers will remember their very young days, when they fashioned wee boats of crude appearance and often with questionable sailing qualities. Nonetheless these ‘nautical masterpieces' often de- livered pleasure, The US Vintage Model Yacht Group held its 2003 and "String, String, an Vintage traditional Watercraft Regatta at Solomons Island (Maryland) last September. Their 2002 event was covered in WW's April O3 issue At left (below) is the of schooner sharpie made many a young lad very-happy. So as they could not get away, stern-tied string was the ‘in' thing. Don't laugh as the late Spike Milligan's song went, im- portant thing !". Irwin Schuster of Tampa, Fla sent me the WW reader, photograph of this 33cms LOA boat he has owned for some ten years. Surgent, George the hull designed a He at one time had quite a collection of quirky "daddy" boats, which appeared to have been built by fellows with no maritime knowledge but fair skill, or the reverse...and who never forgot the string ! On a different tack (see, | knows my yott-ing toiminology), Ed read recently that “Australians in Melbourne are such sporting fanatics, one could get a hundred thousand of them together just to watch two flies crawling up a window |! Photo top of right column century ago. (No ! George himself is not that old , | must quickly add |) | saw two courses advertised worth mentioning, Creative Suflering, and How to convert your family room into a Garage, shows Cute stulleh ¢ orbel reader Ron Fox With Sirocco, his Oz 27 "Thanks to you Captain, we made it home' Photograph by Mark Steele of a witnessed retrieval at a Thames Barge sailing day held at a pond in Southgate, London. 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