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Sf IGIGIE’S LL RIGIFT ES I tr BEST! AN ARGUS SPECIALIST PUBLICATION FEBRUARY 1989 MODELLING THI BLACK PRINCE Kingfisher’s Great Egg Race Model Boats at Snowshill = £1.40 blob on top of the ‘Carricook’ fuel will greatly assist lighting. Care should be taken when using ‘Meta Super’ though as it is so flammable, and it should be kept well away from children. Following the above guidelines I have had many enjoyable hours running my steam launch and I am sure many more yet to come! My only regret is, why did I leave it so long before trying steam power? I hope my letter encourages others to try steam power. There’s nothing quite like it, thanks to Peter Arnot and thanks to Model Boats. Geoff Smeeton Aspley Nottingham A ‘real wood boat’ Dear Sir, MayI take this opportunity to correct Russell Potts M.Y.A. Sec:. In his article Curved Air in the November issue of Model Boats, I am afraid he was misled. In his brief reference to the Vane 10R Nationals at Birmingham, I quote “the real wood boat’ sailed by John Gale to tie for first place and finish second after a few sail-offs to resolve the position, was not, a new design by John Lewis. In fact the boat was designed by yours truly for John at his request for the Nationals, and due to a problem at M.Y.S.A. at that time John had little opportunity to tune the boat before the event. Maybe next year we can find that little Billing Display Dear Sir, I thought that the method of displaying my model of the billing Zeeschouw, as shown in the photograph, might be of interest to readers, The kit was given to me, and being a simple model, I decided to add cabin detail etc. I also wanted to effectively display the hull but I do not like boats on stands with sails carried. After some thought, I came up with the display shown, which used 2 1/2 kilos of putty. The ‘sea’ is acetate sheet with the protective plastic ‘rearranged’ with clear varnish to produce the ripples. ee bit extra. C. J. Dunkling. M.Y.S.A. Mitcham Surrey 1 Metre Class — do we need it? Dear Sir, Did we really need a 1 metre class? I suggest not. It’s original conception was cheapness and simplicity, no high tech etc., all aimed at attracting new blood to our sport, very commendable, I would agree. But what have we got; a set of class rules that are still in flux: complex measuring parameters, every bit as difficult as R.M. rules that will tax the very amateur measuring officials of smaller clubs, plus an embargo that stiffles all development and initiative that might carry the class forward. This A battery is concealed in the ‘saltings’ to supply navigation and internal lights. Figures from the local toyshop underwent major surgery to obtain the correct scale. Brian R Miles Eastbourne Krick Blitz II transfers Dear Sir, I have recently completed construction of the Krick Patricia steam launch. I opted for the Blitz II version but unfortunately had trouble with the transfers. I wonder if any Model Boats reader has built the Patricia version and therefore has the Blitz II transfers to spare. Thanking you in anticipation. KA Higgins 14 Coplow Crescent Syston Leicester LE7 8JE FEBRUARY 1989 coupled with apparently little interest internationally must surely weight against development if interest. Compare this with the 36r class. The simplest of measuring rules, convenience of transport and freedom to experiment and develop. This is coupled with realistic costs of excellent models from Oliver Lee, Squire Kay, Bob Underwood and others. Much more importantly though is a devoted following of very average skippers who sail for sheer pleasure. For them there is none of the temperament of the top R.M. Skippers who in spite of outstanding ability resort to a mixture of bad feeling and squeezing the utmost out of the rules with a win at all costs attitude, (witness the departure of Louise and Robert Smith from the scene for this very reason). Much could be learnt from the 36r Nationals of Leicester this year, ably run by David Andrews and the Leicester Club. One protest in two days of competition sailing and mutual praise of the sheer pleasure of a sporting week-end, alas I have yet to see reference in our press of this excellent event. 36r has a lot to offer, especially to the newcomer, as the 30 or so skippers at the Oxford Open meeting this October would testify. Long may this very British Class Sail and long may I be associated with their delightful and sporting owners. Try it, you will be suprised. J. E. Cox Kidlington Oxon In Miniature Dear Sir, With reference to Jn Miniature in the November issue I am the ‘particular writer’ referred to by the article’s author, and if I may I would like to reply to some of the comments made. For many years mail order was the only way to access the wide range of 1/1250 model ships produced on the Continent, important criteria for the UK collector being the quality of the service, model availability, packing, and of course price, the latter including whether or not the supplier deducted German VAT prior to shipment. It is fair to say that some suppliers meet these criteria better than others and thus recommendations are bound to be made. On arrival in this country models are indeed subject to customs inspection and UK VAT imposed, the payment being collected by the postman on delivery, and it is certainly true that very, very occasionally damage to models can result. Fortunately the procedure for claiming compensation or a complete refund is quite straightforward. Many collectors have been buying directly from Germany for many years with great success and it is just untrue to state that costs are greater and that unwanted models are sent. Being virtually the only UK supplier of these models, the article’s author is hardly in a position to provide an objective assessment of the virtues of direct mail order when compared with buying from his own company. However ‘Vintage Models’ have certainly introduced many newcomers to the hobby although in terms of price for the delivered item they often compare very poorly with continental sources, although there is the advantage of possibly viewing a model prior to purchase. Once one becomes familiar with the style and qualities of each particular manufacturer, however, this is not really necessary. In the final analysis the customer must be free to choose from where he buys his models; in order to do this however he must be in possession of all the facts, and not just a subset conveniently biased towards some particular source. K. Holmes Christchurch Dorset Into Steam Dear Sir, My ventures into model steam launches may be of interest to your other readers. The enclosed photographs show the launch and the burner assembly. The launch is a much modified J.S. Model Design 40in Windermere. John Stratton’s advice and ‘extra bits’ has ensured that the model was a successful project. The additional items introduced from the basic kit is the planking of the interior hull with alternating mahogany and lime; fully glazing the saloon and featuring the doors. Bench seats have been introduced fully upholstered and these are used to house the servos, receiver and battery pack. The table assembly provides a lifting handle to the saloon deck giving access to the propellor shaft for lubrication and ballasting. Cord has been used for the lifebelt and by French Knitting through a dolly the fenders have 9 ew Clubs are affiliating at a healthy pace. The Stoke club, whose details I gave a couple of months ago, have sorted out their problems with the local Council and have formally affiliated to the MYA. As a result of the publicity they have received they have nearly doubled their numbers in a couple of months. Falmouth have displaced Plymouth as the farthest West of MYA clubs. They are a general model boat club with a small yachting element. Their Secretary is Keith Rolleston, Pumpkin Cottage, Treverva, Penryn, Cornwall. Newest of the recent affiliations is Brentwood, again a general boat club with a yachting section. They have exclusive use of a water just off the A12 outside Brentwood and like all clubs are pleased to welcome new members. The Brentwood Secretary is C T Coventry, 16 Rayleigh Road, Hutton, Brentwood, CM13 1AE (B‘wood 224562). Ranking List The end of season ranking list is now available. It was a frustrating day at the Mermaid Trophy meeting at Guildford on 6 November; 39 top rankers turned up to improve their scores in the last Ranking race of the season, but ended up getting only four races apiece in a nearly flat calm. As might be expected the top positions were very little altered by the day’s events. The man Bantock continues to cause wailing and gnashing of teeth among his fellow aspirants for ranking honours by producing a perfect maximum score again. The top few places are shown in the panel, which covers the top twenty places only. There were in fact 70 individuals who scored at least one point in one ranking race, but you have to go 46 back from the singleton scores to the 33rd place to find competitors who had actually sailed in the four races that count towards a full ranking score. Only 33 serious RM racers in the country? Can this be true? well yes it can, as there are a few who managed to place higher than 33rd with only three scoring races. It does bring home how small a proportion of the MYA’s membership is involved in serious racing. Even those who travel away from their own club to sail at the next pond down the road are very much a minority of the whole membership, most of whom are content to sail among themselves in their own clubs in a very unpressurised way. This sort of “social”, uncompetitive sailor is really not over concerned with the fine detail of rating rules and only marginally with the racing rules and their exact observance, but his continuing membership and support for the MYA is absolutely essential if the Association is to continue to perform its functions as a national organising body for the sport. RM World’s Berlin In his report a couple of months ago Kevin Fieldes remarked that, as a busy competitor, he hadn’t the time to make a detailed analysis of the technical characteristics of the various boats that were present. The German magazine Schiffsmodell was able to do this and they have published a very detailed analysis. Rather than try to decide which bits of this are going to be of interest to my readers or to boil all of it down to a few average statistics, I shall be pleased to send a copy of the whole thing to anyone who sends me a stamped addressed envelope. RM European Championships, September 1989 The ranking list placings given here will be used as the means of selecting the MYA entrants to the RM Europeans at Orbetello just north of Rome in Italy. The meeting will take place in the first week of September next year. The host club will be the Societa Canottieri Orbetelo, which I take to be a full size sailing club with a model yachting section. The total entry is limited to 60, of which 10 places are to be offered to Naviga; the MYA’s share is 9 places at the first round of allocation. The MYA’s places will be offered, in order, to the top skippers in the RM ranking list as at the end of the 1988 ranking races. There may be some extra places for the MYA when the first round of allocations is completed. Racing will be to LYRR 1989-92, as it emerges from the November IYRU meetings, plus the IMYRU’s RCRR Appendix as it stands at the end of MODEL BOATS February next. This gives time for the IMYRU Racing Rules Committee to review the Appendix in the light of any changes in IYRR. Five fleets of 12 boats will be sailed throughout the meeting. Presumably racing will be to the RCRS86 system as laid down in the Guidelines for Major Meetings and not to the horrendous “Italian System” which was used for part of the time in Berlin last summer. The sailing water is a salt lagoon protected from the sea by a sand bar. There is said to be little problem with waves. The prevailing wind is NW and speeds are between 2 and 10 metres/sec. Entry fees will be 80,000 LIT. This is about £40 at present exchange rates. There are a number of hotels and campsites in and around Orbetello and I think the rather eccentric English of the invitation is trying to say that there will also be free camping and caravan facilities on site. Several of our top skippers have already announced their intention to go to Orbetello. Let’s hope that the seaside site will give them a better mix of winds than we have had for the last two major RM meetings in Europe. The Keeley Archive Some considerable time ago I published a photo of a cup awarded by the Dartmouth Yacht Club early in the century and won by Gordon Keeley’s grandfather. Now Gordon has managed to trawl up from one of the older generation of the family a photo of Elfred, the boat that won the cup. The photo was taken in 1937 or 38 when Gordon’s grandfather was well advanced in years, but still sailing and still winning in races the rule as it was then) of 1200-1250 square inches and a displacement in the high twenties. Some years ago, when I was very new in the vintage game, I saw this boat sold for a very small price at an auction in Glasgow. Though I could see that she was a boat of some quality and had a fine set of fittings and sails which carried a printed logo which I worked out had to be Charlie Drown’s trade mark, I was totally on open water courses in Torbay. The boat is typical of the open water 10-rater sailed in the West Country seventy or so years ago. The rig will have been up dated from the original gaff rig, but otherwise the boat seems to be little changed, retaining the deep solid brass fin and the teardrop shaped skegless rudder. The style of rudder shows that the boat must have had Braine gear or some equivalent automatic steering gear from the time of her first build. FEBRUARY 1989 Thetis Another photo from the late 1930’s is supplied by Eric Shaw. It’s another of his Llandudno snaps, and shows the crack 10-r of the local fleet, owned by Noel Lloyd. She is a Daniels design and build called Thetis and had a formidable reputation on the North Wales coast. She is typical of the advanced edge of 10-r design in the 1930’s, with a lwl of about 48 or 50 inches, giving a sail area (under unaware that she was a Daniels boat and considering the difficulty of getting the boat and her many rigs home to London, I let her go in favour of bidding for something smaller which in the event I didn’t get. I’ve been kicking myself from time to time ever since. There was another 10-r in the same sale that was clearly a poor man’s version of the same thing, very similar in concept, but everything home made and sails that, even allowing for the effects of age were never going to be half as effective as a professionally made suit. Whether she came before or after Thetis in Lloyd’s model yachting career is one of those intriguing questions that will never be answered now. Bob Jefferies Bob Jefferies died towards the end of October. Though he was not active on the 45 competitive scene in recent years, Bob Jefferies’ name will be known to many readers as the author of the widely read Radio Control for Model Yachts. Older hands will know that he was around from the very beginnings of radio yachting in Britain, sailing a succession of boats called “Electra”. The early numbers in the series were “A” boats, some with home built radio gear, and the later ones RM’s, including boats imported from the USA and some own designs. Bob was instrumental in founding the original New Forest club on the small lake at Setley, which, in the early 1970’s, organised some of the earliest serious competition for RM’s in the south of the country. More recently, still at Setley, the Solent club had built up to an impressive size on a less competitive pattern of sailing in which Bob took an active part until quite recently. His contribution to the development of radio sailing was impressive. Lost to the Vintage Group Two photos of a well preserved 36 inch Restricted boat of the 1930’s, which, alas, will not be seeing the water again. She is number 101 Grey Ghost, registered in 1934 as owned by H Turner of the Littlehampton club and designed by Brooks & Lance of Brighton and built by H Weeks. She is a very tubby example of the flat top “maximum boat in the box” style that has always been one of the preferred design routes for this simple but intriguing class. There is good reason to suppose that the finish and fittings are all original as are the sails. She is a seriously equipped boat with jib steering and provision for a spinnaker. The Braine quadrant is elaborately fretted and the rudder is rather large. Is this because the designer thought she needed that extra area, or because the rudder post had to be several of her planks stove in by the mast and generally pretty sad. Her new owner, Peter Kelly, has glassed in the inside of the damaged portion and made it all good post further aft on what was always a plumb sterned class of boat. reproduction. at the expense of having to paint the hull relatively far forward to accommodate the Braine gear and tension slide in their conventional disposition? Other designers used quadrants with the tail forward and the slider on the deck in front of the quadrant to assist in getting the rudder below the waterline. The photos show that she is looking as good as new, or rather with just enough of the wear and tear to the planking showing beneath the new varnish for it to be obvious that she is a priceless antique and not a modern Why is she lost to the Vintage Group? As you will see the photos were taken in a shop. An antique shop in Camden Passage; you probably can’t see the price written on the label. If you could, you would understand why not even the most fanatical lover of old boats would wish to boat. John Gale remarked that now I had leap to her rescue. I Wonder Another 10-r of very similar style to Thetis, though possibly of rather later date, has come to light on the Essex coast. She is called J Wonder and was found in a very distressed condition, with This is a real problem with the repro a few coats of varnish on the 10 Tonner hull he did for me, it’s not possible to see the plank edges and she looks as if she is carved from the solid. John is slightly miffed that his workmanship is not going to be apparent. Next time he is going to colour the plank edges so that they show a bit more clearly to the casual inspection. Now that’s a problem I wish I had. My planking always looks only too obviously made up of separate pieces of wood. Vintage Days in 1989 The great success of the Vintage Group’s meeting at Gosport last September has prompted demands for more of the same. The dates fixed so far are April 16 at Bournville and August 20 at Poole. Both these lakes are suitable for both radio and free sailing boats and have hard edges giving dry shod sailing. Poole is however pretty big and, as a slice off Poole Harbour, can get choppy if the wind is in the wrong direction. The smaller “toy” type of boat may find Poole a bit of a handful, but I am hoping to arrange a third meeting at Clapham towards the end of the season, which will be particularly suitable for smaller boats. Having said all that, I hope that members of the VG and other interested parties will 46 MODEL BOATS sailing (from skiffs on an open water course on the Elbe) can’t have been easy, particularly for the older boats which had no radio control. The only old boat that is visible in the photos appears to be a schooner and must be about five feet long. I hope to be able to bring you some photos of these old German boats in due course, if my written German can rise above the abysmal level of my reading skills. The “MYI” is available from Horst Kronke, Strandstrasse 127, D-2408 Niendorf/Ostsee, West Germany. The sub for those in Europe is DM25, and DM30 for those outside Europe. Payment by DM cheque or Banker’s draft. Two toy boats. Final photos this month from a German Magazine Those of you who read German, or who want an incentive to improve your come anyway and bring their boats. Many people find that a boat that can’t be sailed is an advantage, as it gives more time to look at other people’s and to pass on the latest gossip about who’s building what. capability might care to look at Modell Yacht Info, a quarterly produced by Horst Kronks for VAMYS (the German MYA). It is similar in format to the well known “Model Yachting News” that Chris Jackson has been running for the last Triang Restoration The issue that I have seen is mainly Last month I showed you photos of a metal 21 inch toy by Triang which was in the course of restoration by Brian Wales. The hull is now finished and looks better than Triang’s can have ever expected when she was brand new. I don’t have details of the methods that Brian has used to get her to this condition, but I hope he can be persuaded to write a little about his methods, as we haven’t had a metal boat featured in the column before. The decking and cabin top are veneer, with the planking ruled on with a waterproof pen. The two photos with the sails are rough mock ups to try the look of gaff and bermuda rigs. Though the bermuda rig is undoubtedly how she was rigged originally, and the gaff rig is going to be a bit overpowering in anything more than a light air, I must say I find the gaff looks very attractive. I’m just biassed to the days when yachting was a rich man’s sport and it took the crew of 30 or more men an hour .to get the main up before the owner came aboard to start the race. The first bermuda rigs in full size yachts were introduced just after the first war, not from considerations of aerodynamic efficiency, but because the size of crew needed was dictated by the number needed to hoist the sail and the owners were feeling the pinch with the “scandalous rise in wages arising from the disruptions of the war’. In the model, you pays your money and you takes your choice. With a boat this size it would be no great hardship to have two separate eight years, and contains regatta reports and news of interest to model yachtsmen. given over to the RM World’s in Berlin, but also contains a report on the German RM nationals and the 100th anniversary meeting of the model yachting section of the Hamburg club Segler-Vereinigung Altona-Oevelgoenne. The photos show that it was blowing very hard on the day chosen for the regatta and that the correspondent in Tampa, Florida, show two contrasting approaches to the small serious sailing model or large superior toy. The first is a 24 inch model that was found in poor condition and restored. The owner thinks that she could be of English origin and dates from the 1920’s. I agree she could be, but I have little experience of what American commercial producers were doing, so I can’t be sure. The hull is relatively deep and boaty for a model of this style and the swing rudder is a fairly serious piece of kit for a toy. There doesn’t appear to be a ballast lead as such, so the fin is probably in fairly heavy gauge steel. The second is a much more recent 22 inch model by Dumas, who also kit serious model yachts. The style closely reflects the current racing model except that the fin is not very deep. The free floating rudder is rather uncommon and it’s not clear from the photo what sort of steering gear, if any, is used. Possibly a reverse tiller of some sort. Contact address: R R Potts, 8 Sherard Road, London SE9 6EP, Tel: 01 850 6805. | a 5ee rigs FEBRUARY 1989 47
