- Description of contents
: C> CP (ACE SD Yep estes DECEMBER 1989 £1.50 ISSN 0144-2910 770144291015 | All these changes will take formal effect at the start of 1990. We hope that this will enable the Group to continue to grow and to provide a service to those of you who take an interest in older styles of model yacht. And those of you who take an interest in older styles of toy sailing boats. In the last year a very much larger number of these has been coming to light in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some of them are of high quality and well worth a bit of trouble to restore to sailing condition. Three ways of coming at the vintage thing By chance, I have by me photos of three separate projects which nicely illustrate the three separate approaches to vintage model yachting mentioned in the aims we have written for ourselves. recognition that we are now big enough to stand on our own feet and the fact that when I cease to be MYA Secretary there The first is a restoration of a 15 ton cutter built to the “1730” Tonnage Rule. She is unusual in being precisely dated to 1890 by an inscription carved inside the hull by the original builder, who signed himself “JJ”. She is called Owl and is thought to have originated in the Milford Haven area. The boat originally had no rudder, but the present owner has decided that a simple form of automatic steering is going to be needed to sail her sensibly, so the rudder is a recent addition. The standard of finish on the hull is high and the spars so far completed include a very nice lightweight bowsprit with a built in downward steeve. I like this touch, which was very common on models a hundred the MYA. bowsprit makes clear that the bobstay was not just an ornament. It really was an The Vintage Group goes it A 15 Tonner of 1890 in course of restoration. alone At the end of last month’s piece, I mentioned that there would be some important news about the organisation of the Vintage Group. At a meeting held in conjunction with the Vintage Day at Poole in August, the VG decided to set itself up as an independent organisation in its own right rather than as a group of individual members of the MYA. This reflects no dissatisfaction with the MYA, but a years ago. The light scantling of the will be no administrative advantage in running the Group as an integral part of The new group will be known as The Vintage Model Yacht Group and will have the following aims. (i) To create a structure to facilitate the enjoyment of vintage working model yachts and associated modelling. (ii) To encourage participation in and appreciation of such modelling, whether by the restoration of older styles of boat, the building of new boats to vintage designs or by the design of boats in the style of the past. (iii) to encourage the study of the history of model yachting. Though we considered making formal provision for vintage powered models, we decided against this as the membership is essentially concerned with wind powered craft. This does not mean that the occasional steam clockwork or electric model will not be welcome at our sailing days. For the present at least there will be no formal constitution and the committee, constructed on a regionally representative basis, will be filled by a combination of election at general meetings held at 18 Schooners from the beginning of the century; all these are new build to old designs. Vintage days, supplemented as necessary by cooption. The Group will affiliate to the MYA; how else can we get our third party insurance so cheaply. The subscription will be held at the present extremely low level of £6. In the foreground, a hull, a mould and a grp shell for the famous Prospero. MODEL BOATS may have to be adjusted by a bigger rig or less ballast to get a good sailing performance. Nevertheless, she must be the first boat designed to the Rule since very early in this century and is an interesting concept. Well worth the trouble of trying. Vintage Day at Poole 20 August As well as the business discussions reported above, the VG managed to get some sailing done at Poole. Among the boats that showed up were two recent designs in the spirit of a rather earlier age. One is a glassfibre version of the very pretty one rater Moonbeam that Dennis Saxcoburg was sailing in a varnished wood form last year. In the style of a 1950s vane boat, she looks and sails well. This version has a few changes and refinements from the design that we saw earlier. The other is Imp a very small vane A close-up of the bow of one of the turn of the century schooners. essential part of the engineering structure needed to hold up the mast and keep tight the stays on which the headsails set. One of the most important factors in trimming a boat to sail effectively to windward is to keep the headstays tight and to prevent the luffs of the sails sagging off to leeward. This applies equally to an 1890’s cutter as to a modern RM, though it’s much more difficult to achieve on the older style of boat, where there is more than one headstay and, usually, no means of setting up an effective backstay or runner to take the stress of the weight of the wind in the headsails. Even though models have masts that are proportionately much stiffer than in a full-size boat, the spar only needs to yield by a very small amount for the set of the headsails to be destroyed. As a slightly separate issue, funny rigs consisting only of a headsail or of a pair of headsails with no canvas set aft of the mast never work well because there is no collection of string and struts mounted behind the mast that can withstand the forces generated by the sails. The result is that the head of the mast bows forward and the headstays go slack. Some years ago, Iran a 10-rater with a twin headsail rig and discovered the hard way that though fast and very close winded in really light weather, she would not maintain this performance once the wind got above about force 2. The second is a collection of schooners built to vintage plans. The rigged model comes from a design that was, I think, published in one of the general model Right, Moonbeam. Day at Poole. Though built to a 19th century Rule, she is very “modern” in concept in the sense that she is a hard chine, deep bodied cutter built essentially with two planks to form the sides and with an insert in the counter which gives a Square corner to the quarters. This is very noticeable when she is out of the water, but doesn’t show much when she is sailing. The hull is massively deep and massively ballasted. This makes her very stable, but there is a lost of wetted area (added to by the square corners). She only sailed briefly, or at least I only saw her sailing briefly, (I do sail my own boats for some of the time at these meetings) and it seemed to me that the power to weight ratio wasn’t very favourable. I think this magazines in the 1920s and has been very nicely finished and rigged. The deck houses give it a-scale-like air and some other parts of the fittings are those of a scale model rather than a racing yacht. In the foreground of one of the photos are the planked hull, a mould and a glass shell of Bill Daniels’s 1912 design Prospero. This is a boat that keeps on turning up in one form or another as the vintage movement grows. Now that a mould is available we may see even more versions of the design. The third model is a small “1730” Tonnage Rule boat, rating at 2.5 tons which had its first outing at the Vintage DECEMBER 1989 Below, Moonbeam in grp form. Below and left, a modern intepretation of the “1730” Rule. Just possibly the designer has overdone the “plank on edge” effect. controlled model designed and built by Richard Howlett. The design owes something to vane yacht influences from some years back and perhaps more to Richard’s time running a yacht yard in Greece with 1960s racer-cruiser designs from S&S and from Oliver Lee as the mainstay of production. Despite her small size, Imp sails very well; because of her small size and the high standard of her finish she makes a very fetching desk decoration for the sailing minded businessman. A new member brought along a boat that I wrote about in my first MB article on vintage models some four years ago. This is the 1920s 10-rater Aphrodite III which has been taken in hand and made watertight so that she can sail again. In doing so, the opportunity has been taken to put the hull together permanently, rather than preserve the original arrangement of a two part hull held together, rather insecurely, by the fin. Apart from this change and a coat of paint, she is in her “as built” condition. The Poole club was very welcoming, even to the extent of providing a prize for a competition which we had to extemporise. We decided to give it to the best finished boat. It went to Mike Burn’s Cupid II, a replica of an 1891 design to the “1730” Rule, partly because she is a well turned out boat, partly as consolation to Mike who had a sinking when the radio failed and the boat was borne down so far that she filled through the hatch. She was quickly recovered and will no doubt be as right as rain by next time. As a further consolation, Mike won the raffle prize also donated by the Poole club. Apart from the boats that get on the water, Vintage days are always interesting for the boats that are pulled out of the back of cars to be shown off or, frequently, to be hawked around with a rather plaintive “What do you think it can be?” The photos showa selection of these, including Eric Shaw proudly showing off the first of a long series of model yachts in his life. This one is a commercial toy from Llandudno, dating from 1919. Another was a nice example of a fairly common style of boat in the 1920s. She is a half-size Above, Richard Howlett’s miniscule Imp. Right, Cupid II, an 1891 design built a couple of years ago and fitted with radio. Below, Aphrodite Ill, a 1920s 10-rater that was one of the triggers for the Vintage Group, now restored and sailing. Below right, Eric Shaw displays his very first model yacht dating from 1919. MODEL BOATS Above and right, a half size Prospero rigged as a sloop, possibly intended to rate as a 5-rater. oS * tp 7 ® a ey . oe . Below right, a toy boat of the 1920s with a very heavy oak gunwhale. version of the Daniels’ schooner Prospero, but rigged as a sloop. The fittings, though they are all home made, suggest that she was intended as a serious racing model so she may have been rigged to rate asa 5-rater, a class that was sailed in some clubs in the years either side of the 1914 war. Finally a rather superior toy boat, which I think must be a home made effort rather than a commercial product, probably dating from the early twenties. The hull is planked and is distinguished by a heavy oak gunwhale. Very unusual and striking to look at. The deck has a very small hatch or a very large bung hole mounted in the centre of the deck. It would have been intended to get the water out of the boat, but the combination of size and position must have made the task extremely difficult and frustrating. The best way of breaking the mast is to swing the boat about trying to drain the water out! Contact address: R. R. Potts, 8 Sherard Road, London SE9 6EP, Tel: 01-850 6805. DECEMBER 1989 21
