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ae UK’s TOP SELLER ale Windermere Model Weekend Preview YOUR NEXT KIT GUIDE 4 9 °770144″291 | BEST AfgUS BUBLICATION / VALUE catches her. The sails need a little bit of tweaking to get them to set better, but Mike is rightly well pleased with his first fully scratch built boat. He went away with a selection of 10-rater plans of similar and slightly later vintage, so we can look forward to another re-creation in due course. An Edwardian 5-Rater On view, though far from ready to sail, Top left, Mike Bell’s replica 10-r to the 1899 design shown below Above, the design as it appeared in Model Engineer magazine. Top right, a twin fin 5rater datingfrom the turn of the century. By Plastics RUSSELL POTTS s promised last time, some of the photos I took at the V Day at Beale Bird Park in October. The first shows a reproduction boat to an old design. Mike Bell, who has already successfully restored an Edwardian hull in the style of a 12 metre, came to see me last year and took away a plan for a 10-rater that appeared in Model Engineer in 1899. The boat was on show at the non sailing meeting at Gosport and had what I think was its first serious 22 was the hull of a boat that probably dates from around the time of the plan for Mike’s 10-r. She is a twin fin 5 rater, very typical of the style of smaller racing models of the period. The rig would almost certainly have been a simple high peaked gaff main and a single headsail. The long pieces of wood on the deck are pin racks used for adjusting the length of the main and fore sheets. This is an archaic piece of model yachting CURVED technology which probably pre-dates the AIR more common bowsie, which certainly goes back to the first illustrations of how to build model yachts in 1860s, and is probably a good deal older, given that it is the same thing as a tent guy adjuster. The three hole round bowsie, on the other hand, can be very precisely dated to a patent taken out by C C Weguelin, a professional model builder, in 1901. The steering gear on the 5rater model is mostly missing, but the notched quadrant that remains suggests that it was probably a rudder on the rear of the aftermost fin which could be fixed in a predetermined position for going to sail at Beale. Mike has made a lovely job windward, either central or with a small of the construction, despite some touch of weather helm. Going off the difficulties when the plan, which was wind, what remains suggests that again pretty small to start with and had been only a predetermined helm angle could through several photocopyings before be given, but it is a possible that the he had it, turned out to be somewhat rudder or tiller were weighted and could distorted. Luckily Mike is a near be allowed to swing free by pivoting the neighbour of Roger Stollery so he was tiller on the rudder head or by able to call on some very well qualified shortening the tiller in some way, so that assistance in getting the lines faired up it cleared the quadrant and allowed the before he got too far along. As can be seem from the drawing and – weighted helm to act freely. This is a nice hull that will repay the photos, she carries a lot of sail on a fairly small and shallow hull. Though the careful restoration. We still have too few sailing examples of this type and we wind on the smaller pond at Beale was need them to get a better idea of the way light and well cut up by the surrounding in which they operated and what they trees she heels well when the wind MODEL BOATS APRIL 1993 were capable of when sailed seriously. 10-rater models in this style are a little more common and there are at least two in sailing trim within the V Group, but I have not yet had an opportunity to sail them with any degree of concentration. Fifie Another boat making her debut with the V G was Alastair Roach’s new Peterhead ‘Fifie’. This is a GRP shell taken off one of the older hulls still in use in the Peterhead club and rigged in one of the more or less standard rigs used up there. She was built by Alastair’s namesake in the frozen North, Ali Law and represents one of the simplest styles of model still in active use in this country. Long time readers may recall that I wrote about these boats when I visited Peterhead back in 1986. For the benefit of newcomers, they relate at some remove to the sail powered fishing boats that were the mainstay of the local fleet until replaced by the steam powered drifter in the early years of the.century. The hull form shown in the on shore picture is clearly drawn from the ‘fifie’, but has been subtly altered over the years to give better sailing performance in the model form. In particular, while the originals are lean forward and full aft to give a bearing to take the weight of the drift nets when then are hauled in over the quarter, the models reverse this so that the hull is better balanced as a free sailing model. The rig in full size was a very large dipping lug on the main mast and a MODEL BOATS APRIL 1993 standing lug on the mizzen. This was clearly impractical as a model rig and various gaff rigs were developed, all giving more sail and moving the C of E aft relative to the hull. Thus the models all carry large flying jibs on long bowsprits to balance the boat. They are effectively used as steering sails. The amount of jib that is allowed to work determines how close the boat sails to the wind. As can be seen there is no rudder. On the only occasion I saw them sailing on their home water at Den Dam they were laid nearly flat by a very strong wind and were hard put to manage even a 90 degree reach when leeway was taken into account. The locals told me that even in better weather they could not really be made to go to windward. One feature that probably doesn’t show in the photo is that the sheets are all adjusted by simply re-knotting them to their horses, leaving ‘Irish whips’ dangling over the side. This is choice not necessity, as the really critical adjustments of the gaff halyards are made with flat bowsies as one might expect. A 1950s 36R? Finally among the ancientry at Beale, a 36R hull that closely follows the contemporary concepts of Uffa Fox’s full size Flying Fifteen and her sister classes. This one is very simply built as a single chine hull and the fin is not quite as cutaway as a close adherence to Uffa would dictate. I suspect that the construction came out heavier than the builder intended, as the lead on the keel is a good deal smaller that the wooden portion would suggest it should be. The steering gear is Braine gear, and the quadrant is arranged to lead forward, so that there is a reasonable space to accommodate the centring rubber. If the quadrant is fitted the normal way on, there is a very short space between the tail of the quadrant and the transom. Until the Rule was revised to explicitly allow outriggers, most of the 36 class avoided vane gears, which would have seriously reduced the available sail area. An outrigger would have allowed the Braine gear to be normally arranged, but no-one to my knowledge, ever took advantage of it for this purpose. By the time the Rule change all competitive skippers were fully accustomed to vane gear in the other classes and saw no reason to persist in what by then had become an outmoded technology. Top row, the Peterhead fife’ Bottom row, left, 36 inch R from the 1950s. Hard chine from then current ‘simple build’ dinghy practice, fin profile courtesy Uffa Fox. Right, Spanish? toy boat with moveable drop keel. The Moving Keel An aspect of full size practice that is very rarely encountered in model designs is the centreboard or moving keel. It is obvious that the need for such devices in full size to reduce draft and ease the problems of yachts that have to take the ground regularly do not apply in the model and the benefits of a deep set ballast are more easily attained by a permanent deep fin, or by a selection of fins of varying depth. Though there is some treatment of centreboards in early “how to do it” books in the 1880s, I have never seen or heard of a racing model which employed one. Most modern 23 position of the CLR and thus of the boat’s balance. Geoff Turner, who found her, was able to offer no Top, the Spanish boat with its keel dropped. Above, John Bone’s ‘vintage’ style boat with additional rudder blade. Right, Penguin model by Triang; all plastic dates originally from early 1960s. Photo: J Faiers. model rating Rules prohibit them anyway. Recently I have seen two non class models of fairly recent origin which use a variation on the idea. The first turned up at Beale. John Bone, who designed the Akela model that appeared in MB some time ago, had brought the original boat, which is far from a vintage boat together with a small free sailing boat that can only be described as ‘in the vintage style’. She is quite small and, like all John’s boats, exquisitely finished. The rudder is quite small and for windward work is supplemented by an aluminium sheet which slots into the normal rudder to give more area aft. It is also possible to adjust the fore and aft angle of the insert to some degree, allowing some fine tuning of the balance between sails and hull. The other is a toy yacht that turned up in a charity shop in East London. The hull is wood and the cabin top and most of the fittings a rather soft and ‘soapy’ type of polystyrene. The sails are made from a terylene type of material but with a rather open weave. The fin is folded from metal sheet and contains a further sheet within, pivoted on a large eyelet in the lower leading edge of the fin. It gives the possibility of both a greatly extended depth to enable the boat to hold up its rig without any very significant ballast weight and, for those children with sophisticated ideas about the design and trim on sailing models, the possibility of fine adjustments of the fore and aft a 24 ideas on her origin and an ae opinion has been expressed, based on the sail insignia, that she may be of German origin. I take leave to doubt this, mainly on the basis of the tiny piece of ribbon that has been sewn into the leach of the main to represent an ensign. This is clearly part of the original fit and is horizontally striped in red-gold-red in the colours of the Spanish flag. I believe therefore that she is probably of Spanish origin and was brought home from a holiday on the Costa Brava or elsewhere in the holiday areas of Spain. When I was in the Canaries in 1988 there was a quite a large variety of toy boats available, all by then in plastic and some made in the Far East, but also some Spanish made. None were as interesting as this one, so I didn’t bring home any examples. I can’t wait for the very minor restorations to be made so that we can see how she sails. Over the years there have been a number of toy boats made that have defied the general tendency of commercial manufacturers to produce toys that don’t perform as they should. Norwich No photos from the Norwich Vintage Day, I’m afraid. The weather was very still, very cold and very misty, eventually ending up rather wet, so that though we had a reasonable day’s sailing, there was no incentive to get the camera out. Triang Plastic Models from the 1960s A British example of the better sort of toy is the series of Triang models that were produced in the post war years. I have written in the past about the series of tinplate models that the company made in the 1950s that ranged from very simple eight inch ‘float in the bath’ toys to 24 inch models with quite detailed scale cabin tops and simple automatic steering. The larger examples of this range certainly sailed well though their tinplate construction means that few have survived. The better they are the more they are sailed and the more time they spend with casual water lying inside, quietly rusting away. The outside was fairly well protected with paint but, so far as I have been able to determine, the inside was bare tinplate and very vulnerable. By the 1960s, plastic moulding technology had progressed to a stage that made all plastic models possible, giving both greater durability and the possibility of more detailed modelling o! the scale features, so that the “Penguin” range were described as ‘racing yachts’ or in a later form, as ‘ocean racing yachts’. It should be remembered that Triang had before 1939 been pioneers ¢ the plastic aircraft kit and had also used vacuum moulded plastic extensively in the flying models that I can just remembe being bought for me by indulgent auntie: while I was still too young to really appreciate them or make proper use of them. They fetch high prices now at toy auctions and were a very advanced concept in their time. By the time the “Penguin” boats were being produced Triang had a long range of plastic aircraft kits under the “Frog” label. The 1963 catalogue describes the largest of the “Penguin” range as a 24 inch racing yacht. It had a glass fibre mast, fully adjustable Bermuda sails, MODEL BOATS APRIL 19¢ __Iéin. OCEAN RACING YACHT 430Y Bermuda rigged. { Automatic rudder. 4icm. OZEAN-RENNYACHT / 4icm. PANFILO DA REGATA OCEANICA BOAT Lugsail. Weighted drop keel. H.208 JOLLY BOAT Bin. 20cm. 20cm. SEGELJOLLE 20cm. SEGELBEIBOOT { 4icm. VOILIER DE COURSE HAUTE MER Bin. SAILING DINGHY Adjustable mainsheet and tiller. Ni dicm. OCEAAN RACE-JACHT po 406Y } 4lcm. HAVSKAPPSEGLINGSJAKT – tig Wem. ZEIWOL 20cm. EMBARQUATION y A VOILES 20cm. LANCIA STANDS BS/I STAND SUITABLE FOR 6in—Ilin. BOATS AND 8in. YACHTS BS/2 STAND SUITABLE FOR I4in. —20in. BOATS BS/3 STAND SUITABLE FOR [0in.—Iéin. YACHTS | BOAT STANDS BS/I STAND Suitable for 7in.—Ilin. Boats BS/2 STAND Suitable for BS/3 I4in.—20in. Boats STAND SWIFT H.212 Suitable for 8 in.—16 in. Yachts [2in. 30cm. RACING YACHT Hinged man Sailor man figure, Automatic rut der KAPPSEGLINGSJAKT RENNYACHT RACE-JACHT VOILIER DE COURSE PANFILO DA REGATA H.211 GULL ilin, 28cm. RACING YACHT Hinged mast Sailor man figure. KAPPSEGLINGSJAKT ms ease aS I en ee RENNYACHT RACE-JACHT VOILIER DE COURSE PANFILO DA REGATA yacht models, a 16 inch version of the racing yacht and an 8 inch sailing Top left, a page from the 1963 Triang catalogue. of the tiny group of models that use a centreboard, though here it is there for good scale reasons as well as to carry Above and left, pages from the 1965 issue of the catalogue. dinghy model, which is another example H.216 DIANA \6in. 41 cm. OCEAN RACING YACHT Write hull Red sails. Sarlor man figure. the small ballast weight far enough down to make the boat a practical proposition. There was also a much larger collection of moulded plastic scaleish power models, some using clockwork motors and others with electric drive. Unfortunately, the catalogue is a trade version and contains no prices, referring readers to a separate list of trade and export prices. Does anyone have information on what these things cost when they were available in Hinged mast Automaun rudder HAVSKAPPSEGLINGSJAKT OZEAN-RENNYACHT OCEAAN RACE-JACHT VOILIER DE COURSE PANFILO H.316 DA SEAHAWK OCEAN Black REGATA hull MER OCEANICA l6in. RACING Red saty HAUTE 41cm. YACHT DE LUXE Plated deck fring. Two salor men figures. Hinged mar Automatic rudder HAVSKAPPSEGLINGSJAKT OZEAN-RENNYACHT OCEAAN VOILIER PANFILO RACE-JACHT DE COURSE DA REGATA HAUTE MER OCEANICA ALR ae a +t Printed in England which is jointed on the centre line had automatic rudder, built in keel weight been split by the rusting and consequent and flotation bags as well as detachable handrails. Though the catalogue doesn’t —_ expansion of the keel weight, a piece of steel slipped down inside the fin. say so, among the well moulded fittings This is a curious example of spoiling was a small pram dinghy lashed upside the ship for a ha’porth of tar. Given the down on the foredeck. This is just about high tooling costs for injection moulding visible in the catalogue illustration, which I’m afraid is not very good, having _ of what must have been short run designs compared to the aircraft kits suffered a lot in the multiple copying processes. The photo shows a surviving __ they were producing in the same plant, _it seems hardly credible that Triang example of the 16 inch version, complete would have chosen to use steel rather in all respects apart from the dinghy, which became detached at some point in _ than lead for ballast. They obviously its history. The mast and spars appear to _— envisaged that water was going to get in, either through the many joints or be of wood but also to be the original fit, through openings in the superstructure, so perhaps only the bigger version had because they had gone to the trouble of the GRP mast or it was found fitting flotation bags; that they should unsatisfactory and the production not have foreseen the long term effect of reverted to wood. This particular water on the steel weight is very odd. example has been extensively restored The 1963 catalogue has only two other by my correspondent, because the hull, MODEL BOATS APRIL 1993 the shops? By 1965 the 24 inch model with its complicated fittings had disappeared from the catalogue, as had the little dinghy, which must have been a difficult boat to sail. In the smaller sizes the dinghy had gone from the foredeck, replaced by a windlass. There were three sizes available at 16, 12, and 8 inches, the smallest of these had no rudder and no frills at all, though all sizes now had one or more sailor man figures to grace their cockpits. Contact Addresses Old boat enquiries; Russell Potts, 8 Sherard Road, London SE9 6EP. Tel 081 850 6805. Vintage Group Secretary, Richard Howlett, 3 Maudlin’s Green, St Katharine by Tower, London E1. Tel 071 480 5288. MYA Secretary, Jim Wheildon, 50 Elmgrove Road, Harrow, Middx, HA1 2QH. Tel: 081 861 3207. 25
