I picked this up from a local toy fair a couple of months ago, since then it has been sat in my study for a while getting a good looking at.

At a guess I’d say she was built in the 1960s to emulate a 1930s boat.

I love the hull, but am not a fan of the white superstructure, the long term plan is to fit a mahogany superstructure either as a New York commuter boat of the 1930s or as a Thames cruiser of the 1930s. Luckily I have a near complete set of Classic Boat magazines to raid for inspiration.

With a number of other projects on the go any structural changes will have to wait until next winter, but I’ve made the decision to fit an modern motor and remove the aft deck to fit a micro rudder servo so she may hit the water this summer while I decide on the new superstructure.

Will be one of the long term projects so I’ll update the blog as and when some progress is made.

As Hermank rightly points out there’s no way to control the rudder at the moment as the boat has a rudimentary steering system, with the tiller locking into a rack.

The boat has been repaired recently with a patch on the aft deck. I removed this repair today and found it was a veneer over a balsa block.

The rudder shaft is threaded and the tiller has been soldered on. I was hoping I could remove the rear deck, but the deck is substantial, a veneer on top of 6mm timber. I fear that much damage could be done attempting to remove the stern deck so have formulated a plan B to fit a servo and new rudder.

I think I can remove the tiller arm by cutting it off above the deck and drop the rudder out of the boat. I can then fit a new rudder tube and shaft aft of the existing one, the new rudder shaft will have a below deck tiller arm I can connect to a micro servo. I think there is enough room to fit the new ruder and servo through the existing hole caused by removing the stern deck repair.

If this works I can fit a graving piece into the deck where the old rudder shaft and tiller came out, block up the end of the old rudder tube and make a more sympathetic repair to the stern deck.

Think this may need several mugs of tea and possibly a couple of beers to help with the looking at stage.

I still haven’t decided on a replacement superstructure for this one so decided to get it on the water first to see what it looks like when afloat first.

The major piece of work was to fit a rudder, servo and water cooling pickup in the stern tank using the hole caused by removing the existing repair section, the plan being to replace this with something more in keeping with the rest of the deck.

With the old repair removed I found I had an access hole that I could, at a push, fit a couple of fingers or a spanner or pair of long nose pliers. This meant fitting the new rudder tube (with lock nut and washer), metal geared 9g servo and water pickup, all took a while to fit.

I had to cut down the rudder shaft and tube to get them to fit and it took a couple of attempts to get the tiller arm and servo arms to align. Very fiddly to get the servo in place.

Drilling the holes for the rudder servo wire and water cooling pipe required a 90 degree drill attachment, extra long drill bit and a steady hand.

I ended up swiping the motor and ESC from my RTTL build (replacements on order).

Today I finally got the boat on the water and I have to say she look lovely when afloat, even with the horrible white superstructure.

The hull had dried out over the last few months and there was some cracking between hull planks below the waterline. I’d already opened the cracks up and floated in some epoxy bulked with micro balloons, there was a slight hull leak, found this was at the hull keel joint so will be rectified this week.

I’ll be adding a water pump in the water cooling circuit as the water flow was limited and needs a little help.

So, still needs a little bit of tweaking but am very happy with today’s outing.