I wanted to test the effectiveness of the rudders and ESC while seeing how much ballasting would be required so I took the hull to the lake today. My father and I use Fridays as a testing day as the lake is usually quiet so we can make lots of mistakes without an audience. The other boat you can see in the video is his tug project, now successfully ballasted.

Have to say I was very pleased with the manoeuvrability of the boat, was thinking I might need to fit a mixer for the steering but she turns nicely just using the the rudders as they are so i wont bother with a mixer.

She need ballasting towards the bow, but there's enough buoyancy to cope with the superstructure and fittings. Very impressed with the lack of wash, I'm using a 3S with twin 365 motors rated at 6V-15V. Think it will only need a 2S as I was using very little throttle.

https://youtube.com/shorts/40OAEt0rVf4?si=htEw7h4QbtVWDgvh

Decided to tackle the part of the build that I wasn't looking forward to. I'd made the decision to extend the topsides to close to the transom, however before thinking of extending the topsides I'd have to cut the scuppers. The article by Brian Peach in the May 1996 edition of Marine Modelling suggests, as they are marked on the moulding, to drill a series of holes and complete with a file.

I made the decision to move the topsides completely with the plan to replace them with new topsides that extend to the transom (I'll use the old ones as a template to get the correct sheerline). The topsides will be attached to the deck by about 40 triangular bracing pieces - see the pics of the plans.

I invested in some Dremel EZ Speedclic Cutting wheels, put on the appropriate safety gear and had both topsides removed in about a minute - very impressed with the Speedclic discs. I'm glad I took this approach as the moulding of the topsides was of varying thickness so when the supports would have been added they would not have been in a straight line without having to do a lot of fairing to get the topsides to uniform thickness. I'll be using 1.5mm ply for the replacement topsides.

With the topsides removed I took the opportunity to get some paint on the hull, black under the waterline and I found that Hycote produce a Polar Grey for Ford cars, this is the shade of grey I was looking for.

The paint is too glossy at the moment but I'll flatten it back later.

I've made a start on the internal fit out. Rudders and motors are installed and tested, and I've trimmed the transom to the correct shape. With those large scuppers it made sense to get the correct deck camber so flush deck beams were fitted with thin balsa laminated to the beams and the desired camber filed and sanded into the correct shape.

I've made a temporary deck to check the camber and to work out the position of the various openings.

Will be leaving the hull alone for the while as the next part of the build is to make up the LL Sweep Reel and Four Drum Sweep Winch using the items bought from Sirmar

With some decisions made about the hull I managed to get started.

Seem to have gathered a small library about Minesweepers, thank to World of Books, eBay and a couple of glasses of red wine.

Was good to find a chapter about the BYMS in 'Out sweeps!' that mentions that the BYMS had their growing pains and the Admiralty developed a long list of modifications needed to the original design. I suspect the extension of the gunwales/topsides to the stern and the additional blocks under the rubbing strake were among these modifications as I've seen both features in several images of a BYMS.

The last week or so has been spent making holes in the hull or adding bits to the hull.

The first bit of surgery was fitting the rudders, 'A' brackets and prop shafts. I opened my now large box of BYMS fittings and realised the 'A' brackets I'd bought some time ago were over scale, very clunky and I didn't like them. Time to learn how to make them myself, so I bought some brass tube and bar and spent a happy few hours experimenting until I got an identical pair of 'A' brackets that I couldn't pull apart.

The Sirmar hull has small indentations marking the centre positions for the rudder shafts, prop shafts and A Brackets so drilling the relevant holes and opening up the apertures for the prop shafts was straightforward. The rudders are off-the-shelf, and nearly the same size as those on the plan, I reduced the length of the rudder shaft tubes and shaft length. The tubes were bonded in using West Epoxy with a filleting blend added, used to same for A Brackets and Prop shaft tubes.

The pics show this before any cleaning up so it will look neater soon. I also added a bulkhead as felt the unsupported prop shaft tubes were liable to getting knocked when working in the hull, it will also provide a barrier should any water get in the rear section. The last job on this part of the internal fit out was to install a platform to support the twin motors.

Time now to tackle the hull changes. The bilge keels were straightforward as the plans showed the location and size of them so a pair were made from Obechi strips, these are currently slightly thicker than required as I'll sand them to shape later on.

With the bilge keels fitted the next job on the list was to add the blocks under the rubbing strake, luckily I have a decent photo of 2079 showing the location of all 37 blocks so I was able to work out the start and finish position of the run of blocks and could work out the gap between them. They needed to be the same depth as the rubbing strake (1/8") and I found I had a number of lengths of 1/8" x 1/8" Obechi so used a simple jig to cut about 90 blocks, knowing I'd lose/drop some of them at some point.

The gap between the blocks was 12.49mm so I used a spacer block of this width to position the next block and checked the gap with a vernier gauge. Have to say it was a fiddly but satisfying task, I used Everbuild HV CA glue as this gave me a few seconds to position each block before the glue cured.

With all 74 blocks fitted I sprayed a coat of grey primer as this highlighted any excess CA used to glue the blocks and any excess epoxy used to attach the bilge keels. I'll clean any excess glue from the blocks and keels when do the final tidy up of the epoxy used for the prop shaft tubes and 'A' brackets.

Am considering this grey primer as the final hull colour as I can use a cutting compound to smooth the finish and spray a matt clear coat on top.

Having made the decision to build the BYMS as 2079 I've been focussing on the research side of the build. Luckily there's a BYMS Facebook Group, when I posted to this group I had a reply from someone involved with the Royal Navy Patrol Service Association Museum in Lowestoft. Turns out they have the bell from 2079 and a collection of photographs of various ships including BYMSs. I'm heading up to Norfolk and Suffolk next month so will be visiting the museum to see what I can find.

There's also a very informative website detailing the activities of the Royal Navy Base Wildfire, Sheerness and Minesweeper Base Wildfire III, Queenborough. The Wildfire site has a pager about each BYMS and I came across a photo of 2079 that shows the addition of what looks look wooden fenders below the scuppers and rubbing strake, highlighted in picture.

I'd not seen them on any pics of BYMS so was wondering if they are a later addition. I was then sent a photo of another BYMS showing the same addition to the hull. They are a later addition to some BYMSs but have decided that as they were fitted on 2079 then my model will also have them fitted.

Looking at the plans, they show that the BYMS hull also had bilge keels, so 2079 will have to have those fitted.

Having spent a fair bit of time looking at various photos of BYMSs it looks like most of them had the topsides extending to the transom, so the decision to extend the topsides has been made.

It now looks like the next stage of the build is to add the hull appendages and to extend the topsides, I'll get on with that after I've fitted the rudders, props and motor mounts.

http://www.wildfire3.com/byms-2.html

http://www.rnpsa.co.uk/cms/

This is going to be a long project, never attempted anything smaller than 1:30, so a 1:48 project is going to be fun.

It all started with me finding a copy of Eric Minett's book 'The Coast is Clear: The Story of the BYMS' in a local charity shop. I'd never heard of the British Yard Minesweeper (BYMS) but on reading the book found it very interesting, especially the mine sweeping ahead of the D-Day landings.

I posted about the book on here and nickthesteam very kindly offered me a Sirmar hull, all the plans and some fittings. I've just finished my last large build, the RAF Crash Tender (just waiting for the last few fittings to arrive then I'll get some pics and video of her afloat), so the BYMS came to the top of the project list.

I'd contacted Barry at Sirmar and bought some more fittings and spent a while collecting props, shafts, motors, rudders etc.

I've also been doing a fair bit of research into the BYMS and decided I want to build one that has some sort of local connection. As I'm originally from the East Coast of the UK with family links to the Lowestoft area I found that Minesweeping Flotilla 163 was based at Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth in 1943 and the ships of this flotilla were BYMS 2036, 2040, 2057, 2079, 2080, 2161, 2167, 2194.

Additionally 2079 was one of the first ships in the D-Day Landings and has a very interesting history, so the decision was made to build a model of 2079. The first stage of model building is complete, knowing what will be built!

My purchases included a set of three plans
1 x 1:48 detailed drawing of BYMS 2172 (previously designated as J972 and YMS 172)/BYMS 2253 (previously designated as known YMS 253)
2 x non-scale drawings of the YMS 419. These are very detailed and heavily annotated.

In theory there should be little difference between the American YMS and the BYMS as they were all made in the same shipyards, however I have discovered an issue in both the drawings and the hull moulding.

All the drawings show the topsides end some distance before the transom and that the topsides for BYMS 2253 finish further forward than for other vessels. The hull moulding has the top sides ending before the transom, however various photographs of the majesty of BYMS show the topsides continuing to the transom (including those of BYMS 2079).

I suspect the America BYS had the topsides stopping before the transom, BYMS 2253 has them set further forward but the majority of BYMS had the topsides continue to the transom. The Simar moulding would be fine I was to build a model of BYMS 2172 or BYMS 2253, but as this will be 2079 some additional material will be required.

So, a little bit of topside lengthening is required before the first major job of cutting the scuppers. I'll fit the rudders, shafts and motors first. Can't seeing this being a quick build but I'll update as and when progress is made.