Here is pitcure of both my boats sailing on a boating lake not far from my home, the larger of the two was commandeered by my 8 year old son for a trainning mission he had in mind, which gave me an excuse to build another one, which is the smaller boat the picture, as the young captain needed escorting while getting use to his new command!
They are both made from balsa wood, which the material for the hull, it is sealed with a acrylic varnish,painted over the top with enammel paint with clear varnish on top of the paint! The superstructure on the larger destoyer is made from thin plywood, and on the smaller frigate its made of plasticard!
I got the lynx helicoptors on Ebay from "The Dorest Print Man" I think it was, which are 3D printed by him!

Just a little run today & there was no Lobsters in the bay today The Model is a Midwest kit with a bass wood hull the kit had balsa wood & fiberglass but I like basswood instead for the hull . The name of the boat is from a Stompin Tom Conners song .

Ahoy Maties! it's been a long time since my last posting. Happy 2019! I just completed my new scratch-built boat "Electric Barbarella". I tried to recreate (with some liberties) one of my favorite boats of all time, the 30-footer Chris Craft Sportsman built during the 1970s. it measures 24 X 8.5 inches. it is powered with a 9.6 NiMH 4200 mAh battery "nunchuck" pack (like the one used for paintball guns), brushless motor attached to a 30A Mtroniks Hydra controller and a 30mm M4 3-bladed brass propeller. The hull (my own on-the-go design) was made out of Balsa wood which later I fiberglassed. For the superstructure I utilized 2mm ABS plastic sheet material. To my surprise the boat turned to be a very stable and forgiving platform. I really feel a very close connection to this vessel as it is my first own hull design.😁

So here’s my partly completed Riva Aquarama, to be named Ciao Bambina, a scratch build from plans, with laser cut marine ply as the base structure. I started her in April 2016 and got to the stage of balsa wood stringers as per the plans and got into a real pickle, breaking pretty much every strip and gave up after six days of struggle. I then focused on Plan B, which was Project 2, a smaller Riva Aquarama, and again a scratch build, for an event planned with friends at the end of April 2016. I’ll come back to Ciao Bambina once I have completed my Sea Commander and the smaller Riva I think. The stringers will be made with laminated 3mm strips Okichi or similar, which is the way the Sea Commander has been done, so I have learned something from the experience. Balsa doesn’t really work on a big stringer! I will update as I progress the project.

Scratchbuilt WW2 1/24 Scale Vosper 73' Type 1 MTB. Built in 2016, in company with a friend's 1/24 scale BPB MGB.
The Vosper hull is built from balsawood and fibreglass. The upper deck and superstructure is from balsawood. The weapons and fittings are from brass, aluminium and plastic. The 20mm and gunner can rotate.

Old boat of my fathers built from scratch in balsa wood, and fibre glassed inside. Use to run a small diesel engine, I took over it and initially put an Orbit 805 motor in then later a better spec model car motor 545/550 water cooled. Finally I swapped it for a 1.25cc glow engine and this video demonstrates the speed with the glow engine. Was almost too fast for the hull, tight turns caused it to nose dive, and plane/wobble badly on its side. Great fun and cheap to run.

Well this is the 3rd version I have made of a springer tug.

Grp Hull and this time using 2 mm plastic.
Balsa wood and again what ever I could find laying around.

The decking is just printed paper and stuck down with Varnish.

Just needs some ballast and it is ready to go.

So this was attempt number two at a springer tug.. A little better than the very first one.

Again a home made grp hull and everything else Balsa wood and a few bits I could find about the house..

Well this one too has been scrapped and the hull reused.
Or set aside for another one at a later date.

So at this time is just a fitted out hull

Well this was the very first model boat i made.
A springer tug.
I made a mould and then made a few just in case i was to the point of everything going wrong at least I could start another one.

Apart from the home made GRP hull everything else was made in Balsa wood.

Since been scrapped but the hull and all the electrics ect have been reused again for another version..

Motor yacht : Barracuda
Length: 905 mm
Width: 145 mm
Material: poplar plywood 3mm, balsa standard 1 mm, 1 mm linden wood, laminate fabric 120gr and 43gr.
Engine: Mig 480 7.2V
bidirectional DC 7.4V regulator
Propeller 35 mm Graupner
spruce strips 2x6mm

Guess most of you have heard of the Khetanna, Jabba The Hut's sail barge from Star Wars. I looked around on the net and to my big surprise, the search engines did not spit out radio controlled versions of this model. Which made me think, and then decide to built my own.
It is scratch build, based on a "scudder" hull, a design by Glenn G. I printed a few pictures of Khetanna from the net and used those for guidance in the process.
The superstructure is a combination of balsa and ply wood. in the Star Wars tradition, the boat is propelled by a jet propelled engine. To finish it off, a Lego version of Jabba was added for extra detail.
It was a fun and fast project to built, maybe a dozen or so evenings.
(scratch) building is my passion and only sail the boats with my son about once a month. We've got a pond near Newcastle (AUS) harbour which is pretty good (providing there's no weed in it) but the disadvantage of this pond is salt water, meaning a proper rinse of the models is needed after each sailing session. Recently we have moved our sailing sessions as well to the liberty pond in town. The model captures the audience, the vast majority recognize the Khetanna immediately.
Happy sailing.

Jeroen

Completely scratch built using balsa wood and Mahogany strips for the decks and bridge and the free plan by James Pottinger issued in Model Boat Magazine November 1996. The plans were well drawn at a scale of 1:93 how ever I doubled the size by just transfering each measurement directly onto the wood and a few card patterns were made when panneling the hull.
Powered with twin 12 volt motors, two 12 volt lead acid batteries and two 1 3/4" props I am well sattisfied with the end result. A full build log with pictures can be found on the ''Leith built Ships" web site, or look under ''The Loftsman"