Hi

I'm after a couple of articles from past issues of MMI, namely
Oct 1992 - YMS Minesweepers - Background to WW2 class of ships
May 1996 - Sirmar's BYMS - Built and Reviewed

With the demise of Traplet there is no supply of past issues from the publisher, I've checked eBay and Magazine Exchange, neither issues are currently available on the used market.

I'll keep looking on eBay in case either appears but I was wondering if anyone would have these articles or copies of the magazines.

Thanks

Neil

I see Sirmar are still going so I’ll drop them an email to see if the hull is still available

The academic in me has an addiction to interesting books so when I came across The Story of the BYMS in a charity shop I had to buy it.

It is probably the most comprehensive publication on a very interesting ship so I was wondering if anyone has built a model one? I’ve seen that 1:48 scale plans are available for the BYMS and the American YMS (same class of ship) so it would be great to see if anyone has built one.

My first Finn dinghy was a Fairey boat from 1966. She was solidly built, had a lot of fun in her before I sold her, ended up owning 5 Finns over the years but the Fairey was one of my favourites. I race with the Classic and Vintage Racing Dinghy Association, and we have a load of Fairey boats turning up for events, Finn, Firefly, Jollyboat, Albacore and International 14.

Sorry to hear that Colin, do take it easy for a while

Anyone fancy the full sized model?

https://www.nationalhistoricships.org.uk/news/nhs/historic-vessel-sale-langemark

DaveB, great to see another Miata owner, aka MX-5, or in my case a Eunos!

This one got taken off the road a few years ago during COVID and is one of the many projects to have lined up since ‘retiring’ last year. Not a true retirement, just in a fortunate position having sold a company so I’m taking a gap year that may never end.

The challenge is to get the rust off the sails first and give them a clean. Will start off with lemon juice and sunlight, if that doesn’t work then acetone will be applied. As this one is deemed appropriate to sit in lounge it may be treated to new sails if I can’t get them clean.

Might be worth looking at Mobile Marine Models site. I’ve been buying from them recently, very impressed with their stuff and very quick delivery.

https://www.mobilemarinemodels.com/ships-clinker-workboat--dinghy-kit-1141-p.asp

This is very much a work in progress, I’ll update my RTTL blog when it is finished, this is the Pylon mast for the 1:30 Kitshack model.

The main structure is 3mm carbon rod with 1mm and 0.8mm carbon for the yogi aerial. I’m using a slightly different RADAR as I want it to rotate so the RADAR shaft will replace the loud hailer shaft. It looks a bit rough at the moment as needs cleaning up and painting.

The di-pole ‘birdcage’ has taken me six attempts, have tried carbon and brass, couldn’t get it right as is 50mm long, 9mm diameter. Finally found some 1mm plastic with a metal core that bends easily and glues together. Only have the final two sections to glue in place now.

Hi AndyB, it is a Jenny design from Model Boats Magazine from 1989, was reprinted in 2012 so I can access the reprint through the MBM archive.


As it happens I have a small fleet of Stars, think I’ve got 7 and a load of Bowmans and a miscellany of others (Ailsa, some unknowns and 3 1930s pond yachts for restoration). Think there’s about 20 pond yachts in house!

RodC, that one was a toy fair purchase a few weeks ago. Think it was built in the 1960s and had a Tayco torpedo motor.

Via the Bring Back Toy Boats Facebook group I’ve found out that the boat is a Douglas McGhee Jenny design from 1989, always nice to know what you’ve got.

https://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/acatalog/Jenny-Model-Boat-Plan-MM2070.html

Afraid I can’t refuse a free boat from Facebook (though every “free” boat I’ve had always costs money at some point of the restoration/rebuild!)

Collected a lovely project boat today, anyone recognise the design? Hull is 25” long with a 5” bowsprit.

Has been built nicely and comes with a pair of elderly servos that I need to test. The sails are a little rusty and all the rigging and lacing lines need replacing after I’ve cleaned the sails and cleaned up the many brass fittings. The keel is weighted with lead shot and the lady I collected it from said it has been sailed by her husband, but a number of years ago.

Nice to collect a boat that doesn’t require too much work to get it back on the water, would be nice to identify it.

I was thinking about adapting these 1:32 figures from Battlecrafts for my RTTL, need to get rid of the beards for an RAF launch.

https://www.battlecrafts.com/deck-fittings/1-32nd-scale?start=5

The lead from your ESC goes into the receiver, as your ESC contains a battery eliminator circuit (BEC), this will put 5.5v/6v into the receiver and the servos will pick up this power. You don’t need to do anything else.

I’ve also been struggling to find decent crew at various scales, can’t find anything suitable at 1:24 or 1:16 for a couple of my boats, there were sets available 10+ years ago but they are out of production as the people producing them retired or sold up.

Have found a set of 1:32 at Battlecrafts for my RTTL, though I’ll have to adapt them as they are navy crew with beards, not something you’d have seen in the RAF in the 1950s.

Seem to have found some time to work on the RTTL.

Decided to tackle the fiddly bits first - the chine rails, gunwhale and toe rail. The gunwhale was required as the previous builder hadn't adhered to the instructions of leaving 1/8" of the deck to overlap the hull.

At this point I decided to go off plan and work on a better method of fixing the two cabin sections in place. The plans suggest using 12 pieces of dowel as deck latches, representing air vents. The two sections sit on a recessed lip on the main deck.

Having been fortunate to receive a number of photos on 2748 from the daughter of the person who bought the boat in the early 1970s I've been able to see that the original boat didn't have this many vents. I think it detracts from the model to have so much unnecessary detail so will be fitting the 3 each side that the original boat had fitted. These can now go in the correct place rather than be used as deck latches.

I realised that the rear deckhouse section (with the towing cabin) could be adapted to hook under the rear deck and be held in place with two turnbuckles locking under the deck beam. This can be fitted with front section removed. Fitting the front section uses the same approach, it hooks under the foredeck and the rear section uses to turnbuckles to lock under the side deck. In order to gain access to the front section turnbuckles I adapted the engine room hatch (behind the main cabin) to be removable.

With the two cabin sections now able to be held firmly in place I needed to look at the aesthetics of the cabins in the deck recess. The previous builder had done a decent job in cutting out the deck parts, but there was a gap between the edges of the cabin sections and the deck, this gap ranged between 0.5mm and 2mm. I wanted to minimise the gap and have a tighter fit between the cabin sections and deck so the cabin sections were wrapped in clingfilm (to prevent any filler adhering to them)and fitted in place using the hooks and turnbuckles.

With the wrapped cabin sections in place I worked some ultra fine filler in the gaps. Once this had cured the clingfilm wrapped cabin sections were removed and the filler sanded back to the deck, leaving an infill that now provides a neat and snug fit for the cabin sections.

The window frames have been fitted, they still need a bit of fettling and the cabin roof now has the various roof strips added to it and the cockpit been lined and edged. I'll need to finish the sanding and fairing of the window frames and get them painted before fitting the windows. Once the windows are fitted the cabin roof can be fitted and faired in to the rest of the cabin top.

It is looking a little rough at this stage, the boat has now received the first coat of primer to find the lumps, bumps, open grain and dings that need attention.

Thanks for all the replies. Plenty of ideas, my wife has said that if I get stuck she’ll try and crochet some if I find a suitable material! Now need to delete my browsing history on fishnet stockings.

I’m after pointers for scramble nets. Two of my projects need them - the 1:16 RAF crash tender and the 1:30 RTTL. I’ve seen them on larger scale crash tenders and despite being reasonably handy with rope work and splicing I’m struggling with a way forward for smaller scale scramble nets.

Was wondering if anyone has found anything that works at a smaller scale.

Excellent, I do have a soft spot for Fairey boats, the Huntsman is on the list to build one day

Hi Colin and Dr John

Thanks for the responses, have decided to dispense with the false keel completely.

Have to admit my PhD was in ship control systems, and as part of that I worked on a 6 degree of freedom mathematical model of ship dynamics, my excuse it was nearly 30 years ago. I looked at the work recently and couldn’t cope with the matrix manipulation so have decided to go down the aesthetic route rather than over think the issue.

If it looks right it should work, I’ll take the pragmatic approach, if the boat yaws I’ll add a small keel until it stops! Glad you’ve both reinforced my thinking.

Now I’ve got the hull of the RTTL nearly sorted I’m thinking about fitting the prop shaft. The Veron build instructions, and as I understand it the Kitshack instructions, state that the false keel is required as the prototype boat yawed too much so the keel was added to prevent this.

Have to say I hate this keel, none of the other Vosper boats I own have this fitted and it really is out of scale. You can see in the pic that it does dominate the hull.

I suspect that the yawing was caused by displacement from the Taycol motor fitted in the original plans (ironic that I now have one with another boat) and a lead acid battery. The rudder is fitted too far aft and the prop shaft is at 16 degrees, so I doubt the prop wash will provide much pressure for the rudder so yawing would occur with the ratchet set rudder

I’m considering not fitting the over sized keel and just using a P bracket to support the shaft set at a shallower angle and to use a larger rudder than suggested and move it forwards.

I know there is an incredible amount of knowledge and experience in this group so would welcome opinions on dispensing with the keel.

Excellent, will Katie be taking up Stand up paddle boarding for her next challenge?

The boat came with a waterjet fitted to a brushed motor. The intake of the water jet was recessed into the hull and sat on a large pad of polyester filler.

As I’ve decided to fit a brushless motor, prop shaft and rudder I needed to make good the holes caused by the water jet. The filler took a while to remove, I have a dislike for polyester filler, it absorbs water, pinpricks easily, is heavy, brittle and provides little structural support.

To fit the waterjet the last 150mm of the keel had been removed and also noticed the transom skin had come away from the rest of the structure, caused by the cutting of the hole for the outlet nozzle.

With part of the keel missing the polyester had spread under the balsa floor, filling the gap between the balsa and outer skin. I made the decision to remove the balsa, it had broken up in many places so out it came. The polyester filler hadn’t adhered to the hull skin.

With all the filler and balsa removed I scarfed in a new keel using 3 pieces of Obeche and epoxied them in place. Hole in the bottom was squared off and a piece of 2mm ply epoxied in place. The nozzle hole was also neatened up and piece of 0.8mm ply epoxied to the end of the keel. I’d already fitted a new inner transom piece from the same ply.

Decided not to replace the balsa in the bottom of the hull and fitted a panel of 0.8 mm ply epoxied to the keel and fixed in place with an epoxy fillet.

Although there’s some heavier duty timber on the keel, needed as I’ll be drilling holes for the prop shaft and rudder, the back end of the boat is considerably lighter with the polyester filler removed. The epoxy and used for gluing, fillets and fairing weighed in at 10 grams as also used to fair the bow, some will removed with later sanding and tidying up.

Motor is definitely a Taycol Torpedo, found the name and the Made in England stamp by cleaning the engine bearers. The tiller gear looks to have some age, I think I can remove the transom repair and fit a servo, still in the thinking stage.

Think Colin is right about the Lakes/Thames look.

There is something about the hull shape that reminds me of the New York commuter boats of the 1920s/30s

I have a suspicion that the original superstructure was replaced at some point so planning to build something more in keeping in mahogany, just need to decide on the profile!

Just identified the motor as a Taycol Torpedo

http://taycol.tk/tormet.html

Went to the local toy fair today and came away with a purchase.

Couldn’t resist the hull on this, suspect built in the 1950s, possibly to an earlier design. I suspect the white superstructure has been added later. There’s been a recent repair to rear deck that could provide access to fit a rudder servo, the current tiller is just locked into the desired position.

Has a very old motor that apparently still works.

Love the hull shape, hate the superstructure. So this one is definitely going on the project shelf while I decide what to do with her, definitely needs a more sympathetic superstructure.

Just wondering if anyone has seen a similar hull shape, it has a very fine bow. It is 33” long and 8” wide.

I was going to put this on the project shelf and look at it later in the year, but it has proven difficult not to pick it up, plot and scheme so it looks like this one will join the Eventide and Crash Tender on the bench.

I found this advertised on a Facebook group for sale as a project and liked the look of it and thought the waterjet might be something different to play with.

Also there is a bit of a family connection as my father served in RAF Gan where the sister ship 2748 was based, so at one point was thinking this one would be model of 2748 in the white tropical paint scheme.

The hull has been built well, and most of the superstructure is complete, there’s a box full of bits and pieces so I think everything is there to finish the boat, if not I have now have a load of timber in stock left over from other projects.

Turns out that the original RTTL 2748 has been restored, though currently has no interior and is about 4 miles away from me. She was also based at RAF Mount Batten (not far from where is is currently in Plymouth) in the 1950s, so a both local and family connection

As the Kitshack 28" RTTL was very similar, if not identical to the Veron kit so I made contact with Phil Smith's son who has the archive of the Phil Smith designs including the boats he produced for Veron. I now have the full set of plans, templates and build instructions.

So, the plan is to now build the model to be 2748 from the mid 1950s before the addition of the centre roof, as she would have been when towing targets from Plymouth.

Many thanks to those responding to my thread on the forum about the boat, particularly to RichardH and dave976 for letting me have lots of information on RTTLs. Having spent the last few days immersed in the research phase I can't wait to get started. The first job has to be to remove the waterjet and make good the hull so I can fit the propshaft, rudder and keel.

No idea, but it is a lovely model.