Following the build of my BYMS and the restoration of my Zambezi River Gunboat sternwheeler I was looking for a new build. Obviously have been aware of the PS Medway Queen so the next project had to combine paddle wheels with minesweeping so HMS Medway Queen is now in build. I bought a 3D printer in the summer and have had lots of fun printing various trimarans, an air boat and a pontoon boat along with a rock crawler, trailers and a range of model boat fittings. The plan is to scratch build the hull and print the paddle wheels and as many fittings as possible. I bought a set of modellers plans from the Medway Queen Preservation Society a few months ago and found that some of the dimensions were getting to be unreadable as the plans have been copied many times, this was a major issue with the paddle wheel plans as I couldn't read the dimensions for the wheel diameter and eccentric diameter. After emailing the society to see if they had a better copy they mentioned they had all the original plans in their archive and I was welcome to inspect and photograph anything I needed. We were on holiday in Kent in September so added to trip to the Medway Queen and had a great day on board and examining the plans, highly recommend a trip to see her - details at https://www.medwayqueen.co.uk/ Back home I decided that 1:48 would be an ideal scale, giving me a model that will 1.18m (3' 10.5") long and big enough to 3D print most of the fittings. The plans do give enough detail when scaled to 1:48 so I produced a set of 20 body sections that were scaled and printed on orange card, transferred to 3.5mm ply and the full set of sections mounted to the build board. Currently about half the hull is planked and as I've run out of timber I've used the time to sort the feathering paddle wheels. Had to make a decision to lose some historical accuracy as the Medway Queen has 7 floats on each paddle wheel whereas mine have 8. It's so much easier to work in segments of 45 degrees than the 51.4286 degrees required for authenticity. I'll make the paddle fascias removable so I can change to a 7 float version at a later date. The paddle wheels have been tested on the bench and do feather when under load after a bit of tweaking to remove friction in the floats and eccentric rods and hub. Just waiting for more timber to arrive this week so I'll finish the planking, fair the hull and cover with epoxy and cloth. Should keep me busy for a few months!

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.

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.

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.

Have to admit to being a fan of Maurice Griffiths so when Model Boat Magazine announced that there was going to to be an 1:12 Eventide plan from Ray Woods in the Jan 2023 edition I was keen to know more. As a recent subscriber I got my copy before Christmas, read the article and Ray’s forum posts on the Model Boats Magazine forum. Having restored a number of pond yachts, several r/c yachts and built the Perkasa from an old kit, I thought the time was right to attempt a build from a plan, and the Eventide seems the right boat to start with. I took the plan to my local copy shop and and a couple of copies made as I wanted to create a set of frame templates and a keel template. I created a set of frame templates by gluing the frame sheet to a sheet of card and cutting the frames out out with a scalpel. The keel template was cut from the plan and glued directly to some 6mm mahogany ply I had left over from from a vintage dinghy restoration. I made the decision to fit an auxiliary motor to to boat, so am going off plan straight away. The last couple of weeks have been spent creating the frame templates, cutting the keel/backbone and sorting out a build board while I put in an order with my local model shop for various thicknesses of ply for the frames and hull skins. https://www.modelboats.co.uk/news/article/model-boats-january-2023/27706

As I seem to be working on two models at the same time I thought I'd attempt the document the Crash Tender Restoration. It was the purchase of this one that led me to this site. This one was also found by my wife, this time on FaceBook Marketplace for £35. so a quick trip to Paignton meant I'd bought another boat. I suspect it is an old Aerokits 34" model, the panel pin heads are obvious in a few places. The hull was in decent condition, there was a dent each side soon disappeared with West + micro balloons. I pulled the prop shaft out and found that is was a 3.67mm dimeter shaft with plastic bearings that had an O/D of 6.28mm, the outer tube had an O/D of 8mm. The plastic bearings had a lot of wear but rather than try to source replacements I thought I'd replace the outer tube and prop shaft. Thinking I'd have a major job to remove the tube it was a very pleasant surprise to find that I could just twist it with a pair of pliers and easily slide it out. The rudder tube also came out very easily. I've painted the hull withe Hempel Multicoat just to get all a uniform colour to see of any fairing is required. Seems to be a decently built hull requiring little work, so hopefully I'll make some progress on it when I'm waiting for paint or glue to dry on the Perkasa build.

A few months ago my wife came across a Precedent Perkasa kit in a charity shop for £50. I've been restoring classic and vintage racing dinghies for the last 20+ years, have a collection of about 12 pond yachts and have a few r/c yachts, including a Vic Sneed Marblehead, an old 'A' class and a Robbe Jolle. I'd been considering a move into motorised boats for a while so the Perkasa kit looked like the ideal opportunity to start, and the money was going to a good cause. I ended up opening it on the floor of the charity shop and saw that it looked like everything was there, but it wasn't until I got the kit home I was able to get it all out and check everything off against the parts list to find out that everything was there. Luckily I have reasonably decent workshop kitted out for boat restoration and repair so work could commence. You'll have to bear with me when you see the pics of the build. This is my first model so it was very much learning as I went along, found I had to buy some smaller tools than I was used to and did most of the build using Epoxy with micro balloons where appropriate before discovering the delights of Cyanoacrylate. I'll put up a few posts in the next couple of days as I've finished the main build, now working on the details. Still have loads to do.