I rescued my PT Boat from EBAY in August 2005. it was owned by a young boy in Birmingham whose Dad had built if for him. it is an original Aerokits kit Fast Patrol Boat. When I bought the boat it had a sound hull with a few damaged fittings, which I removed. Since then I have made new guns, extended the front cabin to carry the life raft to make it look like a late World War II Elco PT Boat and added other new fittings.

I have made 6 working exhausts in brass tubing, have fitted a new open prop shaft running an Octura race prop and a Merco 61 glow engine. it still needs torpedos, guard rails around the machine gun turrets and a few other fittings. The number 349 is from an original Pacific Theatre 80' Elco PT Boat whose name in Bee Bee, which I hope to add at a later date.

I have also painted it in an original Pacific Theatre camouflage from a PT Boat book which I bought for reference and to make it look like a standoff scale model. This boat was also photographed by the local Burton Upon Trent newspaper at the Fireboat day in September 2006. I ran this boat at the Burton Model Boat Club's Fireboat day in September 2006 briefly until I broke the exhaust manifold and had to retire it early.

This is my ** version of the Sea Queen. My father owns one of the originals and when one lunch time I saw one on the ** web site I knew I had to get one.
It was to be a winter build project and work started in the autumn of 2006 and it was launched in May 2007. I was very disappointed to see the all white paint finish used on the ** advertisements and decided I was going to re-create the look of the original. Cosmetically the big problem was that the original used mahogany finish ply for the cabin sides and the ** version was just plain birch. However after a bit of staining I was quite happy with the finished colour. This was contrasted against clear coated lime wood deck planking.
Also ***a€™s bag of fittings missed out on the signature life belts so I had to make my own.

One Improvement that I did make was the inclusion of a dashboard, instrument panel and throttle slide.

The graphic on the transom was a custom cut from callie-graphics.

The supplied motor was replaced with an MFA Torpedo 850 which is a direct replacement. ( Same mount, same screw fixing centres etc ).
Battery is a 12V 7A gel cell, ESC is an Mtronics Marine Viper 40A

The Sea Queen is an original Aerokits kit from the early 1960's. it was built by my Dad in the early 1960's. it was originally fitted with an ED Seaotter, next it had a Channel island Special, then a 15cc Gannett and finally fitted with the OS 80 which it still has fitted today.

I sail at King Lear Lake at Watermead County Park in Wanlip Leicestershire. it sat in my attic for 22 years and 2 years ago I dragged it out and gave it a bit of TLC and started to use it again and it has been ran most weekends for the last 2 years.

I ran this boat virtually all day of the Burton Model Boat Club's Fireboat day in September 2006. it is currently in dry dock having a full de-barnacle and repaint.

The hull of this model was my own design in 2004 and was sailed for 2 years, and then a new upper decks and battery system were added during the winter of 2005. The hull performed well enough but my original cabin design was too crude to keep.

The boat shown here depicts my effort to copy a 1958 ChrisCraft Cabin Cruiser at a scale of 1" = 1'.

The hull is 1/8" thick pine planks on frames with hand cut Walnut decking and 3/16" Walnut cabin sides. No epoxy or glass was used on the hull - just a good paint job.

The big change was to replace a bulky & heavy 12VDC leac acid battery with 9 AA dry cells connected in series. Bathtub testing indicated I could expect about 2 hours running time at full speed and that estimate was about right. A Dumas 12VDC motor and mechanical speed control were used with a JR XR 2 control.

The reduction in battery weight made a very large speed and appearance difference. Availability of the AA cells was an economic plus.