I had always admired the lines of 1950s American wooden runabouts and built this Aerokits model when I was an apprentice at Jaguar Cars and it had stayed in my loft since completion nearly 40 years ago. Recently dusted off and upgraded with a Graupner Speed 500 and Mtroniks 40Amp controller and P35 prop. Seen here at Knightcote Boat Club on 25 October
Original 1960s boat aquired this summer from the family a deceased former club member in scruffy, non running but basically sound condition. Was petrol powered at some stage and still had original vintage mechanical speed controller from a later electric power set up. Restored with two (secondhand) MFA850 motors in tandem driving a new single 20 in M5 shaft. . Using a 50 Amp Tornado speed control and plastic X55 Graupner prop.
Sprayed (Volvo) Flash Green Metallic with orginal decks stripped back and restained (using tea bags!) and relaquered
Planing gently on our club sailing water at Knightcote, Warwickshire on 25 October
The weather on Sunday was great here in Peterborough and the perfect opportunity for the first trip out since restoration work was finished. The boat with ballast is very heavy so help from a few friends at the boat club was much appreciated! Performance from a pair of original Decaperms isn't earth shattering but good enough to give a nice scale performance, I might decide to upgrade them over the winter but haven't worked out what the best option might be so any suggestions based on your own experience would be appreciated. Thanks for looking, Roger
Hi,I run my solent at about 3rd power most of the time,normaly just the trim on the hand set is enough ,the mfa 800s with the props I said will give you plenty of power if needed,,at the Cwmbran show I used the solent to tow my Arun around for best part of a hour and still had loads of power let in the battery,and thats running a 12v 12amp lead acid battery,Both motors are run through a single 60amp controller with 15 amp fuses feed each motor...did try plastic props in the 35 and 45 size but found I got reversing problems,,my solent weighs in at 23.3 kg all up and afloat
cheers
Owen
HI again Roger ,good tip for getting boats to the water,I now use my carp fishing trolly,its great for it,can get a 54" Arun and a 48" solent on it with there bits and bobs and just wheel it all to the lake,bought mine off ebay for around ÂA£30 mark
My Sun Tug MK25 version, originally adapted from a Lesro Sun Tug Kit, actually still being built [not quite yet complete] but seaworthy enough to get some testing time in the water. it has more than enough power to haul my dusseldorf along when the batteries are flat after some time sailing, so rather than pull the fireboat out, decided to let the tug do some work.
Powered by a hectoperm motor with 3:1 gearbox,twin 6v gel batteries,water pump to operate the fire monitors,engine sound, nav lights, interior lights [cabins] rotating radar scanner,
HI Everybody,
Went to an autojumble looking for car bits an ended up with these instead.
Sea urchin in need of total refit,sea nymph has 380 motor and prop already in it minor refurb required.
Will keep you posted on progress.
Just finished Sea urchin,yet to do sea trials.
Hi Harleydream1, I like what you have done with the Sea Urchin, its hard to see in the image but are you operating the tiller steering with lines run forward to a servo?
Mrs Froggyt996's Solent Class Lifeboat which is running on 2 x MFA 800 motors. it has 4 x 12v 7amp gel batteries and a P92 combined mixer and speedcontrollers from Action.
Here is my Aerokits Sea Urchin on its first outing in July 2010 at Fleetwood. Running on a 7.2v Lipo on a small outrunner motor costing less the £5.00 from Giantcod.co.uk.
ok, my first ever attempt at posting a video on here and youtube..
my Aerokits Sea Commander restored but not finished running a direct drive graupner speed 600 8.4v on 40mm std 2 blade plastic prop. battery is 9.6v 8cell 3300mA nimh. sailing Sunday 15th August 2010 at Taylor park st Helens mbc
many thanks to you both.
At this time I have no idea of the weight except to say that from what I can gather from looking at the rudder that this boat seems to from the sixties/seventies, and is quite a substantial vessel.
She is undergoing a major refit.( spent the day rubbing down the inside of the hull, and removing paint from the toerail to the carlings.
This looks like being a long job.
if its "that old" and is a 60's/70's built model that had an I.C. engine fitted..
I would recommend you "glass-cloth" the outside of the hull..
models built during this period tend to have been built with bio-degradeable glue! (cascemite/ boneglue. etc.) show it water for the first time in 40 years and your boat will revert to kit status and basically become unstuck! if the wonky glue doesn't do it then the diesel/glow fuel used in the 60's will have undone all the joints from the inside-out anyway!
enjoy your restorations and read as much as you can on here
Just a few more pics, this time of the 1/24th Scale Deans Marine kit I used to scale up the superstructure dimensions for the restoration of my fathers 1/16th scale ST below. Again although built some 2 years ago this was it's first outing on a lake, once more at Crealy near Exeter.
Both 441 & 1515 operated out of Lyme Regis in WW2, 441 on record of rescuing the complete crew of a downed Flying Fortress and 1515 picking up 26 paratroops from Lyme Bay on D day.
Hello Chris , We are back from interstate. My email in the colony is for the post card pics , please? I will sort out how to attach picture details of my big Seaplane tender. Lyle
HI Chris , well slacko Lyle is again alive and well . I am at email removed - PM only and home address at address removed - PM only. I have desperately searched the web and so little exists as to internal cabin and aft well pics. I have done the asr site and the coastal forces etc and the original John Pritchard moved so many years ago to the north of the UK and ceased to write, perhaps his health was going down . OI joined the returned asr club as a non serviceman and they have a good newsletter of the coastal forces of the still surviving returned servicemen of such a fine bunch who did so much for their nation. My surname is Gadsden , I have the 43 foot seaplane tender , the whaleback, the broad beamed seaplane tender and a part built 68 foot Hants and Dorset to finish one day . I am not too computer literate, sorry > See ya Lyle.
