The Hugh William Viscount Gough built by Debbie and Alan
This is the Hugh William Viscount Gough. She is a solent class lifeboat. She went into service in 1963 as the Stornoway lifeboat. She was there for around twenty years.
She then went on to Barra and ended her service at Dunbar. She was sold in 1993 and is now out in Malaysia.
I have scratch built her from the hull up. She has a fibre glass hull and the super structure is made from plasticard. She took four weeks to build. I have some bits and bobs to do to her.
She runs on two MFA 850 torprdos, but I am going to down size to 800's.
We sail her at Mote park Maidstone most Sundays and also at shows.
I agree with Larryshaw48. Many of the members of this site have a general interest in vintage boats including the fireboats, I'm one of them! Other categories are available to cater for that and it keeps the site busy and of broad interest. it also helps build a data and information archive for others to access - a vintage boat treasure chest! The more the merrier I say 😊
HI Alan and Debbie
Nice to see your Aerokits Solent still going strong 😊 . My original kit sails infrequently but I really enjoy sailing her. I intend to update the control from a Bobs board to twin Mtronic ESc's but will keep the two Bhuler motors and 12v 18Ahr SlA. I also need to update the number I originally allocated as mine still has the original Watertight door. Thanks to the internet, this and other on line modelling sites I can now make the model represent an original lifeboat. I enjoy looking at all 😊 model boat pictures and my Aerokits Crash Tender was restored with help from this site. I have a model tug that has fire monitors fitted and I intend to make them operational. Previous attempts showed up my poor soldering in the connection piping 😟 . I agree with thelegos.
Dave
This lifeboat was a part-kit from Metcalfe Mouldings, being just a bare hull and superstructure. All the detailed work was scratch- built by my son and I did all the drive and electrics.
It is powered by two 540 motors through a single water-cooled speed controller and the props are about 35mm. My son and I sail it at our club water at Knightcote in Warwickshire. it is now about 4 years old and, (touch wood), pretty reliable.
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.
"BOO BOO Kitty" is a scale model of a Crosby designed Cape Cod Cat Boat.[USA] it was built from scratch at a scale of 9.04" = 1"; the model being 26.5" oal.
The dimensions were taken from a book that highly detailed the building of a real Cat Boat.
The hull is plank-on-frame with epoxy and glass cloth as the final surface. A separate and detachable fin keel was used for sailing of the centerboard model.
Radio controls were a Hitec sail winch [HS-785HB] and one servo for the rudder with a 2 channel JR transmitter.
Copying the book plans, scaling them down, and construction took up the winter of 2006/2007. The model is sailing better than anticipated on a local lake in Langhorne, Pennsylvania.
These pictures are of a scale model of Captain Joshua Slocum's "Spray". it was sailed around the world, singlehanded between 1895-1898. Slocum re-built a Delaware oysterman hull in Fairhaven, MA and had been a gift to him.
After reading of his exploits in an original copy of his book, 'Sailing Alone Around The World' 1899 The Century Co., John copied the drawings that were in the book, established a scale for each and then converted those scales to just one - 1"=14.6" and proceeded to make a model of the famous boat. At that time [2003-2004] there was a commercial kit available but after much research John concluded that he had enough information from the book to build his own version. Actually the available kit contained some mis-information about the boat and that settled the matter.
The model was built plank-on-frame and then covered with epoxy/glass since it was intended for RC. He sailed her during the summer of 2004 and was quite pleased with her performance. An opportunity to sell the model came to him and he did so in January 2005.
The boat has no name as yet, it is scrach bult from two photos. I found in a loft as usual. it is about 25/30 years old, she is powered by a darke horse 785 turbo with a 2.5 to 1 gearbox and two 9.6 volt 3700maH NiMH bateries and a 50mm 3 bladed prop, sailed at our local lake.
The boat is far from finished and is not to scale as you can see, but for a first time build it looks pritty fair out on the water. Just one last word, many thanks to all the members of the forum for all your help.bit of a muck here lads the photos were in the loft,the hull I bought for £30.and every thing else is scratch built.
Bought this boat for £20 from a guy who was given it from a house clearence. As you can see it's quite big measuring 70" long.
It's in needs lots of TLC, will run off 2 electric motors as no IC around here. Hope to start late summer and get it to water late next year. I sail at silvermere golf course in surrey.
34 Inch Aerokits Crash Tender Built By Terry O'Rourke
This Aerokits 34 inch Crash Tender was built by me in 1959, when I was 14 years old.
It was refurbished in 2004 which included fitting a new RC and electric motor. When it was first built it was free running, powered by Tacol Supermarine which remains in my workshop, still working.
I sail with the Chantry Club on lake at Bluewater shopping complex in Kent.
46 Inch Crash Tender rescued from E-bay By Peter Harvey
46 inch Crash Tender rescued from E-bay. Currently in the process of total restoration and have had to scratch build the entire super structure. Have fitted a Merco 61 engine with tuned pipe (the noise is awesome).
Have gone for it with the radio control- - employing a Robbe F14 plus an extra 8 channel module with decoder. So far extra controls are : each monitor (scratch built using brass pipe & sheet) left & right (using Robbe pulley set to give me 270 degrees travel), two Irvine water pumps, (real car) hooter, winch (using gearbox from Maplins) and movement for jib and search light.
I sail at Brentwood in Essex - where you can still run IC boats.
Nice to see your Aerokits Solent still going strong 😊 . My original kit sails infrequently but I really enjoy sailing her. I intend to update the control from a Bobs board to twin Mtronic ESc's but will keep the two Bhuler motors and 12v 18Ahr SlA. I also need to update the number I originally allocated as mine still has the original Watertight door. Thanks to the internet, this and other on line modelling sites I can now make the model represent an original lifeboat. I enjoy looking at all 😊 model boat pictures and my Aerokits Crash Tender was restored with help from this site. I have a model tug that has fire monitors fitted and I intend to make them operational. Previous attempts showed up my poor soldering in the connection piping 😟 . I agree with thelegos.
Dave