TeThe Fifie is a design of sailing boat developed on the east coast of Scotland. It was a traditional fishing boat used by Scottish fishermen from the 1850s until well into the 20th century. These boats were mainly used to fish for herring using drift nets, and along with other designs of boat were known as herring drifters.
Design
While the boats varied in design, they can be categorised by their vertical stem and stern, their long straight keel and wide beam. These attributes made the Fifies very stable in the water and allowed them to carry a very large set of sails. The long keel, however, made them difficult to manoeuvre in small harbours.
Sailing Fifies had two masts with the standard rig consisting of a main dipping lug sail and a mizzen standing lug sail.[1] The masts were positioned far forward and aft on the boat to give the maximum clear working space amidships. A large fifie could reach just over 20 metres (66 ft) in length. Because of their large sail area they were very fast sailing boats.
Fifies built after 1860 were all decked and from the 1870s onwards the bigger boats were built with carvel planking, i.e. the planks were laid edge to edge instead of the overlapping clinker style of previous boats. The introduction of steam powered capstans in the 1890s, to help raising the lugs sails, allowed the size of these vessels to increase from 30 feet (9.14 m) to over 70 feet (21.34 m) in length. From about 1905 onwards sailing Fifies were gradually fitted with engines and converted to motorised vessels.
Isabella Fortuna 830820
There are few surviving examples of this type of fishing boat still in existence. The Scottish Fisheries Museum based in Anstruther, Fife has restored and still sails a classic example of this type of vessel named the Reaper. The Swan Trust in Lerwick, Shetland have restored and maintain another Fifie, The Swan, as a sail training vessel. She now takes over 1000 trainees each year, and has taken trainees to participate in the Cutty Sark Tall Ships Races to ports in France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Ireland as well as around the UK. The Isabella Fortuna is owned by the Wick Society.st

With all the members permission I would like to share my Galilee Boat project.
Here is a brif story of how I got my hands on the model.
I have to mentioned where I got this kit from because is always good the real story behind the kit.
The place is "SE Miller Guitars". http://www.semillerguitars.com/sea-of-galilee-boats/.
Scott Miller owns the business and I asked him how he came to produce this now famous boat kit.

This was his exacts words:

I was a moderator at MSW when Captian Pugwash was running the site and had just moved on from building kits to scratch building. I did the Triton cross section build that was going on at the time and that got me interested in building models other than standard scale ships. This lead me to building boat models because they are fun to build and can be done in much less time than a three master ship. The also don't require a lot of rigging which was attractive to me as well.

One model that was fun to build and could easily be scratch built was Midwest's Peterborough canoe kit. I made quite a few of these as gifts and this introduced me to building on a strong back and using thin CA glue to weld planks together

I started looking at different boats that I could model and found that no one offered a Sea of Galilee boat model kit other than a paper one from a German company. I found an excellent book by Shelly Wachsmann about the discovery of the Kinneret boat and that book had a set of ships plans in it. I used those plans plus what I had learned from building Peterborough canoes to build the first 16" Sea of Galilee model.

Here are pictures of HMS Exeter - I built her over a period of time plank on frame hull, covered in styrene to simulate plating on the hull. The deck is all planked with individual planks - the guns are fully rotating and elevating but not firing :-).

John

This is a restoration of a launch I was given that was found in a rubbish bin on a farm here in Auckland it is an old RCM ? plan built 'Fairacre' and was pretty rotten when I received it as it is made in balsa and had been wet for quite a while. I stripped it down, re 'planked' large portions of the hull and fiber glassed it, re- built the cabin, re- marked the deck planks, fitted lights, curtains (ex Graupner Commodore bits from the 70s I had kept), stern ladder, cleats etc. it is fitted with a 540 brushed motor (originally had an old Graupner monoperm) and 70s Graupner ESC and Using 2.4 Radio gear. I still have a few things I'd like to do such as a re-wire, fitting chine spray rails, better motor and maybe some safety rails, but for now it does the job.

pilot boat, made from kauri strip planks and then glassed.bowsprit slides in for transport and mast comes out.
Small motor to get you home if no wind.

it is ready to send to my pal in Scotland for him to finish
I have put a 10" shaft & a 42mm prop in with a Johnson 600 motor all the seats & rudder are made for him to fit along with the dodger that I am busy making for him, I will be starting another soon the planks & transom are cut ready to assemble on the jig

My fist at attempt not that great I know built from scratch using old wood from the garage cutting it into 1mm thick planks and double planking it and spliting 6mm ply to get 2mm, found some old veneer to do the deck,Powerd by two 480 electric motors 7.2.
Only had the bath test at the moment but hoping get on the water soon at Fariford leys Aylesbury

Scratch built in 2004 from my own plan. Two layers of planks on ply frames, ply deck planked with 3/8 1/16 strips. Length of hull 50" by 13" breath. No motor sail only, winch for main & mizzen, sail arm for fore sails. Featuers a centre plate lowered by gravity and raized be a drum winch, also an expanding rudder, this has two servos to opperate. sails can be reefed or removed depending on weather conditions. Very good sailer Just goes in my car with the top mast & gaff boom lowered.

Another boat the same as mine seen on a local auction site. Anybody have any ideas as to the manufacturer ?. The dimensions are L 31", W 71/2", H 7" and by the looks of it were Ic powered (or at least mine was and was later changed to electric). Hulls are balsa and planked to 1st 1/4 then finished to the stern with with longer angle cut 'planks'. Cabin top is ply sides with balsa roof and deck is ply and has printed ? planking.
Someone will know but I haven't been able to pin it down to any kit even after going through all my 60s and 70s Model Boat mags.

first time on the water for my latest build, 23" model of british power boat co. 68ft type 3 hants and dorset raf high speed launch,
power is speed 400 driving 35mm three bladed prop, 7.2volt 3300mha nimh planet 2.4 ghz radio,
scratch built, I used scaled down drawings from my aerokits plans then gave the frames more shape to replicate the curves of this boat, the forward section where diaganally planked.
then sides and bottm as normal with sheet ply, deck is teak planks.
I sail on the rotary pool at penzance.

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.

John called this model "Nancy Dancer". it started of with plans from 'Nexus Plans Service' for Vic Smeed's 'Vivacity'. John used the hull only plans and created everything else himself. it ended up LOA 49" with a beam of 17". With the 12VDC battery the weight came to 23 1/2#.

Because of his basic 'Sedan Cruiser' he designed all the mechanicals and electricals beneath the main cabin floor, including the battery. There was quite a bit of detail put into the main cabin - unfortunately not shown in the photos - including a galley, eating area, furniture and the helmsman's station. The scale is 1" = 1ft.

This hull is plank on frame using 1/8" pine planks. Below the waterline there's epoxy & glass and above there is just epoxy. All the brightwork, cabin housing & decks is natural Cherry with a clear urethane finish.

The power is a Dumas 12VDC motor with a mechanical speed control. The bottom photo shows that he added a 2:1 gearbox to the motor and ran it in reverse to increase the prop RPMs. He also included a constant running fan to cool the motor due to the confinement of the space.

The single propellor is 2" - 2 pitch - 3 bladed bronze. As on all his models he used a 2 channel JR XR2 75 mhz.