My dad built this over a long period of time, starting in the '80s. The hull is fibreglass and the rest is scratch built from plastic card, balsa, ply, wire and anything else he could adapt.
Although he installed the motors, props and rudders he never completed the RC installation or tested it. I inherited his boat models a few years ago and wanted to "finish the job", getting the model on the water. After installing the RC gear and batteries over the last few months, this weekend was the first sailing outside the bath at the Valley Gardens boating lake.
Happy to report that it sailed really nicely, seems to be reasonably stable although I did restrict it to calmer times when the MTBs and faster boats weren't running !
HMS Cadiz was a battle class destroyer, laid down and launched during WW2 although she didn't receive her commission until 1946 so didn't see combat with the Royal Navy, serving with the home fleet. Due to the changeover in pennant numbering she was originally allocated R09 and later, when the admiralty decided to revert to the D for Destroyer pennant numbering she was assigned D79. To reflect this my model has D79 on the starboard side and R09 on the port side.
She was sold to Pakistan in the late '50s, and renamed PNS Khaibar. She was sunk with the loss of nearly all hands in 1971 in the indo-Pakistan war.
This Higgins PT boat was built and sailed by a good friend of mine. it is scratch-built. it uses a single Turnigy 3639 1100kV brushless motor and LiPo battery. it is pretty new and has not had its number painted on as yet. its performance is excellent.
PT 109 was one of the hundreds of motor torpedo boats (PT) of the PT 103 class completed between 1942 and 1945 by Elco Naval Division of Electric Boat Company at Bayonne, New Jersey. The Elco boats were the largest in size of the three types of PT boats built for U.S. use during World War II. Wooden-hulled, 80 feet long with a 20-foot, 8-inch beam, the Elco PT boats had three 12-cylinder Packard gasoline engines generating a total of 4,500 horsepower for a designed speed of 41 knots. With accommodations for 3 officers and 14 men, the crew varied from 12 to 14. its full-load displacement was 56 tons. Early Elco boats had two 20mm guns, four .50-caliber machine guns, and two or four 21-inch torpedo tubes. Some of them carried depth charges or mine racks. Later boats mounted one 40mm gun and four torpedo launching racks. Many boats received ad-hoc refits at advanced bases, mounting such light guns as Army Air Forces 37mm aircraft guns and even Japanese 23mm guns. Some PTs later received rocket launchers.
This Proboat PT 109 model was brought in 2013 for £100 these boats are rare now, This one had a few faults with the propshafts they were bent and noisy both were replaced, with quality 4mm shafts, motors twin 600s were also replaced by Graupner versions along with mounts and couplings, basically all the running gear, also two ESCs by Aquapower were added and a 2.4G RC system.
I guess it could be sealed up.
The opening to the jet drives is small.
You can't get your hands in!
The opening which is under the 50 cal.on her stern.
is meant more for working on the jet drives!
To grease if you will!
You could maybe spray some kind of sealer!
But why have to fix a brand new boat!
I was told I had gotten a leaky boat.
As for her sitting low.
It's just the design of the thing!
As the jet drive pump water.
the boat digs into the water!
Don't get me wrong it's a great looking boat!
I sent mine back, the wife wants me to get another one!
its a"pibber" this is the boat martin sheen used in the film "apocalypse now", first job for me would be get that cardboard flag off and find a silk one that will move in the wind!
good fun looking boat though, and the jet drives mean iy could operate in shallow water👍
So, here's my current project in the works. I got a nice 25-inches Deep-Vee fiberglass hull a while ago and now (finally) have a concept for it. Almost by accident I came across a plan for an American bass boat which in turn reminded me of a boat that caught my attention when I was a kid while reading a boating magazine. The boat is a 28-footer from a now defunct firm named Uniflite. it was a small deep-sea sports fisherman called "Salty Dog". Uniflite was very well known within the American boating circles during the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Uniflite created and supplied PBR river patrol craft to the US Navy between 1965 and 1972 for rivers in Vietnam using an already existing pleasure boat hull and adapting jet nozzles for propulsion. So, I just created a prototype template of the cabin so more to follow 😎.
a 30"scratch built pt. boat, I built hull from .8mm ply using a resized eezebilt 20" plan.
the deck fittings were copied as best as I could from photos and drawings found on line. powered by 2- 2200kv brushless out runner motors through 2 20 amp speed controllers. twin contra rotating props twin rudders fast and light a pleasure to build
With my boats getting routinely stranded in the middle of nowhere, I felt compelled to commission a rescue vessel and "Triton" was born. "Triton" is a Springer-type tug push boat. With a hull and superstructure consisting of an “Indiana” style command cabin, it was built using a pretty basic birch plywood American kit designed for swimming pool water polo. Kit altered to resemble a fictitious Salvamento Marítimo (Spanish Coast Guard) unit following Salvamento Marítimo’s actual boat markings. Equipment and deck layout inspired on actual Springer tug push boats supporting larger vessels and barges found in US and European ports and rivers. Model built during September – October 2015. Approx. 1/18 scale. Real life boat could be a 30-footer (9.14m) vessel. Equipped with 9v LED navigation lights and sound system. Powered by an HPI Racing 1145 Gt 550 Motor, NiMH 7.4v battery, a 3-bladed 44mm propeller, and a 6-12V 320A RC Ship & Boat R/C Hobby Brushed Motor Speed Controller.
Very nice vessel. I'm thinking I will have to build a recovery craft of some sort and something like that would do it for me. Weed is a bit of a problem where I sail and have been thinking a swamp boat (airboat). Any thoughts ?
PT Boat scale 1/20 length 1.22 m, Motorization one brushless motor and two 550 14 v motors , fiberglass hull, superstructure in acrylic laser cut, details in resin and 3D print.
Nice little PT Boat I bought off Gordon @ our Club it runs on a 7.2 battery with a Electronize FR30 Speed Controller with BECs twin 540 Motors with
plenty of detail on it
Trev