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H.s.l. High speed launch
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About this boat
Scratch built HSL.length is 52 inches and a beam of 10. And draws about 3 inch of draft. She runs on one large brushless motor by aquastar. 2200 kv. On 4 cells I get a lively performance to say the least. The prop is a two blade racing prop (x) of 50 mm. And made of stainless steel and balanced.The esc is 150 amp by Flycolor. I have this make in nearly all of my boats and never had any trouble whatsoever
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Other than my fairly brief connection with R/T things, during my National Service in the early 1960's, I have never been involved with this area of technology.
I do have a fairly vivid recollection of a job I had when I was sent from RAF Mount Batten to a remotely sited Pinnace at Tenby South Wales. It was thought that the 1154 transmitter was defective as the radio operator could not contact Mount Batten on the H/F system. I was provided with a station wagon and driver plus a spare 1154 and we set off. In those days there was no bridge over the Bristol channel, so it was a long way via Gloucester. The driver managed to knock a cyclist off his bike in Bristol when we were making a detour for me to see my girl friend, so this worried me for some weeks, as I thought someone would have inquired why we were in that part of Bristol, but no more came of it.
Eventually, after we had spent the night trying to sleep in the vehicle in the Brecon Beacons, we arrived at the small jetty and simple building, that is still there today, where the boat crew lived. It was quite a nice place to be in the holiday season and the boat did not have much to do. I knew very little about the 1154/1155 system as on our course at Yatesbury we were told we would never see one in use and at Mount Batten their function was not tested on the DI's. I did know that on the RTTL's when you powered up the transmitter there was virtually no current shown on the Ae. current meter. I got the radio operator to show me what happened when he tried to transmit and the meter showed some movement, so I asked to try and contact the base station which he did, there was no fault with the system just his lack of faith and the fact that very little power was being fed into the aerial. He was a bit embarrassed by this, so I agreed that I would put it down to an aerial fault and we said I had replaced the aerial, which was only a bit of wire.
This experience has now stayed with me for nearly sixty years and why when thinking about building a model of an HSL 100 the aerial configuration is of interest and when I see a picture on TV of the jetty at Tenby, which is surprisingly often, I am reminded of my trip and experience.
Another interesting point, whilst producing this message, I had a look on e bay and there is a 1154/1155 combination for sale there at £ 3,500 ! It pays to keep some old things.
Thanks very much for the details of your hull build.
I think like you, I might have a combination of sheeting and planking with a bit of solid stuff at the bow.
My initial thoughts are to make a metric HSL 100 i.e. metre long and all internals in mm. I am not sure if it will be a static model or to make it sail but basically for the initial build to allow either.
JB
I spent 45 years working with various radio systems.
The last 35 years specialising in naval COMMS, everything from DC to light!😉
Enjoy sailing your great boat.
Cheers, Doug 😎
Nice build👍
"... the D.F. (Direction Finder) could rotate 360 degrees ..."
You are absolutely right, for the single loop DF antenna as originally fitted to the 100 class.
All pics I can find of the 100 class show only a single loop.
You have depicted a double loop antenna which was a much later development.
The double loop was fixed. The two signals from the loop antennas were fed to two so called field coils set at 90° to each other. The operator rotated a sensing coil between the field coils.
A pointer on his control knob indicated the bearing. There were then no rotating parts above deck.
In the early 40s the rotating sensing coil was replaced with two balanced amplifiers and feeding the two signals into a CRT display. The 'Huff Duff' system. No rotating parts at all.😀
All the pics I can find of the 100 class all show a single mechanical DF loop. Right up to #121, the last of the 100s before the RAF changed to the famous 'Whale-back' design.
The two complex looking 'sausage' shaped wire antennas are HF Cage Antennas.
Consisting normally of various radiating / receiving elements, to cover lower, mid and upper HF bands, and a carrying cage. A Matching / Switching unit would normally be attached to the mast and feeder cables go from there to the wire antennas.
The pics I have of 103 indicate that the diameter of the antennas was much smaller and the main mast a tad or two higher. Fore and aft masts about double so high. The antennas were also attached to the truck of the mast for maximum height.
The sloping arrangement of the antennas meant that they could receive signals from all ranges, very short range as well as medium and very long 'over the horizon' ranges.
Vertical HF rod or whip antennas have a skip zone, approximately 100km (ground wave reception range) to 500 km (reflected skywave reception starts), where no communication is possible.
At some time in 103's career she was apparently fitted with gun turrets from bombers.
Cheers, Doug 😎
(Retired Naval Comms engineer.😉)
Very interested in your impressive HSL 100. I am intending to build one but mine will take a lot longer than yours. I was once a RAF National Service man at Mount Batten in 1961, bit after your 103 was about, but was involved on the radio systems used on the boats.
I have had some advice from JB in New Zealand as he has built a model of a version that ended up there. He has supplied me some drawings of the boat, I do not know if you have any drawings of your model in particular the frames ?
Did you plank your model or sheet plywood ?
I am rather interested in the complexity of the radio aerial fitted to the boat, I wonder why it was like it was.
JB