| Most viewed - Working Models |
Dragon class keelboat.1090 viewsThe International Dragon racing keelboat was designed in Scandinavia in the 1930s. Scandinavian vessels are a byword for grace and beauty of line. The lines of the Dragon are absolutely classic. In my opinion, they cannot be improved on.
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Agnes1076 viewsHere she is in about 5-7 knots of breeze, in which she can happily carry everything, including a big topsail. She moves well, and has one of those lovely hulls that slips through the water without disturbing it much. She handles remarkably like a full-sized gaff cutter, and I can say that as someone whom once lived aboard one and cruised her extensively.
(Built by Mike Mayhew of Waverley Models, rigging modified by John Davies, featured in "Marine Modelling" March 2011)
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HMS Cossack1072 viewsWarship models demand a particular set of skills. With their limited reserves of both buoyancy and stability, they can all too easily want to float upside-down, if the builder does not know what they are doing. Fortunately, we do.
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Ryhope1049 viewsThis little tug was built for the same client for whom I built "Peggy", the large steam drifter model. She is an example of our "part completion" service. He had already made a competent job of the hull, but had got stuck on the superstructure, which is a good deal more complicated and difficult than it looks.
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ASR 1021038 viewsAir Sea Rescue Launch 102 is preserved in full running order by Power Boat Restorations, at Hythe, on the Solent. She makes a lovely prototype for a scale launch.
The model is not too big, elaborate or expensive, but she carries a satisfying level of detail, and has a lively performance. She is a good model to take to the water on impulse, and blast around until the batteries run out.
These boats are of great historic interest. They were the first high-speed planing vessels designed to operate in the open sea. Previously, planing boats had been confined to inshore racing courses, and "fast" offshore rescue craft had been exemplified by the RNLI's "Sir William Hillary", a displacement type boat with a top speed of seventeen knots. In contrast, these ASRs would make forty knots. Every fast motor yacht, and all of the modern breed of lifeboat, owe a design debt to these launches.
This model was featured in "Marine Modelling" magazine, April 1999, and is now in the famous Childe Beale collection.
(model by John Davies)
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Peggy (detail)1035 viewsA professional commission for a model of this nature is usually a once-in-a-lifetime purchase. I have had some extremely satisfied clients for models of this size. It will bring you the most enormous pleasure, and it will continue to do so for many years.
Eagle-eyed readers may recognise one of the photos from "Model Boats" magazine, in which it has featured.
(model by John Davies)
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Peggy1025 viewsThis fine model of a North Sea Herring Drifter represents a vanished era. They were built in their thousands, but now only one remains in preservation. They evoke not only a vanished industry, but a major change in our attitudes to the natural world.
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Blue narrowboat1011 viewsWe built two narrowboats, for a gentleman whose garden is given over to a large and splendid live-steam narrow-gauge system.
Visitors on open days say they make a marvellous sight, gliding silently along the cut, while the little trains chuff along the quays, and passing the two without mishap is as interesting as in a real canal.
Check: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgTcQzjB1K8
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Red narrowboat1009 viewsWe built two narrowboats, for a gentleman whose garden is given over to a large and splendid live-steam narrow-gauge system.
Visitors on open days say they make a marvellous sight, gliding silently along the cut, while the little trains chuff along the quays, and passing the two without mishap is as interesting as in a real canal.
Check: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgTcQzjB1K8
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Peggy1000 viewsThey were built to pursue "the silver harvest, free to all", the herring which once swarmed in the North sea in huge, seemingly inexhaustible shoals. Now, due to a combination of overfishing and pollution, herring stocks have collapsed to the point where no more can be landed from the North Sea. We are learning, slowly and late, that the natural world is not an inexhaustible storehouse of resources to be plundered at will.
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Peggy997 viewsThis model is over four feet long, and weighs over twenty pounds. She is thus fairly demanding of display space. Every expedition to the water demands careful planning, to get her in and out of the car without damage, and to transport her safely from the car-park to the water. But what a magnificent picture she makes! Models of this kind carry a level of detail, and acheieve a presence on the water, which their smaller sisters simply cannot match. She has a full range of working features, including navigation lights which work in two modes; steaming, or lying to her nets.
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Pond yacht restored deck detail973 viewsI quite deliberately did not restore her to the best finish that would have been possible. She was a competent amateur built model, so that was the standard I endeavoured to reproduce. Her owners got her back in a condition very like she would have been when she was brand new, and yes, she can be sailed again.
(Model by family builder, restored by John Davies)
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