Innehållsförteckning för March 2024 från Model Boats

First impressions The 96ft Malaysian Fast Patrol Boat KD Perkasa was designed and launched by Vosper in April 1966 as a class of four vessels based on the Royal Navy’s Brave class but using enhancements from Vosper’s private venture ‘Ferocity’, which closely resembled the Danish Søløven class. All these vessels were similar in appearance and general characteristics although differed in detail to suit the various navies for which they were built. They all boasted hard chine planning wooden hulls powered by three Rolls-Royce Marine Proteus gas turbines, giving them an impressive speed of 50 to 60 knots. The original armament was four torpedoes, a single bow mounted 40mm Bofors gun, and a twin 20mm Oerlikon cannon on the stern. They were re-armed in 1971 with eight SS-12 missiles before being…

A first foray into wooden kit building The loss of the Titanic, sinking due to it striking an iceberg back in 1912, is well documented, and that the ship did not have enough lifeboats only exacerbated the terrible loss of life. She was launched at the Harland and Wolfe Shipyard, Belfast on May 31, 1911, and was fitted out at the yard before starting service on April 10, 1912. There are many model kits of the ship itself, in plastic, wood and card, that can be built, and one can be excused for saying that the subject has been done to death over the years. Besides April 2012 being the 100th Anniversary of the tragedy, James Cameron’s film Titanic seemed to me to be a bit of a catalyst for…

All hands on deck! Have your say... Letters can either be forwarded via email to editor@modelboats.co.uk or via post to Readers’ Letters, Mortons Media Group, Media Centre, Morton Way, Horncastle, Lincs LN9 6JR Inspired by Sheila I found Nev Wade’s ‘With a little help from my friends’ feature in the January 2024 issue particularly interesting, especially as Nev’s first model boat builds were based upon Adrian Hayter’s full-size vessel Sheila. I have the book Sheila In The Wind, which describes Hayter’s voyage, sailing single handed, from the UK to New Zealand – a story of true courage and determination and a really marvellous read. Thanks for a great magazine. Keep up the good work! ALAN MARK EMAIL Glad you enjoyed Nev’s feature, Alan, and thanks for seconding his Sheila in…

The National Maritime Museum holds one of the world’s largest collections of ship plans, which span from the late 17th century to the present day. The museum holds about a million plans and is divided into two collections: Admiralty and Merchant. The Admiralty collection comprises a near unbroken record of the technical and historical development of warships from the late 17th century to circa the 1970s. It has three main periods: • Sailing Navy: circa.1700 to 1834• Victorian Navy: circa.1835 to 1905 – the transition from sail to steam• Modern Navy: 1906 to the late 20th century – development from Dreadnought through two world wars to the modern day. The collection includes plans for warships from countries including France, Spain, the US, the Netherlands, Argentina, Germany, Russia, Denmark and Portugal.…

HA Kits It was about two years ago, while browsing the internet looking for a model boat kit, I first came across HA Kits (https://hakits. co.uk). Some 14 kits are offered, all of which are really inexpensive, with prices ranging from about £40 to £60. While reflecting on these prices, to give an analogy, my wife spends more at her backstreet hairdresser in Market Harborough – I must remember this when trying to justify future expenditure on model boats! Now, I have a suspicious nature when it comes to pricing, bearing in mind that old adage “You only get what you pay for”, so it was toe in the water time. What had also caught my attention were the adjustable model boat stands offered on HA Kit’s website. Fully adjustable,…

I don’t remember ever seeing an actual ‘land yacht’. When, however, quite by chance I recently saw a reference to an article in a model boats magazine on how to build one, a bit of further research revealed plenty of photographs on the internet of full-size land yachts skimming along beaches. This led me to investigate this rather unusual sport, and in particular models of these ‘yachts’. As it turned out, Sarik was able to supply a plan, and a copy of the article that originally appeared in Marine Modelling International magazine. Most of these models appear to have been designed for racing, and are really a series of sticks held together, with a sail and three wheels. As I had no intention of racing, why then did I opt…

Hello there, vintage fans! Let’s go electric boating again, shall we? This month I’m starting with a brace of really very early 1950s’ British motors. These are identical, being two examples of Taycol’s popular, and highly successful in terms of sales, little ‘Target’ wound-field boat motors – but in very different conditions. The nicer one is mint and boxed and was purchased, while the other was tossed at me free of charge at a club meeting many years ago as unwanted rubbish. A bit of background Taycol Ltd was an electrical outfit based in Bournemouth, the founders being two chaps called Taylor and Collis, hence Tay-Col, and its earliest motors were the ‘Star’ and the ‘Comet’, both of which are typical of the very earliest electrical power practice. The firm’s…

● Fletcher Class Destroyers A salute to these highly successful vessels & the modelling opportunities they present ● Moana’s canoe Paddling Polynesian style! ● US Coast Guard MBL 44357: a courageous first build R/C rookie Ted Correia shares some top tips PLUS A thematically varied selection of feature-length articles, all your favourite regular pages – including Your Models, Your Letters, news, reviews – and lots more (Please note: content may be subject to change) You will find more about the exciting content coming next, features of particular interest you may have missed in past editions and details of the very latest subscription offers on our website at www.modelboats.co.uk You can, of course, order you copy of the April 2024 issue, which goes on sale at all good newsagents from Friday,…

Signals Prize Draw results We are now delighted to announce the lucky winners in our December 2023 and January 2024 issue prize draws: ■ The RMS 1:700 scale Titanic kit (courtesy of Airfix) Mr Nick Dale of Cannock, Staffordshire ■ The Modellers’ toolkit & Mercantic beanie hat prize packages (courtesy of Billing Boats) Mr S. Frusher, Wisbech, CambridgeshireMr Andrew Way, GuernseyMr C.E. Dennis, Isle of Man ■ The Luxury Leather Workshop Apron (courtesy of Stalwart Crafts) Morwenna Theaker, Conwy, Wales ■ The Sparmax ARISM Mini Kit (courtesy of The Airbrush Company) Mr B. Staines, Folkestone, Kent Congratulations to you all, and profuse thanks to Airfix, Billing Boats, Stalwart Crafts and The Airbrush Company for donating these fantastic prizes! RNLI bicentennial souvenirs January 4, 2024, saw a set of six stamps…

Flotsam & Jetsam Have you ever considered making a model of an amphibious vehicle? They can certainly add another dimension to a sailing day at the local lake as you jockey your vehicle around rocks and other obstacles on the shoreline before making a surprise dash to the waterline and wading in, to cries of dismay from the uninitiated. This is all the more impressive if, after mixing it with the boats for a bit, you can manage to make your amphibious vehicle climb out onto dry land again, triumphant in your mastery of movement through two different media, before motoring off, leaving a trail of wet tyre prints behind it. It can be like that, but it can also be a disappointing and expensive exercise if your project is…

Based on the Emergency class destroyers built for the Royal Navy during World War II, I and with the basic hull construction being mainly from balsa sheet and strip, this model is designed to a scale of 1:144, which gives an overall length of 76 cm (30 inches) and a weight of 1.1 kg (39 oz.). It’s not a model for the inexperienced, but those of you familiar with the materials and techniques used should find the build fairly straightforward. Like most things in life, though, deviating from the plan and instructions may cause problems. Origins Longer ago than I care to remember, I discovered that radio-controlled destroyer-based models could be successfully built and operated at 1:144 scale (1 inch = 12 feet in Imperial units). This led to the…

Steam Basics Pt. 150 This is a topic that crops up frequently, with good reason, and while we have compared valve-operated engines and oscillators in the past, we haven’t really looked at why there is such a difference in the amount of steam they use. When looking at putting the big bits together for our next steam-powered project one of the main considerations is how much steam the engine is going to use to push the proposed model boat around the pond. This can then have a knock-on effect on how big a boiler we want to use, whether a feed system might be necessary, etc. Our engine choice will boil (pardon the pun) down to one of two main categories, either an oscillator (be it an in-line configuration –…