|
by Mark
Steele - Auckland, New Zealand
To fallen
fellow sailors, a then youngster called Robin,
and a classic topsail schooner
|
When I started this column in July 2006, I said that
modeling was about `people’ – of course
it is, for models and the sailing of them can’t
happen without human involvement. As this is the month
of Christmas, just as a reminder to each and every
one of us who sail at whichever lake or pond we sail
on, in whichever land we may happen to be domiciled,
not one of us is immortal. Each day we sail is one
day less that we have left in our sailing calendar
and we know not when nor where we
will be called upon to finally slip our moorings.
Many have died in the past few years and I choose
to honour those who like ourselves found pleasure
in each others company while enjoying the sailing
of model yachts, and to do so by way of two fallen
fellow model sailors both friends-never-met of mine,
and another friend who wrote books on boats, built
models, drew plans, painted pictures of square-riggers
and was a master at marine photography. David
Blinkhorn of Lancashire, England seen
below (top left) died some years ago, as did Sandy
Cousins of Scotland (below lower left)
and my dear friend, Clifford Hawkins
of Auckland (below lower right) stand for all those
others who built beautiful models and sailed the many
lakes and ponds before slipping the surly bonds of
earth. I choose not to mention others who died but
let us quietly remember all those no longer with us
whom each of us had the good fortune to know. Cliff
died aged 93 on March 13th this year and his lovely
painting at the top of this column as well as his
photographic study of the South Seas schooner, Tiare
Taporo at rest are reproduced to honour him and
all those no longer with us.
|
|
|
Sensible advice I think, that given by the locals
(for those visiting the island of Sint Marten in the
Dutch Caribbean) is simply to
`lay on de beach
an laaf and smile plenty’
Robin Redhead of London was a long term reader of
my now ended magazine Windling World, and
around 1940 was photographed (above) launching a 3-masted
barque bought in Hamleys famous toy shop as a 3-masted
Bermudan schooner. How many of us today can unearth
that kind of priceless photo of ourselves sailing
a model yacht when we were very young? It was steered
free with a swing rudder and the photo of Robin was
taken at the Round Pond in Kensington. These days
Robin sails one or more of a trio of lovely Southwold-style
model yachts that he owns.
I just love it! Larry Pullen wrote in Duckworks:
“My pappy told me, boy if you fool around with
the wind, sooner or later you’re going to get
blowed!” True or false? Think about it, I reckon
Larry’s dad was right on the mark!
The Huia re-created. Sailing colleague and
fellow Auckland Ancient Mariner, Derek Nicholson
(seen above with his earlier model of the schooner
Creole has done it again, this time creating
a wonderful sailing replica of the once famous New
Zealand topsail schooner Huia. It's appearance
I have to tell you brought on an immediate and prolonged
case of `Drool Dribble', that malady that afflicts
some of us upon inspection of stunning model sailing
ships made by others. The first three photos above
show the model. Take a quick look, now scroll down
quickly! That's it, you should be relatively safe.
|
A writer's favourite |
Were I ever to select and rate six top models as
my favourites, Richard Gross’s lovely schooner,
Maggie of Matakana (seen above) would certainly
be well up in the selection, she just sails so well,
looks so damn good and always commands the attention
of onlookers strolling the pondside pavement at our
Onepoto lake,. home of the Auckland Ancient Mariners
group. Because this model is so attractive in style
I think I should warn you, this is not a boat for
the raw beginner to attempt to build and I say that
because I know that many will instantly feel `that’s
the boat for me!’
Richard Gross is very `handy’ in the model
building area – an ex Dental surgeon he is used
to intricate work. He and his wife have a beach house
north of Auckland where the sailing around the Hauraki
Gulf is wonderful. There he was to notice a certain
schooner with clean lines and a very `different’
look about her. She was Maggie of Whitford,
(seen above under sail) a New Zealand built scow-like
Chesapeake Bay gaff schooner, and she became the boat
of which he would construct a new model. With side
plans of the fullsize 80’ long boat (and some
approximate measurements but no frame shapes), after
using a computer boat design package downloaded free
of the internet this then provided him with hull panels
in flat format. Enlarging of the plan to the required
size, Richard then stitched the panels together using
copper wire ties, then glued them with resin on the
inside removing the ties before the glue set totally.
The sails are made of polycotton and are on longer
masts for better light weather performance, the winch,
servo and rudder are below the deckhouse floor and
as the windows of the deckhouse floor clear, the inside
has been made as close to the fullsize boat as possible.
Maggie of Whitford was built and is owned
and sailed by Brian Owen of the Mahurangi Cruising
Club. The length of Richard’s model is
1150mm, 1480 including the bowsprit. She carries 3.5kg
on the keel and has an all up weight of 8kg.
On Cape Horn, Bernard Moitessier
in his book The
Long Way wrote: `A great Cape, for
us, can’t be expressed in longitude and latitude
alone. A great Cape has a soul with very soft, very
violent shadows and colours. A soul as smooth as a
child’s, as hard as a criminal’s. And
that is why we go!’
The
larger than usual
R Tucker Thompson |
|
At the time that the late Rex Cotterell his 1/9th
scale model, the real gaff-rigged square topsail schooner,
all 85’ of her, was based in the North Island
of New Zealand’s Bay of Islands, the fullsize
boat launched in 1985. Rex was a ship-loving model
yacht fanatic and in 1988 he set out to build a larger
than usual model of the R Tucker Thompson.
Two metres long plus a 660mm bowsprit he wanted to
sail it in the same estuary where the original was
launched. The model was huge and really impressive
on the water. When sailed in a good breeze Rex needed
an outboard powered dinghy in order to keep up with
her.
Rex and his
model of the schooner |
Now stop bloody falling
over man! |
I remember meeting Rex on arrangement for the first
time at the Panmure basin in Auckland some years ago,
where the rigging time for the model I discovered
was over an hour and launching the model required
a small trailer which went into the water. With some
60lbs of ballast aboard and carried internally, with
the amount of sail she carried, just launching her
was more than a handful. The model was made of fiberglass
over a ply frame and I remember seeing a wonderful
photograph of the model blasting along somewhere,
her nylon cloth sails filled, her bow cutting the
water. After Rex died the model was placed in Modelworld
where the lack of sufficient water and space was insufficient
to get her to really perform under sail, but these
photos (most of them mine) taken earlier are testimony
to a much remembered and admired model.
|
|
|
|
Lloyd 'Swede' Johnson of California with his Garden
`Toadstool’ design schooner (top left), Buck
McClellan of Maryland, USA's model of the famous schooner
Atlantic, (below left) and to the right of
that, Aucklander, Tom Simpson with Thistle,
another truly lovely and good performing model.
This was an event of fantasy, one that evolved out
of the mind perhaps of Larry Blotta, the
model yot spotta whose best-seller-to-be book intended
to compete with Harry Potter also never came
to reality. (A bit of a dreamer Larry is!) Drawn for
me by my friend, Derek Cookson it depicts what might
have eventuated were a model yacht ocean race held
with all skippers operating from on board the same
boat! That one, and the second drawing `borrowed’
from the US Vintage Model Yacht Group’s publication,
The Model Yacht which accurately portrays
how wrong non-model yacht sailors can be about our
hobby, are included just to remind each other of the
importance of not taking ourselves too seriously!
Think about it, but without our fertile imagination,
each of us is no more than a small and scrawny, dull
and boring underground Ethiopian coffee bean termite!
All that is left for me to do, is to wish everyone
who journeys with me each month into the world of
model sailing boats, as well as others who may have
just chanced upon the column, a very happy Christmas
and a healthy and equally happy 2008. To Chuck Leinweber,
my Publisher and friend, as well as to his wife Sandra,
warmest greetings and thanks for providing my writings
with a home over the last eighteen months. Gosh, is
it already that long?
Good Grief, I must get back home to practice for
my annual home concert where I sing and play Danny
Boy on the strings of my wife’s egg slicer and
the neighbours cat immediately migrates to Marbella!
Click
here for previous Columns by Mark Steele
|