THE HMS VICTORY SAILS AGAIN. SHOTS ARE IN LIGHT AIR TO 10/12 MPH UNFORTUNATELY, HOWEVER, THE SHIP PERFORMS PERFECTLY IN LESS THAN 5MPH WHICH IS UNUSUAL FOR HEAVY MODEL SQUARE RIGGERS. 60 POUND SHIP, 45 INCHES LENGTH OVERALL.

saildog,
I think I feel a 'crying spell' coming on. You just had to show something like that, didn't you? Knowing my building skills, can I borrow your boat for a few days?
- 'Doc


very nice!

Thank you for the kind words. My building skills when I started amounted to a monkey with a razor blade...Perserverance, plus 1 ruined ship and 2 sunken ships finally paid off. Once you have the technical aspects down the building is just time and energy. Its the technical aspects of these that was so hard for me (balance, keel size and rudder, center of effort, sailability etc., etc.,). I asked a million questions from those who knew about square riggers (there are very few in the world).

Heres a few more in higher wind....Wind here went from nothing to 2 shots shown which are in about 25MPH wind gust (ship is heeling). Welcome to Texas wind in the summer. The ship will probably take 35-40MPH with the main deck just dipping the water, but waiting for that key windy day for testing. Won't it sink? No, I learned the hard way, its filled full of styrofoam for the most part.

Saildog,
today my Napoleon made her maidenvoyage,
still without extra keel- I think I have to learn the hard way...
fortunately the wind was very light and still she heeled up to 45 degrees.
Your models are very impressive, did you ever consider to RC them?
Rolf

Your ship is very, very nice...impressive looking!! I know you spent a huge amount of time, energy and effort on that!!

Yes, some of my ships are RC like the USS Constellation shown in this photo attached.


On the keel issue. Do try a keel, the first good gust of wind and your hard work could disappear. Try a metal keel and you will be amazed at the stability. Go to Home Depot or Lowes...they have a section where you can buy plate steel in various sizes.

Cut a piece (you will need a band saw, but I have done it with a metal blade hack saw), that will run down the centerline of your ship about 12 inches first by a depth of about 10 inches. You can tape that on the bottome of your ship first using double sided tape first.

Put it in your bathtub and test the balance, fore and aft AND how much it pulls the ship down into the water. Adjust fore and aft as necessary still using the tape.

Once you get the right position, you can used angled metal supports to bolt this piece onto your hull and fiberglass in the bolts through the hull. If the ship accepts this size piece of metal without pulling the ship too far under the water, you can add lead to the BOTTOM of your sheet metal. You can buy lead strips from your local bass pro shop. Tape it on first to get the right quantity...after you determine the amount of weight, you can gorilla glue the lead strips to the piece of sheet metal equally on both sides of the sheet.

USING a MASK, you can sand the lead to shape like a bulb. Then you can paint black the entire piece. Bolt this to the supports you've fashioned to your hull and you have a weighted keel. If you sink a bit over your lower gun ports with the keel I wouldn't worry about it. Lower in the water to a certain point will add stability. But, make sure your gun ports are siliconed to enclose them with clear sealer. I couldn't tell if they were enclosed.

Wonderful job on your ship..I'm impressed!!
Hope that helps.

Very very Very nice Saildog! [sm=thumbup.gif]

Thanks...many hours in that.

SailDog,

I am 18 years old and have been building RC classic model boats for about 6 years. Did you build the USS Constellation and HMS Victory from scratch or did you have some sort of kit? If you did have a kit for either one, would you please give me the contact information for the vendor. If you built from scratch, where were you able to find plans? Your models are beautiful and one day I hope I will be able to sail such an impressive masterpiece. Thanks for your help and have a great day!

Thanks for the compliment.

You will need a kit unless you buy the ship from one of the ready made few sources in the world like www.rchobby.co.uk. Look under yachts. They are about a 1 year wait and check out the price (be sure you are setting down when you convert from pounds to dollars).

My supplier for ready made hulls (and other parts) comes from an overseas agreement (I import them in bulk) as I do not have the time for plank on bulkhead construction and customers won't wait that the nearly 1 year that takes (I do this part time).

Kits can by bought from www.modelexpo-online.com. As ane example, HMS Victory kit is 399 there (44 inches LOA) and they even sell the sails and paint for this ship and others. Purists may scream, but I can't fill the demand for these with plank on bulkhead construction.

Also, let me summarize by saying that EVERY single square rigger out there is either scratch built OR had an original life as a static display kit/model (with the exception of the new toy aquacraft pirate ship) that I know of in the world.

ALL of the square rigged ships on www.modelexpo-online.com were designed as static display models (except for one of there abs hull fore/aft sailing ships). The point here is that unless you scratch build, you MUST modify any of these for RC or free-sailing. Therein comes the design process and some requirements to understand some basic elements of boat design (and how to sail) of square riggers (otherwise it will not sail or sail well).

If you elect to do this, stay in touch and I will help you eliminate many hours of headache and pain in this.

During the 20's through 40's, many of the free sailing models (to include square riggers) were CARVED hulls, but, that requires special tools. Most of these were not to scale.

Hope that helps. We can also discuss one of my hulls if you wish.

You SAIL guys do an extrodinary job in construction and "scratchbuilding" to accomplish SAILING replicas. CONGRATULATIONS.

For those of us out there without such skills and/or confidence I suggest you look at some of the ROBBE AND BILLINGS sail boat kits. No, they're not "square riggiers" but are quite impressive. I have the COLLIN ARCHER from BILLINGS. I haven't built it yet but will get up the courage sometime along the way. What holds me back is not being sure of how to do the rigging and how to taper the dowels. The kit is great but instructions are VERY sparce.

Suggestions, anyone???

AZCAPTAIN !!!

Ohh no...look at this Pirate ship from Silverlit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GtdxVom05Q

I have previous knowledge of how to taper dowels. I believe the technique is to use a hand plane or a sanding block to remove the wood from the end, very sparingly as you rotate the dowel simultaneously on a flat surface like a tabletop. Almost like whittling but removing minimal amounts of material at a time.

The rigging is, however, another question. Make sure you have some precision tool available such as tweezers and locking hemostats (like surgeons use). I find these indispensible for working with rigging.

Some really beautiful ships guys.

Just one note...you can get 1/24 scale RC square sail ships in kit form in several flavors.

Here is a pic of mine and my site is www.PrincedeNeufchatel.com for more info or http://www.modelsailingships.com/ for the manufactuer's site.