Great Model, I was invloved in the draughting and design of the original SD14 ‘s at Austin & Pickersgilla on the Wear many years ago. Great to see there is still an interest in these vessels

Dear John (and others!),

 sorry for the delay in responding……………work has kept me away from the model boat scene for a while!

Marcle Models of Amersham are still selling the kit – it comes in 6 boxes containing god knows how many A3 sheets of manilla card and the instruction manual on how to build it.  As supplied, the kit is designed to be built entirely out of card for static display, however with ours we substituted the card hull plates for thin ply the same thickness, and for sailing the superstructure and mast houses are made of ‘plasticard’ for durability.  The hull was coated in thin coats of resin impregnated glass cloth and then painted and sealed with satin varnish.  Reasonably strong, but i wouldnt like a ‘pointy nosed’ racing boat to ram it – it would sink in an instant.

To get her to the desired waterline, we have to add removeable blocks of lead – in 3 and 5lb blocks – somewhere close to 70lb in the end.  These have to be added and removed only once she is in the water otherwise there is a danger of her ‘breaking her back’ during launching. (or me breaking mine!!!!).

We hope soon to write an article on the build of this boat (if the Editor is interested!!!) as i have numerous photos of the build, and so will explain more fully how it was done and the methods employed to build a card model, intended for static display, to sail on very wet water!!!!

keep sailing!

carl