Hi Colin

My first scratch built model from the plans service was the Graham Bantock yacht, Nimbus I way back in 1991 and a few years ago, the Nimbus 2

Next came the William Daniels vintage Marblehead……..Pocahontas

Louis Heloise was built about 2000, followed by the paddle steamer Wilton Castle and the vintage 36R Skylark

Sandy Cousins classic yacht Britannia was a lovely build, the plans were very informative and interesting, followed by two further yachts, another Britannia and Altair based on the Pocahontas hull

In the magazine that the Louis Heloise build was described, I noticed the giant paddle steamer, Jeanie Deans by Andy Thompson……WOW! That was the one for me!

It seemed absolutely enormous at the time and was a great build and a very popular model on the club water.

Soon after that came along the mighty Great Eastern which was based on the JD hull

If any of my builds are of interest, please let me know and I'll dig out the relevant photographs

Bob

Thanks, Colin

Just remembered a few more!

Ritalea launch, which was originally a free plan, a nice model and was fitted with a Becker rudder

Not forgetting Jeanie Deans at War, based on the original peacetime Jeanie Deans of course

Bob

Hi Colin,

As you probably know by now I have lots of photos of Shemarah II built to the My Hobby Store plan MAGM 2040. I dont think the model will be finished before the end of the year though. Here's the latest picture taken this morning during ballast adjustment in our pond.

Gareth

Hello Colin,

I completed an enlarged version of Vic Smeed's Silver Mist last year. This is 1.7 times the original plan size and I changed the saloon window arrangements ( having seen a photo of a full size Silver yacht of similar appearance) to avoid having to make window frames! I don't know if this would qualify. There are photos in my album andI have completed some minor details since.

Ian your Silver Mist is great.

Colin can we see some more about Vic Smeed including some plans?

Paul

Hi Colin

It might be worthwhile putting those old drawings through a CAD system and producing a set of usable plans and working the monochrome images through Gimp to get decent reproductions.

Paul

Thanks for the nice comments about my Silver Mist- I was very pleased at how it turned out and of course, the fact that it enlarged so well is testament to a great and much missed designer.

Colin, I could, of course, supply photos at a larger size- these were resized for the album. The only changes I made were the size- it's about 1:16 now, hull length 36'' and weight about 15lb, and the shape of the saloon windows.

The construction method was exactly as Vic Smeed designed but using obeche planks on 6mm ply frames and obeche blocks at bow and stern where called for. I didn't need to build it on a board as I usually would, as the structure was so stiff before planking. I also went to town a bit on the deck, using 1.5mm parana(?) pine on a 1.5mm ply sub deck with black paper caulking. There are some rather nice photos of Vic Smeed's original (in construction and complete)in his book Power Model Boats.

I guess most modellers with any experience would be likely to make modifications to designs, but I feel that this is pretty faithful to Vic Smeed's original intentions- wouldn't want it any other way!

Hope this helps.

Ian