A few years ago, after a boat builder was grumbling about the amount of ballast that was needed to be carted about for a large model, Bob the Builder, of the famous….Eureka Moments thread, came up with the idea of a simple plank hull with no ballast!

The idea was at first poo poo`d by all and sundry and the idea was not really persued

The idea has been discussed many times since and nearly came into fruition with Paul`s giant Thames Barge project, recently

However, the Etherow Club had a mini regatta and BBQ last night and lo and behold…..A plank hulled model appeared, built by Paul Blyth of Ellesmere Port fame……He won Gold and Silver in the scale comp with two magnificent battleships

The model was not meant to be a plank hull, that`s how the original ship was built, but the hull was only 40mm deep with hardly any ballast…..Only about 4lbs!

The model performed perfectly well, having to battle through the wash of SloMo and the Club 500 hooligans charging about

So it proves a shallow hull for a large impressive model need not have 100 lbs of lead

Pictures by Duckie Enterprises inc……

Video to follow

Bob

Note the props sunk into the shallow hull

Who would suspect that the hull is only immersed in about 25mm of water?

The Scarab was a gun boat operating on shallow rivers in the Middle East somewhere