How many times do you push the boat out?

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

I have been writing in my diary all the sailings of my boats since I re-started making and sailing boats in 2006, this is the time when Berengar was given a cheap "woolworths" speedboat.

I keep a tatty bit of paper in the diary on which I write down names and sailings of these boats and have just committed them on to an Excel spread sheet, as you do.. is this sad or wot.

It throws up a few interesting facts, or not as you may think.

Obviously boats that were built ages ago accumulate more sailings than the recent ones, and Berengar has since stopped boating in favour of killing zombies on the telly along with, the other day, 130,000 people world-wide. BUT he used to sail the ones specifically built for him so these have racked up more time than may be the case otherwise. The reason why I started to build TopGear craft, this!

Having a list means that I try to rotate sailings so that I take different boats down to the sea, and not the same ones time and time again. Obviously NEW builds get more attention in the first year than the others.

I have 30 boats: A couple, namely the Severn and the USS New jersey (converted RTR and converted toy) have only been out 4 times each; they are small and fiddly to get into service and I usually cant be bothered. I need to flog the Severn, I shall never sail it again.

Amazingly, although it does not feel like it, on average the boats individually only get wet 3 or 4 times a year !! Even though I take 3 boats or so along every Sunday. This year has been bad, with week literally choking sailings, and probably three weeks were lost as there was just no point in turning up.

Some boats are easier to take than others, they are either smaller or easier to use. Others demand calmer water, the A90 Ecranoplan and project no1 and 3 for instance, and the Herald demands gusty weather as it will not sail otherwise. Rough weather attracts different boats.

The Oberon and Lotus are fiddly to use, the Illustrious is large and heavy but an impressive performer and impresses the kids and young mums at the jetty, the LCM68 is small and I always feel not so interesting. A few others are also less interesting from my point of view than others , or I have forewarning that Ray is bringing the Belfast down and so need to break out the big ships.

Boats that have consistent sailing figures are.. The Devastation, Midge, Sunderland, Argus, Titanic, Nelson, in the order they were made.

These have clocked up on average 30 ish outings, only the Argus beats them all with 42, due to persistant thrashing form Berengar and regular(ish) outing by myself. I like this one, it is a simple model, but the dazzle camo (authentic pattern, if simplified a bit), WW1 aircraft and good turn of speed make it interesting to bystanders and fun to operate.

There are always questions on the forum as to waterproofing and best paints to use, and I have always said ANY paint is good enough, after all,.how long do these things stay in the water?? well here we have it. I think we can say that the Argus has spent to most time in the water and so roughly100 hours…not much time really is it?

Ashley

Sunderland, one of my favourites!

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Just a minor question Ashley, but one to which I am sure many others would like to know the answer.

Just where to the heck do you store them all? Do you live in a warehouse?

Colin

[LooverlijnParticipant @looverlijn]

Ashley, all I can say is "You must have a VERY VERY understanding wife!"

[Ian GardnerParticipant @iangardner62867]

Ashley,

I also wonder where you store them. I find boats can deteriorate more on shelves collecting dust and crap than they ever do in the water. A few years ago I treated myself to a dedicated storage shed in which I keep boats and unfinished projects- it's been brilliant!

Happy Christmas, by the way!

Ian

Edited By Ian Gardner on 22/12/2013 11:55:26

[Tony HadleyParticipant @tonyhadley]

Ashley,

Not only is the sheer number of models you own amazing, but your record keeping is outstanding.

Must say, your model which is most historically impressive is the rubber powered craft, powered like the Bowman models of yesteryear, (not mentioned above).

Tony

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Gents. I am averaging about 3 boats a year, new builds, although that does include things like the Hornet which only took a couple of week-ends to simply put running gear into and the landing craft similarly very quick..

They are mostly all boxed up, and live in the shed. I say shed, but this is a full garden width block-walled construction at the end of the garden. All the boats are in a reasonably small area, considering, but next year I am going to "raise the roof" a bit on this shed and add 18" at the long rear end to allow a)better water drainage ( the main reason) and b) allow storage of the flying boats IN the roof space. The flying boats take up more than their share of the room due to the sticky-out wings, and an…item….not yet seen ..takes up vast amounts of space. Hopefully next years D-Day landers will stack , Russian doll fashion.

I could propbably do with getting rid of a few, the Ecranoplan and the foam flyer ecranoplan for instance.. The A90 uses an AA 9.6V pack, not used by anything else..and I am down to one now and would not specifically want to buy another just for this. It literally does fly on a LiPo but again I do not want to go down this route yet. The foam flyer was simply a bit of spur-of-the-moment fun. I could do with actually making a 50% bigger foam A90 to use "ordinary" standard sub-c cell packs, but this time taking a bit more care over the construction (foam flyer a bit rough`n`ready).

The rubber band boats, yes Tony.. I had not included them in the count and had forgotten about them!. They have only been out a few times…its a lot of running around!! I did take Ashleyboat 2 out last year to find that the rubber, although LOOKING to be ok, was not giving the power it used to. After 5 years of standing about thats fair enough. Could go as well come to think of it. No trouble with deterioration on the rubber band boats hulls as they are liberally coated with castor and lanolin inside from the rubber bands. So not only a lot of running but messy too!

Currently only the Sunderland , BFB3, ecranoplan and New jersey are inside, in the loft. Severn is in a box in the porch along with a small collectiuon of battery powered toy boats and ferry promotional items and so on.

Ashley

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

This extension to your storage facility Ashley, will this be another example of your talents with the use of hard….

Colin

[ashley needhamParticipant @ashleyneedham69188]

Ooooooh !! No, I will be using celcon blocks and bits of 2X6 treated timber,

however,, it there is any left…

We have been watching a program call "Mythbusters" (not showing at the moment), whereby they debunk or even prove URBAN MYTHS or sayings.

I have seen them take on the challenge of "like a lead balloon" and they actually make a real , airborne balloon out of lead foil….has to be seen to be believed, and also a glider out of concrete. In this instance they used a very strong cement mixed with carbon fibre strands at the "concrete"…and after all concrete is only cement powder and a filler, usually gravel, but.. and they achieved success here also, not great success due to the home made designs, but success none the less.

there are several examples of concrete barge up in London, and of course the famous Mulberry harbours were concrete, towed across a deep body of water, so anything is possible.

At some stage I am wondering if the hard…composite resin compressed wood …. might be taken to a new dimension and MOULDED whilst wet in a mould to produce a curved surface??

Ashley

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