rshousha

One of my favorite modelling subjects and a great adventure story from our youth.

Here's a piece of the hull. All correct rivets included. Sorry, I don't seem to have a bigger picture. In those days, computer memory space was still being counted.

Built by the elves in my workshop and inserted in that model. Cheers, Rick

Do you think a laser-cut, engineered, king plank would have helped? Regards, Rick

I think it would be simpler to send the plans to someone who does this on a regular basis. Save the cost of the program; spend the time working on the model, not a piece of software you're going to learn in order to do something once every two or three years.

The boom coming across the other deck; awesome! The gybes in perfect sync with the waves; wonderful! This is amazing work. Is it hard to add wake behind the boat? These heavy boats tend to leave a considerable wake in such seas.

Some people are commenting that the poll doesn't make sense, but they do not explain why clearly. In my opinion, this is a popularity poll. It does not rank the quality of the kit manufacturers. If 1000 people have bought Corel kits, and liked them, then Corel will have 1000 positive votes. If one person bought a Corel kit and another kit from an obscure manufacturer, and that kit was a hundred times better than the Corel kit, it gets just one vote while Corel still gets 1001 votes. Conversely, if no one who voted bought a crappy kit from an obscure manufacturer, that kit gets a much better grade than, say, AL, who sold 10,000 kits during that same time. The crappy kit would get 0% on the bad grade while AL might get 10%. I put forward this is why some people are calling the poll nonsense. It's a good effort but really only reflects the quality differences among the top manufacturers. Smaller manufacturers, good or bad, will poll poorly no matter what. The poll would have to say something like: 1- What kit companies have you bought from? 3- How would you rate those companies? Then, somehow the results would be something like, "of the people who bought Corel and AL kits, the comparison is, blah, blah.." etc. It would be much harder to create such a poll but would really show how people feel about the brands. I, for one, have built Amati (tops for me; built two), Caldercraft (good value, but I've built just one), Corel (good material and plans but instructions are murky: built two), and Midwest (I loved the subject so, no matter what, I felt was a great kit). I have zero experience building other brands so I can only give a 0% grade everywhere else. That's why the poll doesn't make sense. Regards, Rick

Completed my first 1:1 scale items. I've been looking for good boxes for my vinyl record collection for some time now. Finally, I decided to just build them myself. Designed in Solidworks, cut on a CNC router, and finished by hand.

Hi Gaetan, Yes, I had seen that in the wonderful book "On Chantait Charley-Man". I also have some good friends at the Davie Shipyard and it is quite something to stand there, looking out into the St-Laurent on a bright October morning, imagining the construction. Even today, the fellows welding those great big ship sections, twenty feet in the air, in a force 4 or 5 breeze, are pretty tough, big, men.

How many people built one of those ships? I can feel their tiny, little, ghosts moving around hammering, sawing, hammering, carrying, sawing, hammering. In the freezing breeze blasting off the St. Lawrence. They were tough people. "On chantait Charley-Man". Rick

Have you tried the Chevalier and Taglang book? AMERICA'S CUP YACHT DESIGNS 1851 - 1986 Francois Chevalier and Jacques Taglang

Well, my Star class sailboat was designed more than one-hundred years ago and is still a wonderful boat to sail. I think it will still be relevant fifty years from now, so you may have something there!

Do you think 500 years from now our current ship designs will look so awkward?