Elder_dumpster

I am about to begin building my first scratch boat. I was looking for a sailing boat kit that I could add RC to. There are some in the Krick range and I nearly plumped for Ariadne, but was wavering at the required skill level and cost when my son suggested building a model of our old boat that we had when they were kids. Brilliant! I knew where to get plans and have an intimate knowledge of every detail I'll need to pull this off. I contacted some old pals in the Trident Owners Association and within a day, had full lines, construction, section, sail-plan and other original drawing scans. They are at the scale 1.5 inch : 1 foot (1:8). The boat is 24 ft LOA so after converting that to metric, I'm going to end up with a model around 940mm LOA. I think that will be ideal to house RC and for her to sail in reasonable winds. I'll need the equivalent of 760 Kg of ballast in the stub keel (94 Kg to scale..I assume mass has the same ratio as linear measurements when converting for a model ? ) the rest of the 5 tonne displacement will need to come from the construction materials, RC and running gear, batteries and probably some lead shot in strategic places. The original boat was GRP with plywood bulkheads fore and aft of the deck-stepped mast and fwd of the transom. I'll add frames at most stations from something like 12*5 mm strips. The point of the bow fwd of the accommodation will be solid balsa. I'll plank with whatever is reasonable and available at the time, then cover the hull in several layers of fibreclass cloth and resin... at least they are the sketchy current plans.. Lara was 91 out of 248 Tridents built. Sadly the person I sold her to, abandoned her and she just rotted away as far as I know. I am actually still trying to find her after a last sighting 'in a sorry state' 10 years ago. Whatever the outcome, Lara will live on in this model. It isn't going to be a quick build I'm still working in parallel on a CUX 87 kit, I work full time and have a family, so don't expect many updates for a while. Plans and photos attached. sections.pdf 1974marconbrochure.pdf linesmall.pdf

Thank you Sir.

Eventually gave up on the weather and made a spray booth thing. It works pretty well and was cheap to make 3 euros for the hardboard, 19 for the bathroom extractor, plus some 100mm ducting I had already. Considering I haven't used an airbrush for many years and the one I have is a cheap version, I'm quite pleased with the results. Although the blue is a bit dull in patches, so will probably give it another coat at some point. The rubbing strake and top rail will be black too.

Things have progressed. While waiting for windless dry days to spray on my balcony, I got on with the wheelhouse. I'm quite pleased with the compass. a bit of brass I had lying around, a compass rose that I printed as small as possible, a drip of resin to make the dome and the end of a nail for the needle.

Current state. A bit more priming, filling and sanding on the hull to do.

My second Billings boat, in fact second ever wooden model. Started May 202, I don't have huge amounts of free time to work on her, so it's sporadic progress. So far the hull is planked and almost ready for painting, but in parallel I've been working on the wheelhouse. My impressions of the kit aren't all positive and it is clear this one came from the Chinese factory. The wood quality was a lot better when I tackled Smit Rotterdam about 20 yrs ago. The deck planks were missing - but I filled in an RMA form on Billings' web site and received 25 0.8*5mm mahogany planks a few days later. Excellent service!! I did gain 25 2*2mm strips that obviously had been mistakenly put in as the deck planks. I'm trying to incorporate the bonus wood where I can, to add detail. The plans are adequate, but the build instructions are 'the helicopter view' and not a lot of use for the beginner like me. More photos to follow