Where the Winds Blow... click here to read or make an observation about this  article

by Mark Steele - Auckland, New Zealand

A sleeping helmsman, flippin multi-hulls,
island rum and whistling bebacks!

Was the helmsman dozing, some may ask? The Titanic wasn’t so lucky with the iceberg, but this little boat from Will Lesh’s TIPPECANOE model yacht output is about to hit a human left shoulder and run aground on `Wife in the water rock’ (Will’s wife Cynthia). Gotta have some fun is my attitude, as well as possess a good imagination, and in model sailboating, not take oneself too seriously.

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Will's wife
is his rock.

Here’s one from Switzerland, the other from Victoria in Australia. You must believe me when I say that ‘model sailboating’ is spreading in popularity at a rate of knots in many parts of the world. Felix Wehrli who lives in Zurich where he works for the city zoo is an excellent ship modeller and built this 1:24 scale boat Marama which is `moonlight’ in Tahitian. The hull was built to his own design and was made of 0.5mm copper plates soldered onto a wooden hull form and stabilized with epoxy-resin, the rivets made from behind the copper plates before soldering. It was built from Underhill plans and was based on the vessel Lady of Avenal. Jason Pilgrim seen with his lugger Pearl is a keen RC model sailor, and his boat is 5’7” overall. He sails with the Surrey Park Model Boat Club.

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Above Marama - right, the lugger Pearl

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The joys of cruising aboard full-size yachts, both in the Caribbean and the South Pacific, `sweetened’ and all too often delivering high voltage charges to human brains by over-indulgence of rum, has inspired me into memory-recall mode. Rum, often referred to in my homeland of Guyana as the `falling down drink’, in later years when I lived in Barbados resulted in a popular island chant.

`rum is sweet, rum is sweet,

don’t let the rum sweep yuh off your feet’

The often strange things some of us do the older we get, as the brain succumbed to the slowdown in lifestyle, becomes a tad forgetful at times, (just a tad, mind you) like casually chucking the transmitter into the lake without thinking and standing there holding the yacht! Never done that but seen it done, however I do remember driving all the way to the lake one day only to discover I had “forgit mah transmitter at home! Ah sayud to mahseyuf, gitahholdahyuhseyuf! You defnutly caynt get by widout det! Lahf sometimes can git difficult the older we git, defnutly!“

Vic Smeed is a household name in model boat design, and now long retired in the United Kingdom must be quietly chuffed at the resurgence in popularity of a yacht he designed built some 32 years ago called the S1 Starlet. He still has the original one built and today there are good Starlet fleet numbers in areas of Britain and in particular, very healthy and growing numbers in Auckland, New Zealand with the Ancient Mariners windling group who a couple of times a year even hold `Starlet Days’ regattas. Fleet registration numbers there are up to almost the thirty mark. The boat has a 34” long hard chine hull and was designed by Smeed for a `Boating for beginners’ series in a model magazine of the period.

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Designer Vic Smeed at left - Auckland Starlet Day

Trimarans and catamarans in sailing model guise tend to be somewhat prone to occasionally flipping (hence the expression, `the flippin boat,’ I guess!) though this big yellow RC trimaran, ThEWING THING owned and built by Bruce Ewing of New Plymouth in New Zealand was not only fast but remarkably stable. Alan Hayes took the super photograph, but what I would still really like to know is… who threw granny’s chair into the water at this lake in Auckland?

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A Flying Tri and a flipped Tri.

Of `Whistlin Beback’s! One reads and learns, and one often `borrows’ From Lee Wilbur in The Fisherman’s Voice I learned years ago about `whistling beback’s’, those boat show attendees who after plucking up courage to ask the price, give a long good whistle, then hastily say `be back’ prior to leaving the stand never to be seen again!

A very impressive model when built up with patience and due care and attention from a kit made by Robbe in Grebenhain, Germany is the 1:20 scale 158cm long schooner Valdivia, which from memory was introduced in 2005. Seen here is Robin Harker of England who built one, and seemingly made a nice job of it’s construction.

 

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A nice gaff cutter, the Allora G constructed in Queensland, Australia by Richard Mayes of Maroochydore is often sailed in the company of this charming looking boat built by Ron Fox called Mary Helen.


Richard Mayes with his gaff cutter Allora G

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Ron Fox's Mary Helen

George Surgent owns and runs (with wife Marla) Seaworthy Small Ships in Maryland, USA, a business producing very small model kits aimed at encouraging kids to become interested in putting them together and sailing them. George also built and sails an RC sharpie schooner, Bay Boy which is extremely fast which he sails with the Great Schooner Model Society fleet. George and boat are seen in the photo below, left.

Another sharpie, this one built by Queensland, Australia model sailor, Ron Fox, sits astride two saw horses in the other photo.

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Jacqui Wellington who lived in Auckland is an absolute sweetheart, and one who has built an array of all-wood cruising boat models that are free-sailed. No use asking me for a contact as she has mysteriously gone awol and left no forwarding address. Her boats were beautifully built as can be seen in a couple of photos shown here. There are a lot of talented people around, people with a `feel’ for boats and the skills to model them tremendously well.

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The December Where the winds blow column will be a half year old since its inception. I am not going to dress up as Santa Claus and be photographed sailing, because it is the month of Christmas, but I might go windling all the same just dressed as me! You will however have the Sea Cloud photos that you can look forward to, and Blossom, the old trader I once owned, now owned and sailed by my friend and fellow Ancient Mariner, Bob Walters, and I’ll tell of a boat called the Garnalenschuit from another friend, Hans Staal in the Netherlands, and perhaps feature a Footy or three. (No, I am not a Podiatrist nor do I have a foot fetish! I do have three Footy’s however, two (feet) that I walk on, the other called Sixpence that I sail!) I hope you will join me.

Other Columns by Mark Steele:

Articles by Mark Steele: