Here is a brief history of the vessel that I am building.

St. Roch (ship)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

RCMPV St. Roch is a Royal Canadian Mounted Police schooner, the first ship to completely circumnavigate North America, and the second vessel to transit the Northwest Passage. She was the first ship to complete the Northwest Passage in the direction west to east (Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean), going the same route that Amundsen on the sailing vessel Gjøa went east to west, 38 years earlier.

Sixteen years after being launched, St. Roch was refitted at Dartmouth, N.S. in preparation for her 1944 voyage. A much larger deckhouse was constructed with individual cabins for the crew, the 150 hp diesel engine was replaced with a 300 hp. diesel, and there were other, lesser, upgrades.
The ship was most often captained by Henry Larsen.

The ship is located at the Vancouver Maritime Museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and is open to the public for scheduled visits.

There is a lot more history on internet.

------------------------------------

The vessel attracted my attention about 40 years ago at the RCMP HQ in Montreal, Québec Canada. I have retired from the force in 2010.
In 1985, I accquired the plan of the vessel from Parks Canada or Public Archives Canada in Ottawa. I received 21 sheets of blueprint. The size of the vessel on the plan was about 24 inches and I enlarged it to 45 inches. The size was the suggestion of RC boat owner at the pond where I go with my "1949 Chris-Craft 19' racing runabout". The vessel was built in 1928 as a schooner, there was a restoration in 1930 and it was painted white and grey and a major restoration in 1944 as a ketch to the original color. When I looked at many pictures, I had a hard time to have the right color scheme. The references are from a book "Arctic workhorse The RCMP Schooner St-Roch" written by James P. DELGADO.

I really started in June 2012 planning the size and making the building material from scratch. As per the building material, I used either plywood or LINDEN that is resawn to nominal size required for planking or else.

The purpose of the blog is to share my passion with other boat builders and learn from otherssss.

I intend to have a fully RC functionnal model. A hurdle that I will have is the ballast of around 20 pounds to have the waterline at the right level. The ballast will be in or outside is the question. Any suggestion.