I have now completed the final tests before launching and everything works well. I will do a small update soon because the crane still cannot clear the stern railings. The solution is to reduce the size of the hook on the crane. It does look rather big.😀 I have tried again to load a video of the wiring. We will see.

Having recently posted the other two videos I made to pass the time when the UK was first locked down due to the pandemic I thought I would post the third and final short video I made at the time.

This video covers the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from the beaches of Dunkirk in Northern France in 1940 by the armada of ships and little boats that went to their rescue.

The amazing tenacity of the British people in war torn Britain in 1940. Without their rescue the outcome of World War II could have been dramatically different.

Greg 👍

During the first Lockdown I made the video about my N gauge railway layout which I put on the forum this morning. Whilst searching through my hard disc I found some others I had made at the same time. This is one of them.

Having previously been a fireman I have a great interest in the history of the service from it's beginnings and particularly the men and woman from the NFS and AFS who fought fires and completed rescues throughout the Blitz of World War II from the 7th September 1940 to the 11th May 1941 and beyond. When there was an air raid these men and women stayed above ground to fight the subsequent fires and make rescues from collapsed buildings when many other people took cover below.

This short video apart from being an exercise for me in making YouTube videos is also my tribute to those men and women.

NFS - National Fire Service
AFS - Auxiliary Fire Service

Greg 👍

Having completed my layout depicting the preparations for D-Day in 1944 along came the pandemic. So as a Lockdown project I decided to make some short videos to put on YouTube. As I had not produced any videos before I wanted to see how easy or not it was to make and upload on YouTube.

As I recently posted a collection of photographs of my N gauge shelf layout I decided to add the video.

Greg 👍

Video of my first pond outing with orca

Read Grahams blog here :-
https://model-boats.com/blogs/111166

Quote from blog :-
"The paddling action is produced with a combination of mechanics and software control. A few changes were made to the software to improve the ability to steer. There is still more to be done to improve this. If you watch carefully at 0:35 seconds in the video, you can see the rudder compensating for the paddle stroke to help keep Katie moving in a straight line."

"Katie the Kayaker" was the inspiration and result many hours of work and head scratching by designer/creator and modelmaker Graham Royle who is a member of the Buxton Model Boat Club.

Grahams full blog of his "RC Kayak" project can be found here -
https://model-boats.com/blogs/111166?...
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Here is Gaham`s latest account of the - "Maiden Voyage"

Before the maiden (!) voyage, a quick head 'transplant' !! I'd like to introduce 'Katie the Kayaker' 😂🤣

It was with some trepidation that Katie was carefully launched onto the Buxton lake. An ideal day last weekend with very little wind. I knew she would float, but would she move, and be controllable? Well the answer is yes - sort of 🤔

Thanks to Philcaretaker for the video clip.

She managed to paddle out, turn and paddle back, which was a great start. At least she didn't need rescuing. Shame she wouldn't keep hold of the paddle!

The paddle blades are not feathered at the right angle. The starboard blade is at the wrong angle and is hitting the water causing the kayak to rock excessively from side to side.

Once back on dry land, the kayak was checked inside for water. There was just a drop but nothing to worry about, which was also a relief.

So, overall it was reasonably successful, but several teething problems to be resolved before the next outing.👍

January 2023 - Weather being kind for now and the end of the month saw a great selection of models out on the lake _ but not without incedents !.
NOTE :- Look out for the collision !! (around 0.30 seconds into the video). - thankfully no major damage. And the rescue right at the end !.

Although the Moonbeam was a classic looking yacht, it was certainly over canvas. Therefore I decided to re-rig it with a Nottingham J class second set of sails. It seems well balanced and still looks like a classic yacht. The video is from its first sail.

Got some Stanchions for my scratch build Andrea Gail so did a litte video on one of the Stanchions.

I know this is not one of my boats, but belongs to one of our club members. It is a 1/48 scale model of a "whaleback" freighter. The real George Washburn was built in 1885 had a length of 320 feet. What is unique about this is it had a almost tubular cross-section hull. Many times I heard visitors call it a submarine.

Jim's model includes horn sound, lights, homemade smoke generator and a ballast fill/empty system to reduce transportation weight. Video Link (this is not on YouTube, you have to copy this link to your browser to see the video): http://ssmbc-fl.org/Videos/Video-03-30-2014-01.mp4 (😮The link icon below WILL NOT WORK!😮)

I though some of you might enjoy this wonderful scratch built model!

Lew

Managed to capture some video of Brian Clewes' live steam TID tug on the lake this Wednesday 19 October. First chance for a proper sail and a bit more ballast needed.