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RNZAF W1, a 64ft BPBC High Speed Launch
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36" Scratch built model of RNZAF W1, a British Power Boat 64ft HSL. Has twin brushless motors, twin ESCs, twin sound units, water cooling pump, full lighting and r/c switches for lights and pump. Took approx 5 yrs to build on and off. hull is strip planked and f/glassed, deck is ply, wheel house is balsa. (Motor: TGY 28/45 2000KV IN-RUNNER) (ESC: CHINA) (5/10)
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1/24 (33") I purchased a set of plans from Sarik.
MOTAT Auckland, (museum of transport and technology) was an example of council interference as because they were funding a percentage of it, they were dictating what was happening. The volunteer aircraft engineers wanted to run up the engines on the Lancaster there, (ex French Navy,- last operational Lancaster) to keep oil circulating and keep them from seizing but the council would not let them (female mayor at the time) due to 'insurance reasons'. They had all fire gear in place but still weren't allowed.
The Lancaster was flown to NZ in 1966 (from memory) and due to lack of funding by council, sat outside for about 30 yrs under the gum trees, deteriorating. Could have been a flying example if not for that. Same thing with the Sunderland and Solent (only complete Solent in the world) Took about 30 yrs to get them under cover. Council doesn't mind spending millions on music in parks, art displays, statues and social engineering (none of their business) but when it comes to heritage stuff, they don't want to know. All about making people happy and keeping their jobs.
JB
Whilst I agree in general with your comments, I tend to think, particularly with the great difficulty in the museum environment with the " Arts graduate " professional curators, that are such a bane to anyone who has any technical background running the show. On balance I would much prefer to keep the original prime movers in place. In particular the Napier sea lion installations must have been an appalling environment to work in, especially in a small boat going quite quickly and it is a pity to lose this part of history, just to enable he boat to be operated in an attempt to bring in some income. If you want to go fast on water, use a modern boat.
I have spent the last six years working in Aerospace Bristol where our industrial heritage has been destroyed by these new people who have no idea what engineering is about and their attempts to enthuse young people in education to join the profession, makes us old ones cringe.
They also have a great ability to spend money, on things that are not needed. In our case they have spent £2.5 million we did not have, mainly on their salaries. It looks like the Covid virus will finish us off and we will loose all the exhibits that I have had a working history with and the active and knowledgeable volunteers are too old to start again.
We had some old Jet "warbirds" here for a while - at Cape Town airport - called Thunder City - a 20 minute ride in a Lightning would cost you about R40,000 (- 10k gbp at the time) - they did not make a profit since the lightning guzzles - 640 litres /minute - max duration being about 30 minutes. ( They have TWO Rolls Royce Avons like the ones fitted to the Hawker Hunters one above the other) Vampire T11s & Hunter T7s were much cheaper to fly in. Running 3 Packard v12's would be even more expensive.
A friend has two Miami Crashboats from WW2 - without fitting Diesels he would never be able to afford to run them - he also has two Ford Class SDB's originally fitted with V16 Paxman Diesels - cost far too much to run as the Paxmans were two strokes - when fitted with the same size Detroit Diesels the fuel consumption almost halved - with not much power loss. He built an 82' steel hulled excursion boat based on the 63' Miami Hull - powered that with two Detroit V16's which at a lot less than half throttle push it along at about +-18 knots - estimated top speed around 30 knots when he has the chance to fit the right props & driveshafts - (perhaps this year as things are quiet) - at about 1/4 the consumption of the Packards - even then the fuel is measured in tons - not litres or gallons.......
So the only way to fit original engines would be to accept that the boat would have to be placed in a museum and never run - which would be sad indeed.
Money is always the problem and despite leaps forward in engineering techniques and the like you will probably find that the Waverley boiler refurbishment cost more the original ship did - even in updated currency values.........
Simplest thing to do re plan,- is to have them blown up at your local stationary shop (or wherever there is a printer that does AA sheets. What length are you looking at building?
JB
Thanks very much for the drawings I will scale them off and produce some drawings myself, they tend to be on a number of sheets, as my drawing board these days is not very big. The main part will be the frames and positions which are all shown. I shall take a bit of licence with some of the curvature on the sections to simplify the outer surfaces.
I was interested to see on the drawing the complexity of the radio aerial, I wonder what the radio system was in 1938. When I was at Mount Batten (1961) the HF radio ( 1154/1155 ) fitted very old WW2 compared with that used in aircraft of the time. On our training course all we were shown on it was how to switch it on and off, being told that we would never see it in service. Luckily we had a civilian in the workshop who knew something about them and sorted any problems.
Now researching the HSL 100 class, I have found there is a restored one (102 ) at the Portsmouth Naval Base Trust in Portsmouth, so as soon as we have some hotels open in the UK I intend to make a trip down there and get some photographs.
It is evidently an active restoration and some times gives trips, but unfortunately ( in my view ) it has had the 3 Napier Sea Lions taken out and replaced by a pair of modern diesels. I think for historical reasons things should be restored as they were built originally, or at least only done in such a way that the changes can be rectified later. From my recent reading of the history of the prime movers of RAF launches this was a very major problem in all of them, which should not be expunged from exhibits.
When I worked for a living I was responsible for the design of the electrical power generating units for the Rapier missile system, so have quite a lot of experience of problems of i.c. engines in military use.
Brian
I don't think you have to plank the entire thing as I did, as most of the sides and bottom could be sheeted to save work. You could scale this drawing up to any size to suit. I borrowed Vic Smeeds method (same as his MTB plan I built my MTB from) for the ply bow, deck and chine mouldings which worked well, (you can see them in the pics) Give me a yell if you are building one and I can organise some pics etc for you (think I may still have various patterns I can photo copy.)
Regards JB.
After you had encouraged me to get into researching the Royal Air Force marine craft I have come to the conclusion of all the boats it had, in historical terms and ease of build this would be a project I might have a go at, to compliment my fireboat. In many ways the FB although it is a very popular model it was not a significant class of boat and only two were built and as far as I am aware were never used significantly in service.
The HSL 100 Type 1 was the successor to the Type ST 200 that Lawrence of Arabia was significantly involved with and is consequently of more historical of interest to me.
In your notes on your model you say it was scratch built, I wonder if by chance you have any frame drawings of your hull.
JB