The Helmsman. The newsletter of the Confederation Marine Modellers Volume 7 Number 10 December 2013

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1 The Helmsman The newsletter of the Confederation Marine Modellers Volume 7 Number 10 In this issue: - The Word from the President - Recent events Annual Drilling Rig Museum Open House, Canadian Drilling Rig Museum, - Upcoming events - Nautical Lore the bombing of North America - Meeting notes, December - Member s models Peter s marker buoy tender - 55 Do s and Don ts for enjoyable modelling, Part 2. This is the last message from me for 2013, and it is hard for me to understand where the time has gone this year. It has been a busy year for your Executive and the volunteers who all band together to organize and run the events that we have all enjoyed this year. I d like to publically thank them all, and thank the Club members for the support that they have shown at the events. I d like to pass on my best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of our Club members, current and past, and a wish for good fortune and good health in I d also like to pass on my sympathy and regrets for those who are not enjoying the kind of health and lifestyle that many of us take for granted. I have found myself caught up in a lot of things outside of the club these past few months that has not allowed me the time to call some of those people that I would have liked to, and really should have, and take a few moments to speak with them and provide them with a small distraction perhaps, from their troubles. Perhaps each of us could take 5 minutes this Christmas Season and call someone you know, whether in our club or not. The time you spend with them could possibly be a Christmas gift much greater than any of us could ever imagine. A very Merry Christmas to all of you, and in the words of Tiny Tim, God bless us, every one Steve Your President Please be aware that there will be no newsletters issued in January and February. Catch up on all the news in the March newsletter. Confederation Marine Modellers Helmsman 1

2 A full list of events hosted by all clubs participating in the GLMBA will be found at: January s meeting on Tuesday 14th January will be a Swap meet. So bring in your unwanted and unneeded items and pass them on to someone who can use them. You will be responsible for what you can sell, if you want to donate proceeds to the club we will accept them. Friday to Sunday, 24 th to 26 th January 2014, Hamilton Wood Show, Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. Friday to Monday, 14 th to 17 th February, Central Ontario Boat Show, Careport Centre. Hamilton. This month was the convivial Christmas dinner and awards night. Fred received the Dave Locke Memorial Trophy for his contributions towards making the club successful in Peter was awarded the Footy Trophy in recognition of his dominance in our Footy Race Day held this fall. The trophy itself is certainly in keeping with the size and weight of the Footys in our sailing fleet, as compared to the Solings and Fairwinds, etc. In other words, a diminutive trophy for a diminutive class. Pictures and sketch by Peter. The pictures you see above are of Peter s innovative little boat which can, under radio control, place and retrieve a marker buoy, such as would be used in sailboat races. The pictures show the sequence of placing the marker in position. The left picture shows the marker sitting on the deck of the boat. Attached to the bottom end of the marker buoy is a length of chain, and that is attached to a line which is paid out from the shore as the boat moves away. The boat also carries with it a weight consisting of a 1 lb. barbell & carabineer which the chain passes through. Once the boat reaches the position assigned to the marker, the shore party stops paying out the line, and the marker is pulled off the deck of the boat. The middle picture shows the line tightening and the marker buoy being dragged off. Once the marker has fallen off the boat, the weight of the chain keeps it upright. The barbell weight slides down the chain and line and rests on the pond bottom, keeping the marker in position, as shown in the right picture. There is another weight on the line in the water close to the dock, and the line itself is attached to the dock. This weight helps keep the line close to the pond bottom. See the sketch on the following page. You can see the whole process in action at: The boat itself is 24 long, 9 beam with a draft of 2. The boat is constructed from 3mm door skin sheet with framing of 3/16 spruce. It is twin screw and powered by two 550 motors, gell cell batteries and an Electronize speed control. When loaded the boat displaces 8 lb. 14 oz. When it is time to retrieve the markers, more ingenuity comes into play. A retrieval clamp is Confederation Marine Modellers Helmsman 2

3 attached to the deck of the boat. The retrieval clamp is shown here, a v-clamp with two coiled wire guides. At the same time a removable guide is mounted at the bow end. The pondside weight and line is pulled up on to the side of the pond, and the line inserted into the clamp and the guides on the boat. The boat motors out to the marker with the line passing through the clamp (from left to right in the photo.) With the line held tight at the pondside, as the boat approaches the marker it pulls the weight up from the pond bottom, until it is tight against the clamp and the boat cannot move any further. When the boat is reversed, the v- clamp locks around the line and prevents the weight from falling back to the pond bottom. The boat then is directed back to the pondside where the marker and weight can be retrieved. The marker shown in the pictures is a length of The v-clamp mounted on the deck of the boat. A close-up view of the boat with marker loaded, showing chain and weight. yellow pool noodle, with a piece of ¾ Flowtemp pipe inserted into the bottom. The chain is inserted into the bottom of the pipe, and held in place by a nut and bolt. The boat has been used to place markers over 150 feet from the shore. Confederation Marine Modellers Helmsman 3

4 September 9, The I-25 class Japanese submarine was cruising in an easterly direction raising its periscope occasionally as it neared the United States Coastline. Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor less than a year ago and the Captain of the attack submarine knew that Americans were watching their coast line for ships and aircraft that might attack the USA. Dawn was approaching; the first rays of the sun were flickering off the periscopes lens. Their mission; attack the west coast with incendiary bombs in hopes of starting a devastating forest fire. If this test run were successful, Japan had hopes of using their huge submarine fleet to attack the eastern end of the Panama Canal to slow down shipping from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Japanese Navy had a large number of I-400 submarines under construction. Each capable of carrying three aircraft. Pilot Chief Warrant Officer Nobuo Fujita and his crewman Petty Officer Shoji Okuda were making last minute checks of their charts making sure they matched those of the submarine's navigator. The "Glen" was launched via catapult from an I-25 class Japanese submarine Nebraska forestry student Keith V. Johnson was on duty atop a forest fire lookout tower between Gold's Beach and Brookings, Oregon. Keith had memorized the silhouettes of Japanese long distance bombers and those of our own aircraft. He felt confident that he could spot and identify friend or foe almost immediately. It was cold on the coast this September morning, and quiet. The residents of the area were still in bed or preparing to head for work. Lumber was a large part of the industry in Brookings, just a few miles north of the California/Oregon state lines. Back aboard the submarine the Captain's voice boomed over the PA system, "Prepare to surface, aircrew report to your stations, wait for the open hatch signal". During training runs several subs were lost when hangar doors were opened too soon and sea water rushed into the hangars and sank the boat with all hands lost. You could hear the change of sound as the bow of the I-25 broke from the depths, nosed over for its run on the surface. A loud bell signalled the "All Clear." The crew assigned to the single engine Yokosuki E14Ys float equipped observation and light attack aircraft sprang into action. They rolled the plane out its hangar built next to the conning tower. The wings and tail were unfolded, and two 176 pound incendiary bombs were attached to the hard points under the wings. This was a small two passenger float plane with a nine cylinder 340 hp radial engine. It was full daylight when the Captain ordered the aircraft to be placed on the catapult. Warrant Officer Fujita started the engine, let it warm up, and checked the magnetos and oil pressure. There was a slight breeze blowing and the seas were calm; a perfect day to attack the United States of America. When the gauges were in the green the pilot signalled and the catapult launched the aircraft. After a short climb to altitude the pilot turned on a heading for the Oregon coast. Johnson was sweeping the horizon but could see nothing, and he went back to his duties as a forestry agent which was searching for any signs of a forest fire. The morning moved on. Every few minutes he would scan low, medium and high but nothing caught his eye. The small Japanese float plane had climbed to several thousand feet of altitude for better visibility and to get above the coastal fog. The pilot had calculated land fall in a few minutes and right on schedule he could see the breakers flashing white as they hit the Oregon shores. Johnson was about to put his binoculars down when something flashed in the sun just above the fog bank. It was unusual because in the past all air traffic had been flying up and down the coast, not aiming into the coast. The pilot of the aircraft checked his course and alerted his observer to be on the lookout for a fire Confederation Marine Modellers Helmsman 4

5 tower which was on the edge of the wooded area where they were supposed to drop their bombs. These airplanes carried very little fuel and all flights were in and out without any loitering. The plane reached the shore line and the pilot made a course correction 20 degrees to the north. The huge trees were easy to spot and certainly easy to hit with the bombs. The fog was very wispy by this time. The submarine-launched Glen carried two incendiary 168 pound bombs and a crew of two. Johnson watched in awe as the small floatplane with a red meat ball on the wings flew overhead, the plane was not a bomber and there was no way that it could have flown across the Pacific, Johnson could not understand what was happening. He locked onto the plane and followed it as it headed inland. The pilot activated the release locks so that when he could trigger the bombs they would release. His instructions were simple, fly at 500 feet, drop the bombs into the trees and circle once to see if they had started any fires and then head back to the submarine. Johnson could see the two bombs under the wing of the plane and knew that they would be dropped. He grabbed his communications radio and called the Forest Fire Headquarters informing them of what he was watching unfold. The bombs tumbled from the small seaplane and hit the forests, the pilot circled once and spotted fire around the impact point. He executed a 180 degree turn and headed back to the submarine. There was no air activity, the skies were clear. The small float plane lined up with the surfaced submarine and landed gently on the ocean, then taxied to the sub. A long boom swung out from the stern. His crewman caught the cable and hooked it into the pickup attached to the roll over cage between the cockpits. The plane was swung onto the deck. The plane's crew folded the wings and tail, pushed it into its hangar and secured the water tight doors. The I-25 submerged and headed back to Japan. This event, which caused no damage, marked the only time during World War II that an enemy plane had dropped bombs on the United States mainland. What the Japanese didn't count on was coastal fog, mist and heavy doses of rain made the forests so wet they simply would not catch fire. Fifty years later the Japanese pilot, who survived the war, would return to Oregon to help dedicate a historical plaque at the exact spot where his two bombs had impacted. The elderly pilot then donated his ceremonial sword as a gesture of peace and closure of the bombing of Oregon in Information from carsonj.com A model of the I-25 by Paul Helfrich, as shown on Confederation Marine Modellers Helmsman 5

6 Pictures by Gary. An eclectic mix of entertainments seemed to be the substance of the show. Confederation Marine Modellers Helmsman 6

7 Above, our happy band of participants; left, Morley s model of the USS Constitution and below, Doug s model of Myrtle Corey, a late 19 th century river towboat. Confederation Marine Modellers Helmsman 7

8 7. DO wear safety goggles when doing any kind of sanding, especially with power tools. Wear old clothes and clean up sanding residue soon after finishing before the tiny dust particles settle into greasy surfaces where they can become quickly encrusted. 8. DO take your time to figure out any process that has you temporarily befuddled or confused. This goes for everything from reading a model plan to carving a compound curve into a bulkhead former. This is acutely important in working on new, unfamiliar types of techniques. Be patient- think about how best to accomplish what has to be done and the end result will usually work out well. 9. DON'T let a modelling process frustrate you. Often you can work yourself into a seemingly dead-end that threatens the entire model. When this happens stop immediately. Put the model aside and do something else for a while. Modelling is supposed to be fun so make it just that; when you hit a snag think about it awhile and by not rushing you will usually come up with a satisfactory solution. 10. DO attempt to build only that model that you feel your skills can safely handle. Nelson's VICTORY is majestic in every sense, but hardly an ideal first time choice for a beginning modeller. 11. DON T leave any water sloshing around in the bilge of a model after you have had a fun day of sailing. Water is corrosive. It swells wood, rusts metal and emits moisture that doesn't do any part of a model hull any good at all. A rubber syringe is the best handpump available and has the capability of getting water out of tiny inaccessible corners. 12. DO take an adequate, easily portable, toolbox on boating excursions. Basic tools screwdriver, pliers, spare parts, rags, extra glue and fuel for basic musts that will let you correct any minor lakeside problem and still get a good day's run out of your model. 13. DON'T work haphazardly. Plan ahead for each successive step and you will find the project proceeds much more smoothly than if you have to backtrack constantly to perform some task you didn't anticipate. Take your time. 14. DO have in your tool kit a rescue device that will permit you to retrieve a model that become snagged in reeds, rocks or other water traps. This is vital if you are operating in anything over waist deep water. Even muddy bottomed shallow ponds could prove dangerous to the unwary. A simple easy-to-make rescue device is an old tennis ball firmly attached to 50-to-100 feet of strong nylon cord or fishing line. Throwing the ball over or beyond the model will sooner or later get the attaching cord over some stout part of the model's superstructure and allow you to pull it free without having to get yourself wet. 15. DON'T operate models near the ocean beach surf for combers have much more destructive suction than you might imagine. A one foot wave, breaking over a model can literally destroy it just through the force of impact. 16. DO only operate models in ponds, lakes or public water areas that permit model boating. Noisy, high performance models can be irritating to others who do not share your fascination with model boating. The Bottom Line If you see any obvious errors or omissions, or have any items suitable for inclusion in future newsletters, or even an idea for something you'd like to see included, give Roy Cheers a call at or cmmeditor@yahoo.com If you miss one of the newsletters, remember that you can always find approximately one year s newsletters at Confederation Marine Modellers Helmsman 8