September 2013 Newsletter

Transcription

1 What s On.. September: Sunday 1 st Wychwood Forest Fair Thursday 5 th Meeting at Jordon Hill Sunday 8 th Watermead Regatta Sunday 15 th One metre Round 6 Sunday 22 nd Inter-Club at Watermead Sunday 29 th Fiesta Round 7 October: Thursday 3 rd Meeting at Jordon Hill Sunday 6 th Sail & Scale Sunday 20 th One metre Round 7 Sunday 27 th Fiesta Round 8 November: Sunday 3 rd Scale & Sail Thursday 7 th Meeting at Jordon Hill Sunday 10 th Fiesta Round 9 Sunday 17 th IOM Round 8 September 2013 Newsletter Sunday 7 th July Sail & Scale Morning: Another fine day with sunshine and a brisk breeze meant an early start for the August S &S day if you wanted to avoid the car park lottery. After a couple of months of mainly power boats, I have featured Sail in this month s ramblings. First up is Paul s pond yacht, shown at speed making full use of the new set of sails which he has recently completed. Next we have Dave Harrisons Morecombe Bay Prawner. This is a huge model and takes a deal of work just to get it pond side and rigged, but it s worth the all the effort when its seen in its element on the water. I think I have just managed to catch the speed of Dave s boat at full chat. Later in the morning he was forced to reef the sails to steady the ship, most entertaining! Page 1 of 7

2 Not all the yachts were as big, as Dave s Prawn Boat and Paul s pond yacht; as Doug Green s Star Baby and my free sailing footy show. There is a place for all comers on the pond at Hinksey and the all round concrete edge ensures that even free sailors can be recovered, eventually. Another slightly smaller yacht is the Draken K171 brought along by Eric Hoare. It s been a while since Eric has given an outing to this attractive Scale racer, its good to see it again. Ernie Smiths Thames barge I suppose comes under the heading of both power and sail as he puts it, the engine gets me out of trouble at times. The picture shows the barge making good headway under sail. Page 2 of 7

3 Sometimes my efforts to set up a posed picture with more the one boat don t go to plan, only sometimes who am I trying to kid? Here we have four yachts doing their own thing and not paying attention to my instructions, not quite what I had in mind. The J type of Iain Smith is still in its shake down stage, running on a One metre rig. Two new suits of sail are on order, and should be ready to fit in the next couple of weeks. In the last photo, J type and Pond yacht behave themselves after rounding the buoy. That s it, its Watermead next, see you then. Dave... Page 3 of 7

4 Sunday 11 th August Fiesta Round by Paul Izzard The forecast was for light rain then gradually improving, we got bright sun and intermittent cloud; very nice. Though I forgot my funny sun hat. To avoid the car park congestion we arrived early for a 9am start. The wind was up to its usual tricks but we had some good steady blows as well as the whirling around! We were able to lay a triangular course around the extreme three buoys. Apart from some trim adjustments every boat worked well and we had a really good morning; Nine skippers made it to the pond and the competition at the buoys was to say the least very interesting! With such a large fleet, the positions at each race were very variable and the results were not at all obvious at the end of the morning. The final result was: 1 John Cox (23) 6 Roddy Maddox (37) 2 Iain Smith (26) 7 Dave Smith (49) 3 Paul Izzard (34) 8 Nick Panter (66) =3 Eric Hoare (34) =8 Peter Pulford (66) 5 Dick Skinner (36) Sunday 18 th August IOM Inter-Club at Watermead by Mike Robinson The weather was a near-perfect top suit breeze which kept up all morning. On this occasion we were joined by skippers from Three Rivers Club as well as the host Club which made for a large fleet of no less than twenty-one yachts. Page 4 of 7

5 I was joined by Iain, Nick and Peter. Despite the size of the fleet there were very few protests. I managed to stay fairly near the front but there were some very good skippers leading the way for most of the time. Tony Guerrier from Three Rivers Club was nearly always out in front, challenged by Noel Donaldson. However I did on occasions get in the mix. The other Oxford skippers fell by the wayside which was disappointing. 1 Tony Guerrier (11) Three Rivers 2 Noel Donaldson (18) Watermead 3 John Howell (20) Watermead 4 Peter Popham (36) Three Rivers 5 Mike Robinson (45) Oxford 15 Nick Panter (103) Oxford 17= Iain Smith (120) Oxford 21 Peter P-P (167) Oxford Members Projects: THE IMARA PROJECT PART 3 - by Mike Robinson Having sorted out the gear box, I decided that the tug needed something to tow. Looking through a list of back issues of Marine Modelling I found a plan of a Bristol Channel Barge drawn to various scales, so I sent off for the plan which was drawn to 1:50 scale and as my tug was to 1:32 scale I took the drawing to a local printer and got them to enlarge it to the larger scale. The hull was made up from plywood sloping sides and a flat bottom with formers to hold everything together. At a visit to my local Wickes store, I found some good quality 6 mm marine ply and as the sheets were 4ft x 2ft, I was able to build not one but two hulls! Wickes provide an excellent free cutting service so I asked them to cut the sides and bottom to the exact dimensions. The end off cut was large enough to produce the formers so I was ready to start building. The deck was out of 1/16 ply with cut outs for the hatches and the hatch covers were also made with the same material. Next came all the details such as handrails, life belts, dinghies, towing bollards etc. I obtained all these from my favourite supplier, The Model Dockyard in Cornwall who provides an excellent mail order service, usually by return. The outside of the hull was covered with lightweight glass cloth held in place with resin and then sprayed red below the water line and black above. It was at this point that I noticed a note on the drawing that if built to 1:24 scale the total weight of the barge would be 120 lbs. I found this unbelievable so a trial in the bath indicated that I would need only 6 Kg of ballast to achieve the correct water line. In order to keep the ballast contained within the hatches, I bought some zip-up freezer bags and filled them with gravel from the greenhouse and with one bag (2Kg) in each compartment the job was complete. The first trial will hopefully take place at the Watermead Regatta on 8 th September so as they say, watch this space! Page 5 of 7

6 Oxford Model Boat Club. Minutes of the Meeting held on - 1 st August Apologies. No apologies have been received. There were 16 members present. Secretary s report. Members were reminded of the forthcoming Wychwood Forest Fair to be held 1st September this year. Members were asked to provide a working party to help erect the Have a go pool on Friday 30 th August. Response was less than enthusiastic but eventually several members agreed to be present for what will be a couple of hours work. An equally negative response was received for assistance on the day but a hardy few indicated their intention of attending. Doug Green offered to collect the club gazebo which will be erected on Sunday 1 st September, the day of the event. An invitation has been received from Watermead MBC to attend their Clubs open day on 8 th September and which will be run on similar lines to last year s highly successful event. Membership response was apathetic to say the least but several members did state their intention of attending. The third October 2013 is proposed for the George Wrenn Trophy. Members were reminded of forthcoming events for August; it was suggest that the scheduled Fiesta event on Sunday 11 th August should start at instead of This would help to ensure parking places. Treasurers report. The website fees etc for the next two years will be to be paid the Gregg King. There is currently 852 in the current account. Mrs Gilpin has acknowledged the 75 raised from the sale of the late Peter Gilpin s modelling tools etc. This has been donated to Cancer Research. Scale Secretary s report. It is pleasing to see the increasing number of scale boats using the small pond. This gives a lot of pleasure to all including park visitors. There are several models also in the pipeline. The meeting closed at Page 6 of 7

7 Model Boat Kits for Sale: A contact of John Cox has three model kits for sale; each is complete & un-started. Artesania Latina HMS Endeavour Bark 1768 The asking price for this super kit is which is a real bargain as the current price from Cornwall Model Boats is !!! Scale: 1:60 Length: 800mm; Height: 690mm; Width: 175mm Tamiya King George V - scale 1:350 Length 649mm; Beam 90mm Asking price: Tamiya KM Bismark - scale 1:350 Length 717mm Asking Price: Please Contact John or Paul for more details. Page 7 of 7