Topic: Vic Smeed's River Queen (Read 10801 times)

fpravenscroft · « **Reply #25 on:** May 01, 2020, 06:01:49 pm »

well done
a beautiful job been thinking about having a go at one
regards
peter

coch y bonddu · « **Reply #26 on:** May 01, 2020, 08:18:41 pm »

Godfathers i would love to have your talent to do this one myself.

Dave

frazer heslop · « **Reply #27 on:** May 01, 2020, 10:13:59 pm »

Congratulation and a very nice job you have done on her
cheers

SailorGreg · « **Reply #28 on:** June 28, 2020, 04:08:08 pm »

Well, she's had her maiden voyage! Thanks to a member here (Shipmate60), I was able to visit a nice piece of water and put her into her natural environment. (My home water is weed-ridden, and we are about to be evicted anyway, but that's another, sadder, story).

Off she went, looking splendid (to my eyes at least), and all was well for about 2 minutes. Then the steering stopped working. Hmmm.... I wonder why? Fortunately, she steers very badly in reverse, so although the rudder was locked hard over, I was able to slowly reverse to the bank. When I went to retrieve her, she had a load of water on board. What the....?! I had done a bath test and had not a single drop of leakage, and I certainly hadn't been inundated by any bow wave.

Long story short - put her back in the bath when I got home and immediately saw the problem. I have a split in one of the planks. Initial relief - at least it's not my workmanship.

But annoyance follows - I had noticed a small crack in that plank when I was building and foolishly assumed that epoxying inside and out would stabilise and waterproof the crack.

The boat has been in my study since completion (getting the paint nice and hard prior to polishing out the oversprays), and the weather has been nice and hot, so I guess that opened up the crack. It doesn't look too bad from the inside, but turn the boat over and it becomes obvious. Anyway, here are the pictures.

Should be fairly straightforward to fix. I'll give it a few days to dry out properly then open up the crack and fill it with thickened epoxy. A quick repaint and nobody will be any the wiser. Except you if you are reading this.

Greg

radiojoe · « **Reply #29 on:** June 28, 2020, 04:37:54 pm »

Hi Greg, Obviously you'll fix it but it's always disheartening when you get a leak on the first sailing and surprising with such a small crack, hope your electronics are ok, your motor was still running so I'm guessing it was the rudder servo.

Joe

SailorGreg · « **Reply #30 on:** June 28, 2020, 05:05:52 pm »

Yes, all working fine now. I guess the water got somewhere sensitive to wreck the steering, but now it's all OK I can't be sure exactly what happened. I hope the fault doesn't reappear when there's no water in the boat. Fingers crossed!

Greg

radiojoe · « **Reply #31 on:** June 28, 2020, 06:35:30 pm »

That's good Greg, it's amazing what punishment modern electronics can take, remember when my air boat turned turtle by the time I got home it had dried out and was working fine again.

Joe

ballastanksian · « **Reply #32 on:** June 29, 2020, 10:49:01 am »

Yes, electrics are fickle like that

Wire something in the wrong way around and the magic catches fire, and yet a soggy boat can dry out and recover in a short time.

Hey Greg, I caught up with your build and am impressed with the work you have done on this. Like with Brian B's art in timber, your wood details are lovely and the build did look very good given the challenges

If you still even want to think about planking etc, there are a couple of channels on Youtube covering the building or restoring of wooden vessels.

Acorn to Arabella sees two blokes with no ship building experience working on a yacht. They have issues with steaming and timber quality similar to you, so its a problem in 1/1 scale as well! They are in America, and do describe what they do etc (sometimes a bit too repetitive, but not TV documentry style)

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAiDWnTP0WB1xCp6uuUo0VA

Sampson Boat Co, sees an Englishman 'restoring' a 110 year old cutter. He has had a few years experience in ship building and has sailed extensively so has had fewer issues, but timber has still thrown him some challenges to overcome.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg-_lYeV8hBnDSay7nmphUA

Of the two, I find Sampson less annoying, but both are excellent examples of wooden boat building, and obviously share some challenges that the model boat builder has as well.

Salt and Tar is a bit 'Lifestyle', but initially was much more informative when the hull was being built. They're a lovely couple though, and dedicated to the project.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPTQ5iWOL1F0KLY09JmovfQ