Model Boat Mayhem
The Shipyard ( Dry Dock ): Builds & Questions => Pleasure boats, Sports, Race, Power and Leisure Boats: => Topic started by: supersonic on June 26, 2007, 11:30:41 pm
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HI GUYS
New to the forum. Seems to be alot of interest in the Huntsman. So I thought i would put some pics up of my build. Ending in a You Tube first launch video , which can be found on you tube and search for Huntsman Launch. The OOPSS at the end is purely pilot error , which bent the rudder and reduced the prop size. Your comments welcome.
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Welcome to the forum, Supersonic.
Had a look at your video. She certainly moves well in the water. Very impressive. Well done
Here is the site location, to save typing and searching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1TclYiwI-8
Cheers...Ken
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Very nice
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Well - that takes me back a good few years! We sailed the prototype on Danson Park, near Sidcup, in June 72. Looked just like that. I remember this dippy woman coming up to John Rudd, who was holding the transmitter at the time, and asking "Did you make that?". He seemed to spot something gleaming in her eye and quickly nodded in my direction. "No - he did". Turning to me she said "Cor - you ain't half clever! Will you marry me?" I took one look at the infant in a baby buggy with her and politely declined! Thanks, John.
Are you going to fit the windscreen and mast? It makes a lot of difference to the looks of the model.
FLJ
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She looks great on the water, the nice thing about IC Fairey cruisers is you can use them at sea, the deep vee design copes nicely with a little chop, even jumping the chase boat's wake is no problem. This is useful as I imagine there are fewer and fewer inland venues where you can use them. Did it hit the landing stage at the very end of the video?
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They used to be able to press on a bit.....
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That is a wonderful picture. Here's my old Aerokits model Swordsman, the photo on the right shows it just after landing;
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She looks great on the water, the nice thing about IC Fairey cruisers is you can use them at sea, the deep vee design copes nicely with a little chop, even jumping the chase boat's wake is no problem. This is useful as I imagine there are fewer and fewer inland venues where you can use them. Did it hit the landing stage at the very end of the video?
No, only damage was the bent rudder & prop.I was watching where a multi racer was about to chuck his boat in and grounded on a
stone just under the water.
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Well - that takes me back a good few years! We sailed the prototype on Danson Park, near Sidcup, in June 72. Looked just like that. I remember this dippy woman coming up to John Rudd, who was holding the transmitter at the time, and asking "Did you make that?". He seemed to spot something gleaming in her eye and quickly nodded in my direction. "No - he did". Turning to me she said "Cor - you ain't half clever! Will you marry me?" I took one look at the infant in a baby buggy with her and politely declined! Thanks, John.
Are you going to fit the windscreen and mast? It makes a lot of difference to the looks of the model.
FLJ
Hi FLJ,I am in the process of testing a range of different perspex to get it right . The screen in the kit is rubbish !
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Welcome to the forum, Supersonic.
Had a look at your video. She certainly moves well in the water. Very impressive. Well done
Here is the site location, to save typing and searching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1TclYiwI-8
Thanks Ken,I am a bit thick when it comes to computers
Cheers...Ken
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Hi Supersonic
Wecome to the forum
That is a nice looking boat in and out of the water. Where do you run it? I know some places are a bit touchy regarding IC boats
The other Brian
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Hi Supersonic
Wecome to the forum
That is a nice looking boat in and out of the water. Where do you run it? I know some places are a bit touchy regarding IC boats
The other Brian
I live in north yorks but have joined the keighley &district model club so Ican sail on keighley tarn, west yorks
we can run ic only on saturday ,mon,wed &friday cos on other days they scare the ducks !!!
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Gents,
This is probably a daft Q, but does anyone know who actually designed the Huntsman?
She's gorgeous.
Any idea where I might get a kit?... or even better, a plan?
Many thanks.
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There you go PMK
http://www.angliamc.fsnet.co.uk/plastic.htm
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Did anyone see those Huntsmans in the James Bond film last night BBC2 "To Russia with love."?
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Did anyone see those Huntsmans in the James Bond film last night BBC2 "To Russia with love."?
I'm being picky here Martin, but what you saw on FRWL last night was a Fairey Huntress, which was the Huntsman's predecessor, a very similar design but most Huntsmen were slightly longer.
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there was a 'real one' in weymouth in 2006, we spotted it whilst at the show- there were a few models too !!!!!
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Where they all Huntress's? 2 of them had different window configuration...
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Sure did.... and recorded that scene.
A couple of pics of the Round Britain 1968
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Where they all Huntress's? 2 of them had different window configuration...
You're right about that Martin, but I was trying to keep it simple. A few boats were involved in the FRWL scene, three Huntress, at least one the long cabin version, which explains your query. There were also at least two Huntsman 28s, but I think these were the camera boats, and the Bond boat was a Huntress 23. I wrote a long post some time ago about the entire Huntress/Huntsman/Swordsman/Fantôme series, explaining all the varying lengths and other permutations, and it's a long and complicated story. I thought it was on Mayhem, but perhaps it was on the old MB forum, when you get to my time of life with a bus pass on the horizon, it's all a blur anyway. If it wasn't on here, do you want me to try to find it? Someone asked who the original designer was, and the original Huntress 23 hull was copied from a design by legendary fast boat man Ray Hunt (get the connection?) who designed most of the US Bertram range, and it was adapted by Richard Fairey, son of the founder of Fairey Marine here in the UK. Later Fairey boats were evolutions of the original 23 foot design.
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Peter Twiss was also involved in that scene. I belive he was acting as instructor and also driving one of the boats.
He was also in Sink the Bismark flying a Fairy Swordfish, bit of a change from breaking the Air Speed record in 1956 !!!!!
Richard
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If you look at picture "groupe" you can tell the differenceby the bow shape as well
fredy
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In the group picture 009 & 808 are Huntsman 28's and 707 is a 31.
Richard
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The Fairey Boat Company story is a long and honourable one but I only know about from the venerable Precedent kits.
If you could dig up that post about the various Faiery boats, that would be great.
What do we think of the free plans in this months (August 2007) Model Boats Magazine?
GTM also do a kit of the Swordsman - http://www.georgeturnermodels.com/index.php?page=shopping&shop_cat_id=9
.... must build one one day..... it's a sort of "right of passafe" for model boaters!
Martin.
PS. Still haven't seen a true scale one yet... unless some knows better!
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The Fairey Boat Company story is a long and honourable one but I only know about from the venerable Precedent kits.
If you could dig up that post about the various Faiery boats, that would be great.
I'll see if I can dig it out, give me a day or so. All the Fairey boats were a delight to drive, so responsive you barely had to breathe on the helm to turn them. In their heyday I was working for Lotus, and one company in the Group was Moonraker Power Yachts. We made Moonraker 35s (obviously), Marauders, Mysteres and several others, good boats all of them, but not in the Huntsman/Swordsman class when it came to handling. We quite often took Fairey boats in part exchange, usually from someone whose family had outgrown it and needed something more capacious. Everyone wanted to 'test' the trade-in, it was like getting into a decent sports car after being used to something lumpen like an Astra or Escort. Happy days, just about the only sailing I do these days in in cross-Channel ferries.
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Someone asked who the original designer was,
Yeah, that was me. And I owe you a beer. You obviously know your way the Hunt/Fairey scene. (How did you get to KNOW all that stuff anyhow?). Heap thanks for the fascinating snippet. Though, I shan't pester you into looking thru the proverbial haystack, but if you ever find your long and complicated article again, I for one would love a looky-see.
Thing is though, I guess I didn't make it very clear. When I asked who designed that baby I wasn't thinking of the full-size job -- I wanted to know who designed the model version.
Boy, do I feel a berk now that I know the answer.
The man is a genius.
The Huntsman, and all it's variations, truly is a cracker. Right up there alongside Seaqueen.
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The Fairey Boat Company story is a long and honourable one but I only know about from the venerable Precedent kits.
If you could dig up that post about the various Faiery boats, that would be great.
I’m rather regretting making the offer that Martin picked up, a brief history of Fairey fast cruisers. I found an old file on the Fairey family of fast cruisers alright, but it was a 4000 word magazine article that I wrote almost 20 years ago for a full-size boat magazine (in MS DOS on a floppy no less), and what you’re getting here is a very brief summary.
As I said, the original 23’ Huntress was developed by Richard Fairey from an innovative design by famed US designer Ray Hunt. In the late 50s, most fast boats of this type had a deadrise or vee angle of about 15° amidships, reducing to 5° or so at the transom, but Hunt’s designs for Bertram Boats had an angle of about 20° that was constant for most of the length. This meant that the whole bottom remained immersed as speeds rose, which reduced slamming and made for a more comfortable ride. Fairey appreciated all this, and with Hunt’s blessing, incorporated the feature into his Huntress, little knowing then what the future would hold. The Huntress was a great success and about 240 were built, the majority 23’ like the Bond boat in the film, though there were also 25, 26 & 27 foot versions. Another factor in the boat’s success was the hull construction, they were hot moulded from multiple laminations of Agba veneer, a wood similar to mahogany. The pre-cut lengths were glued and stapled over a male mould, enclosed in a vacuum bag, and then wheeled into a steam heated autoclave which baked the whole thing, to result in a hull that was stronger and much lighter than anything that could be achieved with fibreglass in those days. This was of course the main reason the the boat’s great success, light weight and a strong hull that could be driven hard through choppy seas. To build on their success, a few years later, Fairey decided to make something larger with wider appeal, and this is where long time Fairey Chief Designer Alan Burnard appears, he scaled up the Huntress design in every direction to come up with his classic Huntsman 28, which had twin engines whereas most Huntresses only had one. Having rather bluff bows, the Huntsman 28 was a little wet and uncomfortable in heavy seas, so Alan Burnard designed the Huntsman 31’ which as well as being longer had a more rakish bow profile with rather more flared sides at the sharp end, and I think this was launched around 1968. There were two basic versions, one with a large open cockpit, and the majority with a smaller cockpit and an aft cabin. The design was enlarged again to produce the 33’ Swordsman and later a small number of Super Swordsmen, which were 38’ and 42’ long, and again there were open cockpit and aft cabin versions. All the boats up to this point had been hot moulded in Agba veneer, but although producing excellent results, this was a costly process, and Fairey wanted to move into GRP. They did this with the Spearfish and its military version the Spear, and the original mould for these was made over a standard Huntsman 31 wood hull. The Spearfish seems to be missing from my Fairey brochure collection, but I think all of them were built with open cockpits, and wanting something similar with an aft cabin, they used a modified version of the same fibreglass hull for the Fantôme, which also had a moulded deck and cabin, though from a distance it looked very similar to the all-wood Huntsman 31’. Although some were better proportioned than others, all these boats were very attractive, and their performance set new standards. I also found one or two old pricelists, and a boat similar to 007’s had a list price of just under £4000 in 1961, a Huntsman 28 with twin diesels would have cost about £6000 in the same year, ten years later a standard Huntsman 31 was about £12000. I usually get paid for commissions like this, so cheque’s in the post is it Martin?
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Hi PMK,
Have a look Google images under Fairey hunysman , All you need to know on there, and pics of the original wood hull builds
Dave
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Kayem what a CRACKING post ! Very very interesting and informative . Unfortunately I cannot get Martins wallet open from here but instead you will have to accept MY thanks for posting that .
Shane (Very impressed)
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Hi All
I can supply a grp hull and plans for the 28ft Huntsman @ 42" long.
Regards Rob.
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Hi guys.....at our club ( watt tyler , basildon ) there is a power boat museum , and within said museum is a fairy huntress , supposedly the one from the james bond film . complete with oil drums
regards.....bob.