A casual mention of my wish to start building a replica of my first ever r/c model boat on another Mayhem thread brought an interesting response from ChrisF who is a keen builder of Fairey Marine model boats - and like myself he prefers making them to a 1/12 scale.
My Aerokits Swordsman was 1/12 scale, and it makes a nice size model - not too big and not too small.
I used to enjoy running my Swordsman back in the late '60s with a friend who also had a 1/12 scale Swordsman, but he enjoyed showing-of his professional cabinet making skills and so he used the P.Connolly plans to make his beautiful example from, and fortunately these Model Maker plans also produced a 1/12 scale model.
Unfortunately, the Swordsman is one of the few Aerokits models that has not been re-kitted, but I was able to purchase a copy set of the Aerokits Swordsman plans from eBay, and these also came with a set of drawn templates for the bulkheads, which is quite handy as these shapes are not shown on the kit plans and so they have saved me a lot of time by not having to develop the shapes myself.
The P.Connolly plans are also still available too, so anyone wanting to build a 1/12 scale Swordsman has a choice of plan to build one from.
The main difference between these two models is that the Aerokits built model has lift-off cabin tops, whereas the P.Connolly design has a complete lift-off superstructure making very easy access to anything inside the hull (such as motors, speed controller, batteries etc).
I actually raced my Swordsman in the off-shore series back then using a Merco 61 twin plug glow motor where the model proved it self to be totally reliable and water-tight too. Unfortunately my friends Swordsman was not suitable for off-shore running as any water washing across the decks would easily find its way into the hull due to the complete lift-off superstructure - so mine was the better all weather performer, although running them on our own waters at home (mainly on the River Avon and Kennet and Avon Canal) was never a problem for either model.
Hopefully I will get started on this model very soon as I am really looking forward to owning and running another 1/12 scale Swordsman again.