Hey Grendel dear fellow, wonderful, perfect, brilliant.... You can tell how utterly excited I really am over your lovely post.
Yes you are quite correct Water Rail is indeed Delight VII, she was built by Herbert in 1932, 12 of the class were built. He did the class in odd and even numbers, where there were only internal design changes to the accommodation layouts.
All 12 of the class were originally built at 24' LOA, 8'6" Beam, and 2' Draft. Following on from post war Herbert put in a number of changes to hulls of all his light class fleets, though I believe that Water Rails extension to 27' was made after she went into private ownership... Pretty sure that's the case, as I see no records of such an expansion by Herbert, his Ring, Dancing and Queen of light classes had the odd 6" to 1' increase, but nothing more discussing way back with his Daughter and Herbert Grandson, when I originally laid down plans for model kits, but huge thanks as any pics of external detail all about the hull, the midship run down several of the cockpit would be excellent. If you could get a few of the cabin internals for this model, would be great, huge thanks.
Its rather sad I feel of Water Rail name change, but that had to go in place through an agreement with the owners taking her from Herbert, Woods did not want her name as Delight VII going about in case she fell into bad hands and I'll repair, bad for his reputation.
The only shame of Water Rail is the fact that her fwd topside cabin sides are painted white, when of course her original was lovely varnished Mahogany.. When I spoke with the then owner at Horning a while back, I did state that part would have been lovely to see returned.
Its also of interest that both Spark, Queen and Prince (debatable), have all retained their original names with zero redress from Woods yard. In fact Queen sports the Woods bow pennant and star.. Flash sold recently as you know to private, retains the star on her bows... All good stuff.
In relation to the finish of the Delight model I am making for a chap who has two of our other light class kits, he wanted it in the same scale, understandable of course, but such presents a little extra work on my part having her detailed but also with radio gear installed. My personal preference would have been to raise her to 1:12 scale, which eases things and period model furniture etc for the cabins is all readily available through hobbies shops etc... I have one last chance to convince him this week as the drawings go off to the printers on Wed,....
Areas like hand grab rails, extra rubbing strakes, and even the cockpit to cabin doors, single, to double and back again, even opening into or from the cockpit were constant changes by Herbert, so from the perspective of this model, whatever scale, I am aiming to do the finer details as was on commission in 1930/31....Even the keel/hogg/rudder designs altered, in particular post WWII after Herbert refloated the fleet from Hickling broad and rebuilt them all, as you'll probably be aware with all your good fine research.
I spoke with the guys of Broad Ambition way back, seeing their model, all great stuff.
Back onto your voyage, I recently sent an email to the new owners of little Water Rail, giving them a heads up of the scale model, but typical of this sad pandemic, I only received a bog standard reply, automated email stating "thank you for you enquiry,...." with all information of the fact that they are not hiring her out presently,... I therefore politely replied as to the content of my email and not relating to hiring the old lady... Interesting that your setting off ahoy on board her shortly...
Safe and enjoyable trip dear fellow, just like going back in time it will be, give Salhouse, Malthouse and Hickling Broads our love please, we badly miss the place...
Do please keep in touch and many thanks for the kind offer of photos and measurements.
Safe voyage dear fellow.
Kind regards
Paul
Author
Topic: Minimal Radio Controlled Cabin Cruiser Workable Size - Question (Read 7630 times)