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[captain_reg]

Plenty of time to fill over Christmas so what better than a retropective write up  I've had this boat, built by my Granddad in about 1997ish languishing in the loft. I've kept one the first one we built 'as was' with minimal sympathetic restoration only. I've modernised what was always my favourite. This left what we always called 'the big boat' sized precisely to fit in the boot of an '93 WV polo. It was scaled from plans taken from a library book, a book that we checked out so often that we were eventually asked if we wanted to buy it. In hindsight I think things must have gone awry in the scaling somehow because the hull doesn't really reflect any prototype I've found. As a spirtited 10 year old with a Graupner catalogue I always had an eye for Pegasus. My granddad on the other hand really was just after a boat that large enough to comfortably work on. This was the 'big boat' immediately after being retrieved from the loft after nearly 20 years untouched.

Having recently got back into the hobby I couldn't resist the opportunity to take it for a sail during a family holiday to Loch Earn. Splendid setting and it was always a boat that went well. A massive 7Ah lead acid battery and two huge low revving motors taken from powered seat adjusters in a Ford scorpio. It was never something I could get rid of but in it current form it wasn't something I would ever regularly take for a sail. The current superstructure was never really taken beyond 'keep the water out' whilst giving a large unobstructed opening. Having visions of 1980's super yachts in my head an idea began to form. One major issue that was key to address was the excessive stern down posture at speed. The hull by its nature has a very prominent bow which I decided to accommodate rather than hide, by going with a 'what if' a 2010's style exporer yacht had been created in the 1980's.

Shortly after arriving back home in September '21 the surgery began. The first step was to remove the rear deck the idea being to lower it, leaving the front half relatively unchanged. The conversion was going to be a seat of the pants as I go affair with only a vague picture in my mind of what I wanted to end up with. Essentially the idea was to end up with a boat that earned the space that it takes up but also retaining as much original as possible.

Almost as soon as I began I made my first mistep. The unsightly 'spray rail' was removed, initially I wanted to just trim it down but ended up taking it flush with the hull. This has caused issues later on as the bow wave likes to ride up quite high but as we'll cover later it can be managed with careful (& realistic(use of the throttle). In hindsight if I could go back in time I would have approached this step differently and left more of the unrealist rail present for its function.


Next step was to rebuild what I had ripped out. The front part intended to be covered by cabin, the rear intended to be a deck. Once this was araldited in place, the whole thing was given a coat of white primer. The idea here was that the rear desk will sit flush and any water that finds it way onto the deck can drain down the edges and will be caught by the 6mm square hatch edging. Drian slots in the hull will allow any water to drain before it finds its way into the hull. That is the idea anyway.

A bit over eager on my part I couldn't wait to get some colour onto the hull. Inspired by reading Stans grand banks build on here I went with a Ford Nordic Blue colour as the antifoul on the lower parts of the hull. I love the colour but as time has gone on I'm not sold on it and haven't ruled out a change. A cheap laser from screwfix proved very helpful and some careful masking with many slots to aide the curve.

[captain_reg]

The picture I had in my mind was a 1980's style Peasus III insipred explorer yacht. Only way to stop myself going around in circles was to commit to cutting wood so I decided to go with a mock up.
With a mock up I was happy with based on a mash up of Pegasus, several 1970's & 1980's Feadships and the yacht Spectre, I ended up with the following made from 6x6mm square lime  and 1mm lime sheets. Why make the sides from this? Won't that be really weak around the windows? Yes but once the glazing is glued in that will reinforce the whole thing, plus the weight saving vs ply will help keep the superstucture light. It only has to last a week or two until the glazing is in, how wrong could it go?  Just wait and sea.

Next was handrails and stairs and then the upper deck.

Bit of a head scratcher how to transfer the stairs location to the upper deck. I cut a piece to match the top step, held it in place with a small piece of doublesided tape. On top of this, two full strips of double sided tape were added such that it stuck firmly to the upper deck. I was then able to cut around this resulting in a perfectly aligned cut out.


A quick glue up later and it was a case of establishing a centre line onto this upper deck via my new favourite laser. A quick trim around the edges to make a happy half way between the desired outline of the upper deck and the imperfect reality of the exisiting hull. The inevitable happened regarding the perilous windows. Oh well, time for a rethink.

Time for some reflection & thought. I liked the idea of the low level panoramic windows but this ran the risk of breaking the illusion of a full depth room because of the deck being quite high in this location. I'd painted it a DIY shade which I called 'go away grey' a sort of off black grey that was intended to mimic a room in shadow. Anyway to distract myself from the inevitable repair I treated myself to a selected of figures from an eBay seller by the name of 'pjprintedmodels' which I was very happy with and had a great time experimenting with painting.


By this point in time it was Christmas 2022 and I found myself stuck in covid prison whilst the rest of the family celebrated, nothing for it than to pass my time thinking about boats  Some tinkering on sketchup and a card template I was ready to tackle the upper superstucture. Time to deviate from the Pagasus outline and add a flying bridge. I went all in and just cut out as much of the original sides as I could.




Time to rectify my mistake with the windows. I decied to go with both what knew and what I really should've gone with from the start and iused 1/16 marine ply. 6x6mm square lime was added around the upper deck to add some strength. The front super structure was built up with balsa, leaving as much hollow as possible and using some triangular balse section for the sides. The eventually proved to be a bit weak and exposed to damage, but this was easily rectified later with some walnut capping as you will see later.



Following extensive lake trials, a GPS tracker and RPM sensors on both prop shafts I decided on the new motors & props. A pair of handed 50mm 3 bladed 'dynamic' Romarin props. I'll save the details for another thread but essentially I managed through trial and error to swap 40mins sailing covering about 2 miles for over 2.5 hours covering over 5 miles on a single charge. The unknown Ford seat motors were swapped for a pair of MFA 540LN so far a combination I'm very happy with. This combination gave me a nice scale 20knots at full throttle, a nice compromise between scale and enjoyment.

[captain_reg]

Time to make a start on the upper cabin and flying bridge. Still just making it up as I go along taking inspiration from various google searches and the fantasitc library of all previous boats available on the Feadship website. I'm walking a bit of a tightrope between wanting to have quite a tall superstructure but also trying to limit the negatives impacts that this will have on stability. I'm just slowly tweaking things and seeing how it affects the overall look and feel of the boat. This is where takng the inspiration from Pagasus III was causing me a bit of headache with the addition of the flying bridge. I wanted to top of the funnels to be quite small but adding the flying bridge sort of forced me to take them higher as it didn't feel right to have the top of the funnels within touching distance of people.


I finally got the opportunity to both have a side by side comparison but also for me it was the first time I'd ever seen a real Pegasus outside of the catalogue. The differences now become quite apparent. It also affirmed my decision to take less inspiration directly from Pegasus and make a more generic 'typical' yacht. I wanted the two to be able to stand side by side and not have mine look like a DIY heres one we made a home knock off. I think I'm going to have issues with the upper cabin and inparticular to two funnels. This is quite a distinctive Pegasus specific feature and not anything I have ever seen on another yacht. I've been considering makng a replacement upper cabin with a central mast/funnel. I also realised I needed to do quite a bit more shaping of the front of the lower cabin which was looking too boxy for my liking.


Deck time! Never planked a deck before. To be scale I think I needed 3mm wide planks and fraction of a mm caulking lines. I did a test piece with 3mm planks and 0.7mm caulking in a darker wood. This looked great albeit a bit chunky however a small test section took me longer than was practical and proved incredibly tricky. In the end I decided to go with 4mm wide Tanganyka planks and omit the caulking. Before gluing down (with superglue), each plank was generouly sanded to round over the edges, I also wasn't precious about tightly packing the planks together. That coupled with randomly spreading the light & dark planks around gave a result I was very happy with. Clealy visible individual planks but a reasonable amount of time and effort. Flipped a coin about having the planks staright fore to aft or as I went with and following the deck around. The centre plank should really have been wider and had each plank notced into it but in the end I think the time saving was worth it although in hindsight I think I should've given it a go. The deck was finished with a run down with wire wool and a wipe down with Tung Oil.


Time to move to the rear deck and get a bit more involved. I could've just planked the deck straight like I did at the front but based on the success I had with that, I had the confidence to go a bit more elaborate. Other than that, pretty much more of the same really. I used a wider central plank but still didn't notch it.


After looking at it for a while I decided I wasn't keen on the height of the front windows. I am still on the fence about changing it to be 3 bigger windows rather than the 6 I have at the moment. Very tedious to do, was it worth it maybe? Think it will pay dividends later when I come to fit wipers.

Handrails! Not many pictures of this, I just didn't have enough hands and had soldering flux everywhere. I bent the top rail to the shape I wanted and then fitted each upright leaning forward at a 23degree angle. This was then silver soldered in situ relying on the length of the uprights and a small puddle of water at the bottom of each one to protect the wooden hull from the heat. That went perfectly without issue no fire or burning  The mid height handrails were the soft soldered in, also in situ. Starting at one end, as a continuous piece. The lower rail was actually done in situ also, but the whole assembly was just pulled out half an inch or so. The rear mid height rails were bent to shape and left over length, this was then just pushed into the balsa side panels.


More decking, this time on the upper deck. Much trickier this time working around the painted balsa side panels. So easy to damage and ended up with me deciding to fit Walnut capping to protect the venerable upper edges. Masking tape was used to protect the paint and then some 5 minute epoxy was used to attach them. I milled a small slot into the ends to cover up the handrails but still allow them to be removeable for paiting.

[captain_reg]

Time to add some deck furniture, a couple of deck cranes and a jetski should make the boat look less bare. They were made from odds and ends of lime, balsa & plastic from scraps and offcuts and just sprayed white to match the hull & cabin. One on the front and on on the back should do. I'd like to add a little motor launch stored on the rear upper deck. I'm tempted to add a bit more detail with winches and cables but looking a the real thing, they do seem to be quite plain, if anything I've already added too much detail to them.






I continued planking deck 2 learning from what I did at the bow. The planks were laid straight front to back, each about 3 inches long with the joins staggered. I varied the colour of the planks for all adjacent ones as much as possible by selecting from different planks, this just made the individual planks stand out a bit better. Bit of fun planking the stairs but this really made a massive improvement from them just being white. I framed around the top of the stairs, leaving rounded corners towards the rear.


The planking worked out from the centreline at the rear, then forward along the sides, finishing up towards the front. I decided to follow the shape of the cabin around, this left a bit of an awkward shape to plank in the corners but nothing a bit of patience couldn't overcome. Can't remember if I mentioned elsewhere but you can also just about see the magnets I embedded into the deck in this image that secure the upper cabin. They were just a set of 4 5mm diameter magnets pushed into drilled hiles in the deck, push flush and then painted over.




Quite happy with how it came out and some hand rails for the stairs to finish it off.


Just one more deck to go... Getting a bit tired of it now so time for a break before finishing off the flying bridge. Can't quite decide what I want to put up there yet so temporarily a coat of brown paint helps it to look a bit more finished from a distance. In fact from more than a few meters away I can't tell the difference between 5 minutes paint and hours of planking! I'm not sure whether to add a couple of seats, a bar or a hut tub.

[captain_reg]

In hindsight maybe a bit ferry like but I felt like something was needed at the top of the 'funnels', just a case of drilling 4 holes into a sacrificial template and soft soldering 3 bent rectangles of wire and using other sacrificial offcuts of wood for spacing.


Wasn't happy with it so had another go but shorter. Just as case of making another one now and painting black. A few offcuts of black heatshink were secured in place to represent various exhausts. Much overkill for a yacht of this size and studying the prototype shows that yacht designers go to great lengths to hide these ugly functional bits. Oh well, I like the look of it so it stays.



I cut up some business card plastic boxes and screwed in place. A carefully positioned hole gives free access to the shaft oilers but prevents any spray from oil that finds its way onto the couplings. Fitted to the bulkhead are two hall effect sensors I'm using to measure motor RPM. A 3mm magnet is glued into a hole drilled into the large diameter portion of the brass splined coupling, opposite the grub screw hole. This then triggers the sensor every time the shaft rotates which sends a pulse to a Arduino which calculates the RPM. This cause invaluable info for trialling and picking a good motor/prop combo. The MFA 540LN motors will spin the 3 blade 40mm props at 4800RPM in the water and unloaded at 6000RPM which seems to result in nice efficient cool running. I'm also planning to use this to alert me if one prop becomes fouled otherwise the only way to tell is noticing the slight reduction in top speed.

[derekwarner]

Those angled visual tube structured deflectors look prototypical of original design 


As you say, used in vessels from smaller craft to giant Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary liners


Derek

[Shipmate60]

She is looking good.


Bob

[captain_reg]

Our club open day was a damp one this year as many were but this was a good test of the deck. I left it sat out most of the day and by the end it was totally soaked. If I was going to have any issues arising from how I had glued or finished the deck then now was going to be the time they appeared. Thakfully everything dried out without any damage so I don't need to worry about it getting wet anymore. This was my first time doing a planked deck like this so it was good to see it stood up as well to abuse as I hoped it would.



Next up was a holiday to Scotland. As I did before I started the conversion I took to boat with us and thankfully everything went well and I got th boat back Spent a good couple of hours sailing around Loch Earn which was a bit more relaxing this time as I've now had a few years to build up confidence that everything is technically sound. Felt like I was taking it miles out but ran into a few signal issues which will need looking at.



Looking at the gps data when got back showed that miles out turned out to be 102 metres, or just a few more than I normally do at the club. Still need to take a look at why the signal strength seemed to drop off so quickly as I wasn't really expecting this.


With the Blackpool boat sow fast approaching it was time to add some more details that have been on the todo list for far too long. I eventually want to get a rib or small boat to sit on the upper deck but for now some sun loungers will make it feel less empty. The handrail on the stairs is something I have been putting off for too long. The boat was never really built with an interior in mind so I had an idea to fake it. I found some stock photos that looked suitable and fitted them in a large curve inside the windows. The windows are made from 0.6ND lighting gel bought from ebay. It's not a perfect effect but from the right angle looks quite good.




Fancied having a go at some light up navigation screen for the bridge. You'll see the print outs in the previous photos. Simply a case of laminating clear 0.5mm acetate, the print out and some 0.5mm plasticard t diffuse the light. I built a light box onto the back to contain the 4 white LEDs. Really pleased with how this case out.

[SteamboatPhil]

That is looking really good, well done its a great job that you have done 

[captain_reg]

I spent a lot of time searching for and trialling decent looking chrme paint. I spent even more time preparing the handrails, cleaning, priming, undercoating and eventually topcoating with green stuff world chrome. It looked decent. Not excellent, just decent but that was fine. What wasn't fine however was the durability. So much as look at it and it would mark, go dull or rub off. I stumbled across a youtube video promising easy nickel plating at home. The equipment required came to about £10 so I just had to give it a go. The new stair handrail was a perfect candidate to give it a go.
https://youtu.be/G-PtnwtOR24?si=2dSdo4WX9EF2xyHz


A litre of white vinegar, some salt and a nickel anode from ebay hooked up to a small power supply and I had dull silver coating. A brief polish with a dremel and it was a bright mirror shine. Something didn't go quite right around the solder joint but after a bit of experimenting I think I just need to reduce the current do it a bit slower.





I just now need a bigger container and to strip the paint from the larger sections of handrailing. Had it out in the sun on the lake this Sunday and it really catches the light like the paint never did. Seems to be really durable too, if it stands up to polishing from a dremel then it should last well enough.

[derekwarner]

That's a simple but good youtube demo of the nickle plating captain_Reg .......and a darn good result on your hand rails    the soft solder plated well which is always an issue


A few mandatory points made....Greek Yoghurt, Gateraide, a final etch dunk in the hydrochloric acid........and cleanliness    with the latter two so important

Derek

[Circlip]

And as a further note, the words durability and soft solder are not good bed fellows 


 Regards  Ian.