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Eventide / MisFit! |
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The above picture is just some work in progress, after a ' research' trip to Lowestoft and Gt Yarmouth, I started on the build of the Spencer- Carter type 4 ton split drum trawl winch for my 1:8 scale inshore stern trawler. The trawl winch is
scratch built and the figures are the biggest I can find, they are
the excellent 1:10 scale crew from Cap -Maquettes, available here in the
UK via
Bow Wave
Models of Somerset. The boat is a GRP hull and a GRP wheelhouse,
the rest of the model is in various stages of completion, the excellent
range of fittings from Bow wave has saved me a great deal of time, and
most are at 1:10 scale, so with a few modifications, and some building up
they can be used.... I will forward some more pictures as the project
comes along.... |
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The Eventide is primarily a
'potter' but the crew aboard were saying about the netting that they do
off the stern, basically its to do with licences and quotas ! -I think
they do albeit of netting to keep their freezers stocked up !!you can just
see the nets hanging over the stern in one of the pictures, The boat was
bought used as a 'trawler' with her compliment of nets, but the current
owner uses her for potting, they say there is more demand at market for
potted hauls- and due to her size it is financially more viable to use her
for potting rather than trawling. The whole trawler thing is a bit of a saga, I picked up a hull and a plan at the Southwater dabblers show in June, needless to say the plan was not for the hull I purchased ! - but it was a very sturdy thickly laid up GRP hull, it was of a smallish inshore fishing boat, the type I had seen coming and going as a child in my hometown of Scarborough , north Yorkshire. The Southwater show was fairly boozy weekend for some of us! Anyway I ended up haggling a price for this hull, - well all proceeds go to charity ! I am pretty sure I paid way too much for the hull but still, its unique. After extensive research I have been able to ascertain it is not from any of the reputable moulders in the UK, it's probably somebody's home mould.....this can be seen in the quality of the lay up of the GRP tissue too, , but it had a certain something, so it came home in the car. After loads of rubbing down and filling the bubbles in the gel coat the hull is now acceptable. I continued to research the possible maker of the hull and what vessel it was based upon, well it looks very much like a Cygnus marine Seafish 38, a 38 foot medium displacement trawler, but its not 100 proven yet ! The hull moulding and the line drawings I have from Cygnus pretty much match up, (apart from the small amount of error - which I think is from large amounts of reproduction and enlargement on the photocopier ) but there is an discrepancy in the stern and the curvature of the fore deck, but again only minor. The hull is definitely
not based on a steel trawler of this type, the shape is too modern and too
smooth. Cygnus are one of the few builders now still producing these boats
full size in GRP. They also often produce the boats for other yards to fit
out to individual requirements, this ends up with totally unique boats
everywhere you go! I headed off up to Lowestoft and to Great Yarmouth to
look at fishing boats. Luckily Cygnus boats are as commonplace as Ford
motor cars so it was not long before I had 30 pictures of several Cygnus
boats, all different The one that really took me was 'Eventide' in Gt Yarmouth, she was registered in Whitby just up the coast from Scarborough, - this was not a Seafish 38, but actually a 32 ft Cygnus boat, but it was exactly what I thought I should be modelling- a real workboat, This was the vessel upon which I could base my model, The wheelhouse was not typical of the later Cygnus boats, but that could be rectified- I asked those aboard if I could photograph the boat and I was asked aboard, I took the shots, and measurements I needed and cleared off. Details of the winch were readily supplied and a run down of the vessels gross weight, the details of the engine and the equipment on board were all hastily written down and I returned home. Its now just a case of machining the parts needed to make the model a complete working model boat. The radio, motor and shaft are now all in, the rudder blade is now fabricated out of stainless steel plate, and its been TIG welded to a stainless rudder post, its overkill but reliable, the motor is a car heater fan and it spins a home made 3 bladed brass prop, this gives scale speed on about a quarter of the throttle stick movement, so there is loads of power spare ! The boats deck supports
are now all in place and the deck will start to go on in the next few
weeks, I am currently in fitting production mode- A lot of the fittings due
to their size are having to be made, 1 to eighth scale is a tricky one, so
I have bought a few 1 to tenth fittings from Bow wave models and enlarged
them to fit, the rest are scratch built I have fabricated the wheelhouse
and the roof from a home made GRP mould, the sides are vertical, The
wheelhouse sides on Eventide had a step in them and then an angled
undercut, ( not sure that I could do this justice so I opted for the more
typical wheelhouse layout as on the line drawings sent by Cygnus marine )
and the outcome is the wheelhouse is now moulded- its chunky but solid,
This sits up on the fore deck and the rear panel sits down to deck level,
the exhaust stack and details are all from Plasticard, the trawl boards
are all from Plasticard, the life raft canister is from bow wave, the mast
is scratch built, the lights (both mast, deck and navigation) are from bow
wave, these are all working lamps....the rear deck will have the 2 crew
figures the winch , along with fish boxes, nets and lobster pots, the fish
boxes are made , the lobster pots are coming soon , the nets will be old
granny style hair nets, (the chemists round us don't sell them anymore
!!!) |
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