Ashley's Fleet


IOWA

This is my  IOWA battleship, 18 feet long , takes 10 men to put in the water, is propelled by 4x 3hp motors and 12 car batteries does 20 knots and took 9 years to build.. Oh no ! Sorry, wrong boat.. This was £14.99 from Argos and took an afternoon to motorise......but what fun!

This is a motorised plastic battleship from ARGOS catalogue company. I gave it to my son for Christmas, but it simply cried...nay, SHOUTED out to be fiddled with. Its 26" long and was an incredibly reasonable £14.99, including 8 diecast airplanes, a couple of tanks and 10 small soldiers. An afternoons work, spray the bottom red and hey presto! This sort of thing almost gives me as much pleasure on the pond as spending hours and hours making something proper! Ashley

 

 

Titanic

This next is my stand off scale "Titanic". She measures 48 spiffing imperial inches, and is made out of balsa and 1.5mm ply, in what I like to  refer to as "The Glyn Guest style" after the chap who writes for model boats making stand-off scale boats with flat bottoms and square sides. I like this method as I don’t have an awful lot of time to do these things, and once its in the water you cant see the bottom anyway! The bit around the stern was the biggest task, as its heavily undercut, as was made with a round stern piece and lots of thin balsa planks and filler. Propulsion is 3x 385 motors at 12v, with three props. As the rudder is central and only bathes in the wash of the centre (smallest) propeller the turning circle is a bit wide and for this reason I only operate in the summer months…….you never know!   

NB Last picture shows the Titanic and my Island class Royal Navy patrol vessel, just showing why it is best to picture boats on their own and not next to something else of a larger scale!

Ashley - Molesey, Surrey
 

HMS Argus, Aircraft carrier 1917, made for my son to zoom around the pond. Approx 36" and not to any sort of plan, just a line drawing I came across and some pictures, Dazzle camo is approximately correct, however the Camels should be Pup`s -not much choice in this small size!

HMS Argus

 

This is the Short Sunderland I have just made. It was made as an "easy" model, hence the square fuselage, and I do like to make a different sort of craft . "Shorty" is propelled by its wing motors alone, which look like Scalextric items, and the props are 100mm. Weight is 875g, length 25" span 26". Unfortunately it doesn't take off,but I am working on that..... It does make a good sound at full throttle, and is most certainly different ! I am aiming for an "Empire " flying boat next, and hopefully it will be a bit faster.

 


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