Author Archives: catopower

About catopower

Ship modeling since 1993.

NRG’s 2015 Photographic Ship Model Contest

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The Nautical Research Guild held their annual conference in Mystic, CT, at the end of October. While only one of our Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights members was able to attend to representing our group. At the NRG banquet, our group members took a larger share of the honors.

The winners of the 2015 Photographic Ship Model Contest were announced at the dinner event. All models entered into the contest received a ribbon based on total points earned in the scoring. The top models in the categories of Journeyman and Master received medals. Three medals, either Bronze, Silver or Gold, were awarded in each category, for a total of six medals, with Hyde Street Pier members taking home with 2 of the 6 medals.

Clare Hess, receive a Bronze medal in the Journeyman category for his model of the Private Armed Schooner Lively, 1813, while Paul Reck was awarded a Silver medal in the Journeyman category for his model of the Grand Banks 32, Willie II.

Clare’s Lively model is a 1:48-scale scratchbuilt model of a small, single gun privateer, typical of the early pilot boat model privateers of the War of 1812. The model was based on kit plans by the late Jim Roberts.

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Paul Reck’s Willie II is a Grand Banks 32 that was built around 1978 and used by the St. Francis Yacht Club as a race committee boat. His model was built from scratch in 1:16-scale and is on display at the Yacht Club.

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Watch the upcoming NRG Journal and the NRG website for a full report on the contest.

Note: This story originally referenced the wrong yacht club for the Willie II. The correct yacht club is the St. Francis Yacht Club, not the Corinthian Yacht Club. Thanks to David Wingate for catching the slip-up!

Visiting Our Gracie S. Model in the Maritime Museum

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We had a nice meeting of the Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights aboard the ferry boat Eureka yesterday. Good turnout, interesting talk, news from members, and all. We even made some decisions and got started on cleaning up and cataloging our library of ship plans, books and media. So, at the end of the productive day in workshop, heading back to our cars, Paul Reck and I decided to stop in at the Aquatic Part Bathhouse Building which is home of the Maritime Museum (or what remains of it), and visit the Gracie S.

The model was built by members of the club, including yours truly, though I had a relatively small part in it compared to Paul, Tom and Bruno.

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The Gracie S. model was built at a scale of 3/8″ to the foot or 1:32, and I can’t exactly recall how long it took to complete. Group builds can be slow, particularly when they are worked on primarily in our model shop.

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The neat little shipyard diorama was mostly Paul Reck and Tom Shea’s work and it really adds life to the model. Paul commented that his neighbor also had a hand in it, contributing an old board from his fence which was used to build the sheds in the display.

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What’s particularly nice about this display is that the museum put together the information board, showing photos of club members working on the model and describing our group and how to find us. You can even see my hand and belly in the first photo…

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It’s nice to see that the model has a good home, is viewable by the public, and that it reminds visitors that people still build ship models. Time to go home and build more…

– Clare Hess

 

 

Midwest Products Model Boat Kits Discontinued

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For a long time, a great way to get introduced to wooden ship modeling for both young people and adults has been by building the simple modeling subjects produced by Midwest Products. In fact, many members at Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights have recommended these kits for their relatively easy construction, excellent plans and classic all-American subjects. So, it’s sad to announce that Midwest has discontinued production of its wooden boat kits.

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These kits are still available in stores and online, but they are increasingly difficult to find as they sell out and can’t be restocked. So, if you’ve been thinking about building one, you might want to go and and buy it if you can find it. Fortunately, these have been in production for a long time and there are many of the kits still widely available on Amazon.com and probably in many hobby stores.

With luck, kit production will be picked up by another manufacturer, but you never know. Certainly according to Midwest, they’re getting a lot of phone calls about the boat kits, so maybe they’ll change their minds. One can only hope. But, the best way to make sure these are back in production is to build them, buy them, ask for them at your local dealer, or contact Midwest at 800-348-3497 or info@midwestproducts.com.

 

Japanese Wooden Boatbuilding Book by Douglas Brooks

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I just received my copy of this book today and decided to write up a little review.

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Last week, I broke down and bought my copy of this new book directly from the author’s website. That’s a nice way to get it as more money goes directly to supporting Mr. Brooks’ efforts. The hardbound book, published by Floating World Editions, is 320-pages, all in English, in a roughly 9″ x 11″ format.

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My copy arrived today and, naturally, all my ship modeling efforts and other tasks have come to a complete standstill as I read through it. This is an absolutely beautiful book, full of information about the subject.

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I was thumbing through it and had to stop and read through the section on the “ro“, which is the Japanese sculling oar. The author goes into a fair amount of detail on its construction and how it actually works in practice, based on his own…

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The Good News – Classic Yacht Model by Paul Reck

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Long time Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights member and president Paul Reck shares a slideshow of a model he built in 2010 of the 60′ yawl-rigged yacht Good News. The original boat was designed by Sparkman and Stephens. The plank-on-bulkhead model was scratch built at a scale of 1/2″=1′ using white pine with sugar pine hull planking and deck planked with Alaskan yellow cedar.

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The model features wire rigging and many parts that had to be built from scratch. Paul put together a nice little slide show of his build, which you can access on his Dropbox account here:

Good News Slide Show Note that it’s not necessary to have or to create a Dropbox account. Just close the window that asks you to sign-in.

The model was built for the St. Francis Yacht Club, where it now resides. It is one of 70 models (many of which were built by Paul) featured in the recent publication, The Models of the St. Francis Yacht Club, which is available only through the yacht club. Ω

 

 

No August Meeting – Member Picnic Instead.

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Anyone thinking about attending the next meeting of the Hyde Street Pier Model Shipwrights will have to wait for the September meeting. In lieu of our regular August meeting, members will be spending a lovely afternoon in the backyard of our hosts Paul and Nancy Reck in Mill Valley, enjoying an afternoon of good food and good company.

The barbecue is this Saturday, August 15th. I hope all of our members have been paying attention and will be attending. It’s a great chance to meet members and their significant others without talking entirely about ship modeling and related topics. Though we can’t help ourselves and there will be a lot of that too, I’m sure!

Our meeting schedule will be back to normal next month with our next ship model meeting aboard the Eureka being on Saturday, September 19th at our usual 9:30am start time.