May be of interest.....

Thought these pictures may be of interest to some of you. My brother was having a look through old photo's and sent me these, black and white, taken way back.

My father, back in the '60's used to build to scale and sail model yachts. He built six in all and they probably took him about a year each. These pictures are of the deck of one, appropriately for the forum, called Amaryllis. This particular yacht was in the 10 rater class and from what I can remember, it was about 6ft long. Sorry no picture of the full yacht as yet.

The boats obviously were built of wood. Every detail you see on the boat was designed and hand built by my father right down to the screws, with the help of a lathe. All the metal work was chrome dipped. He designed and built the vane gear as well. The sails were the only things he didn't make himself.

 

Oo thats good Sheal

I nearly finished a scale model 3 1/2" gauge steam loco, till I ran out of access to a workshop:DOH:

 

My dad was a perfectionist ( where I get it from I think), he had many talents and mastered them all, this was his hobby. He had a technical brain and worked as a mechanical engineer for one of Shell's refineries for many years and progressed from that to training the apprentices there in their various trades. Sadly two years into the training he had to retire through ill health and we lost him at the age of 53 to Motor Neurone disease. A wicked disease, especially for someone who worked with his hands all his life.

More photo's may come to light as my brother/brothers continue looking through his collection. I also know that blue prints exist for these yachts, I'm hoping to get copies of those, especially the yacht that he built as my namesake (Shelagh).

The yachts were sold off to yachting friends as his health deteriorated. I suspect that one may still exist and my ESP has been telling me over the last couple of years to try and trace it. Perhaps I should do that now, I'd love to have it.