I'm back after being gone a year or so. I got busy with work and with writing my third science fiction novel. What do you know more boats are showing up in my writing.
First off is the royal yacht, the Shewolf. She's about 60 meters long with grand salon, meeting rooms and the queen's suite. To top it off she's got artificial intelligence, a smart boat. I've made drawings of her but no model yet. I haven't found a good boat to base her on. Most private luxuary yachts are built for ostentation rather than as a sort of floating embassy. And the British royal yacht is a bit too large and not high tech enough.
My other boat is fairly low tech. The Arctic High is day sailer about 16 feet long. I haven't figured out her exact length. I think she may be a catboat. She's got a centerboard and is either gaff or sprit rigged. I haven't figured out the advantages of one over the other. I'm not sure if she has a cuddy cabin or not. I've checked with a forum for catboats enthusiasts for ideas. In the story she belongs to a 60 yr old man who teaches the equivalent of jr high civics but secretly he's a spy and ex-pirate. His 18 year old granddaughter takes the boat sailing, cabsizes it, and then rights it by herself with great effort. So I've got to choose a boat which could be righted after capsize. I'm going to give her a high-tech self inflating mast float to keep her from turning turtle and the hatches will be closed when she goes over.
I've started making models. I found a wooden model kit(Cheasepeake Bay Flattie) at a garage sale and have started building it. But then I got disappointed with some of the design and discovered I disliked painting. I started thinking about converting it into paper. I've started that process, but have lost interest once I figured out how to make the centerboard go up and down. I tried doing some reasearch and concluded it isn't a model of any real boat.The preportions don't look right to me. The centerboard seems too far foreward and the beam seems too narrow. I think it's a catboat which was modified heavily to make it easier and cheaper for beginners to build. I think the narrow beam is to reduce the amount of balsa wood needed.
Has anyone had experience with this model? It's put out by Midwest Products.
First off is the royal yacht, the Shewolf. She's about 60 meters long with grand salon, meeting rooms and the queen's suite. To top it off she's got artificial intelligence, a smart boat. I've made drawings of her but no model yet. I haven't found a good boat to base her on. Most private luxuary yachts are built for ostentation rather than as a sort of floating embassy. And the British royal yacht is a bit too large and not high tech enough.
My other boat is fairly low tech. The Arctic High is day sailer about 16 feet long. I haven't figured out her exact length. I think she may be a catboat. She's got a centerboard and is either gaff or sprit rigged. I haven't figured out the advantages of one over the other. I'm not sure if she has a cuddy cabin or not. I've checked with a forum for catboats enthusiasts for ideas. In the story she belongs to a 60 yr old man who teaches the equivalent of jr high civics but secretly he's a spy and ex-pirate. His 18 year old granddaughter takes the boat sailing, cabsizes it, and then rights it by herself with great effort. So I've got to choose a boat which could be righted after capsize. I'm going to give her a high-tech self inflating mast float to keep her from turning turtle and the hatches will be closed when she goes over.
I've started making models. I found a wooden model kit(Cheasepeake Bay Flattie) at a garage sale and have started building it. But then I got disappointed with some of the design and discovered I disliked painting. I started thinking about converting it into paper. I've started that process, but have lost interest once I figured out how to make the centerboard go up and down. I tried doing some reasearch and concluded it isn't a model of any real boat.The preportions don't look right to me. The centerboard seems too far foreward and the beam seems too narrow. I think it's a catboat which was modified heavily to make it easier and cheaper for beginners to build. I think the narrow beam is to reduce the amount of balsa wood needed.
Has anyone had experience with this model? It's put out by Midwest Products.