The first model is shown in the large image above and was completed and first sailed in late November.Īnother member, Lothar Mentz of Bremen lost his heart to Skerry Cruisers and Sonja 1.68m, Svea 1.80m and Malin 2m long shown below are all built to 1.5 scale and were designed by him and they are very pretty boats indeed. Michel says that the most spectacular boat (recently completed (and shown above) is the Aero II a model of a very famous German racing dinghy (Z-Jolie) of Manfred Curry in the 1930’s, the model developed as a joint venture of 3 or 4 members of the group who have three boats being currently built. He himself started with a design of a coastal sharpie ketch he called No Regret at a scale of 1:10 which is shown below: Well maybe just one regret, that she is a bit small, and he hints he would like to further build a larger model someday.Īxel Franzen holding the hull of the AERO II Michel, a skipper and boatbuilder and I have been in correspondence for a couple of months by email and the resulting item here, and several photos of their model boatbuilding and RC sailing group bears testimony to the efforts of Michel.
The sailing group though relatively small is quite active and have already held two meetings (sort of regattas). He builds mainly from plans in Marine Modelling International and also built the Footy scow Alma (the US version) from an earlier MMI article.Ī kind soul with the name of Kena contacted Duckworks, then emailed me and not being a model yacht sailor got in touch on my behalf with Michel Fedisch, a member of a model boat Forum with about 20 active users on the German North Sea Coast. The boat is now radio controlled and from the photos I have seen which are shown above, he has made a tremendously good job.
Larry with both arms full, his brig and his Footy scow A retired construction manager he started making models a year after retirement in order to keep active and chose to build the brig Black Rose from the plans by Harry Duncan that appeared in my article in Marine Modelling International last year. Larry Whetton, a modeller I am in touch with in England sails with a club at Clevedon.
Full circle… for that is how this event pretty well started.! Then, court battles could well again eventuate and monohulls may return, after which a classic racing schooner event may ultimately take prominence or be an exciting supporting act. When the novelty factor pales into insignificance, that of boats being robbed of victory by inability to remain sailing and flipping over while peeing dog- style thus making it a lottery, the two controlling money-no-object syndicates may well see the error of their ways. Makes some ask `is it the absolute end of the monohulls?’ Well, this non-authoritative but opiniated voice says “I don’t think so!” It seems from all I read that not exactly `everyone’ is wildly in raptures and dancing Irish jigs over the impending switch from monohulls to multihulls for the America’s Cup tilt being planned.