Pilot boat mast

Time to crack a job that I've been putting off for a while - the mast sticking out of the Pilot Boat roof.

As far as the kit instructions are concerned, it doesn't exist. No mention is made and the builder is left to his or her own devices to make something up. I spent a lot of time on the interweb trying to find a photo that would give me an idea. All I discovered was that all such vessels had a mast but there was no common features I could copy.

Looking at the display model and my collected photos, they all had aerials sticking out of the top and some navigation lights. Not much help really. I didn't even have a set of dimensions to work with.

All I could do is root around my tube stocks and find something that looked about right in brass. For the base, I used plastic tube drilled out so the brass was a tight, sliding fit. A baseplate with supports was knocked up in plastic.

The main structure is soldered up from bits of 1mm wire. Three aerials appears to be enough. A cross piece for... well all boat masts seem to have one although I'm not sure why.

It looks OK to me but then I know nothing. Navigation lights and a radar reflector thingy will be added in due course. At least I can move on to something else now.