Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Sailing Triang in Model Boats

March's issue of Model Boats magazine features 3 pages by me on a project a couple of the KMBC members have been working on - the restoration of a Triang model boat and most importantly its Radioslave control system.

Ed and Dave not only returned the vessel to its original shape, Triang boats tend to warp but this can be reversed with gentle heat from a hairdryer, but restored the early (1957) RC system to working order. This is a skilled job but Dave is an engineer who is used to this sort of thing and knows what a quench coils is without having to look it up.

Dave sailing the Triang BoatOf course a write up of something most people are never going to do isn't that exciting a read so half the piece describes the sailing of a single channel boat.

Modern modellers are used to switching on the transmitter and waggling sticks to make the model change direction. Back in the old days you had a button. Just the one too. Each press made the model do something different (straight, turn left, straight, turn left) so you have to remember what is going to happen next time you press it !

The icing on the cake this time was that the two heroes of the story made the front cover of the magazine, something that will doubtless lead to a good deal of leg pulling once it hits the news stands !

Model Boats Magazine Website

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was fascinated to see the '57 r/c cargo ship. I won one in the 1957 Macdonalds biscuit competition (5 minutes in Hamleys - grab anything you want!!) I loved it and used to sail her on the Tulliallan loch above Kincardine in Fife. I also had the 'Pretoria Castle' (Clockwork) whilst in my main prize from that competition - an 8'6" Prout folding boat and JAP outboard!! What more could a boy want?!!

George
Georgekinnear@aol.com

Phil Parker said...

Wow - 5 mins in a 1957 Hamleys. You lucky....!