Back in 1982 Vic Smeed published a delightful design for a 1920's Customs and Excise launch called Guardsman. It was around 22'' long and weighed about 4.5lb. I built one at the time, which is what you see in the heading picture, but it has long since been demolished. I have always wanted to build another version- perhaps a bit larger- but never quite got round to it.
A few years ago I bought the vac formed hull produced by My Hobby Store and made a start, but plastic hulls don't do a lot for me and not much progress was made. However, I did become friends with a gentleman called Tony Hadley through the Model Boats magazine forum. He was also building a Guardsman and we started to correspond - and have done ever since. I thought it might be interesting to show some photos of his model here. He opted to build with balsa and ply as was described in the original article- and as I did in 1982.
Incidentally, Tony has researched Vic Smeed's designs and compiled an index of them. They still seem to come out of the woodwork from time to time. I, and many others, have found the excercise very interesting. Tony was also responsible for a fine article in a Model Boats Special Issue in 2015 detailing Vic Smeed's life and designs.
Here is a link to Tony's thread on the MB forum which makes for interesting reading;
http://www.modelboats.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=83121
A few years ago I bought the vac formed hull produced by My Hobby Store and made a start, but plastic hulls don't do a lot for me and not much progress was made. However, I did become friends with a gentleman called Tony Hadley through the Model Boats magazine forum. He was also building a Guardsman and we started to correspond - and have done ever since. I thought it might be interesting to show some photos of his model here. He opted to build with balsa and ply as was described in the original article- and as I did in 1982.
Incidentally, Tony has researched Vic Smeed's designs and compiled an index of them. They still seem to come out of the woodwork from time to time. I, and many others, have found the excercise very interesting. Tony was also responsible for a fine article in a Model Boats Special Issue in 2015 detailing Vic Smeed's life and designs.
Here is a link to Tony's thread on the MB forum which makes for interesting reading;
http://www.modelboats.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=83121