"Model Boat" a recent chase.....

[Ron J]

Fred's post below about model boats, reminded me to post this short tale of a recent experience. I have a small collection of various model or scratch built vessels. I don't really want models that are assembled and have been currently made,machine or human factory types. I have a great appreciation for anyone building a ship model, where you need to build it! A challenge, i don't have the patience for. I admit i do check out any boats/ships etc i see at flea markets or nautical stores. Well anyway, searching on Ebay, i have been able to purchase what i consider a great deal, or otherwise would never have been able to purchase. Back in February, i made such a purchase. I "won" a 24' assembled wooden, motorized Coast Guard Cutter, # CG95304. Having the hull numbers on this vessel , means a lot.The 95 is the length of the real vessel, meaning its a 95 ftr. The 304, is the sequential serial number,most likely starting at 300, so this is vessel # 304, or 4th on the production. When i saw it listed, i wanted it. I could see it was made in vintage 60's, maybe 1970? Having the Numbers on the bow gave me something to chase down, to see if it was an actual vessel listed at one time. The first thing i did was search a couple of Coast Guard related web sites. First i checked out "old Coast Guard photo's" and searched under 95 ftrs. The first photo popped up, the actual vessel, in action! YA![attachment 84695 ScannedImage-3.jpg] Next i went to the "Coast Guard Historical" sight, cruised down the cutter list, and found another photo of the real vessel, cruising in New York Harbor.[attachment 84696 ScannedImage-4.jpg] Well the end result, i purchased the Cutter. The bad was, i had to pick it up! In New Jersey! Oh well, I'll have to go! A little history...The real vessel was built in 1953 of steel with an aluminum deck and house. This turned into an issue, due to electrolysis between the two different metals.Cutters were not named initially till 1964, at which time she became "Cape Gull". Originally stationed in New York, NY from 1953 to 1965 for law enforcement and search and rescue. From 1966 to 1969, ported in Ft. Hancock, N.J. then 1970 to 1974, Atlantic City N.J. Over the years,she ended up in Miami, catching Druggies, and saving /catching Haitians off of the coast either in sinking, overcrowding vessels.During the early eighty's when there was that little British issue in Grenada, she conducted surveillance.. Unfortunately in 1988 she was decommissioned, and the following year scuttled. Don't now where,but i assume off Florida, as an artificial reef? Well the bottom line is 3 weeks ago, i made a trip to the upper western part of New Jersey. I was planning on leaving the Boston area around 3:00 a.m., but left my house at 1:00 a.m. instead. At a little after 4:00 a.m. i was eating breakfast in an all night Restaurant about 15 minutes past the Newburgh Bridge. I took an hour snooze in the parking lot for an hour, and then proceeded further west, till i hit the exit to head southwest to New Jersey. About 6:30? or so i finally drove past the address, but it was way too early. Didn't want to wake anyone yet. I wasn't expected till 8:00! So i went gallivanting around the countryside, eyeballing some future detecting locations. Always on the look out for those places, specially in farm country! Seemed like 7;30 or 8:00 would never come, but it did. I called the ol Gent about twenty to eight. He said give him till eight and he would be dressed, i replied no problem, telling him it would take me that long to get back there! I was only 5 minutes away, but stayed away till Eight anyway. I picked up my new toy, and headed back to Newburgh, and rte 84. I wasn't in any hurry so got a brainstorm to cut across Connecticut to the Mystic Seaport. When i finally reached that destination, i visited there museum store. Purchased a few excellent books, and shopped around. All this time, since i left my house, i forgot to mention it was drizzling to raining cats and dogs! Well it sure came down while i was in Mystic. I had lunch and headed to Providence R.I. hoping to see the whereabouts of the sunken Russian Sub from last year. There is so much construction going on in that area, i gave up. I then headed to New Bedford, to hit a couple of antique stores, i knew of. Ended up getting two ships wheels for a decent price! Left New Bedford in real heavy rain, and finally home at about 7:30 that evening. I drove a total of 680 miles and two tanks of fuel! Was i Beat! Felt it for two days later, but i was happy having my new Coast Guard Cutter home! Looks like it would take 3 "C" batteries, and a very small motorcycle battery to run it. But i am not interested to even try. You can see the age, with a transistor board,and toggle switch's. It may have been remote control, cause the Rudder has a separate motor to turn it. Next month i may bring it to the Coast Guard Heritage Museum in Barnstable for display, with my other belongings. Rj

 

[Micheal_R]

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[George-CT]

Does it have a modern servo on the rudder for control or and older hard wired circuit board? They are fun to play with in clam waters.
I install my speed controls for the throttle etc from my air planes in my Deep V hull. Really fun like that but I have to be carefull as its similiar to how yours is in the open bilge of the hull with no protection if it goes under water. The speed control was $150 bucks alone.

I did have it in plastic box, but it would over heat that way. Now, I'm just careful with it. It gets up around 30 mph if the water is calm enough. The gas engine ones are amazing. They scream across the water.....To loud for the lakes in this area, so most here now run electrics on the private lakes or ponds.

George-Ct

 

[Larry (IL)]

Before I got into "full scale", I built quite a few scale boats. I still have several of them collecting dust.

 

[david(tx)]

depends on whether its under power or not.like the way it looks in the NY,NY harbor.

 

[Ron J]

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[Ron J]

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[Kelley (Texas)]

I did not know that you collected model boats when I posted that link to the boat model site. I have never built a model boat, and like you, question if I would have the patience to build one.

I have always been fascinated by the model boats that are in a bottle. I have never been able to figure out how they get the model boat into the bottle...some folks have even claimed that they were built inside the bottle. Please have a great day! Kelley (Texas)

 

[Larry (IL)]

I just unloaded several of my racing boats, planes and cars and most of my R/C equipment on Ebay. I'm getting ready to sell my Rockets and stuff now. Yea, I know, I must have had a hobby shop in here. Amazing how much stuff one can collect over the years.

 

[Larry (IL)]

The first two are Dumas stock pic's. I didn't have, or can't find right off the bat, a photo of the CG Utility. The 40' CG Utility boat was a blast to own. I made a wooden and working crane off of the stern and it looked like it was part of the original boat. I was the hit of the R/C racing community because I was the only one with a working rescue boat to recover dead-in-the-water boats. Without my boat we used a fishing pole with a tennis ball on the end. That worked pretty good if you didn't hit the boat with the ball, but the Coast Guard boat was the hit of the races. BTW, Dumas is retiring that boat and it is on sale right now for $64. (kit) Go to Dumas.com and go to specials. I sold that boat to a fellow racer when I got out of racing.

The Creole Queen, I still have, and have had for many years. It is so old I still have an 8 track car player in it that plays ragtime and calliope music while under way. I dubbed the original steam whistle sound from the Queen on the 8 track and it blows randomly while the music is playing. I should go digital, but what the heck. I don't play with it any more anyway.

The PT boat was a highly detailed Lindberg model. Actual pic of the boat. I had it hopped up to far exceed scale performance with twin 540 motors. That was another fun boat. I would putts around at scale speed and sooner or later someone would come along with their off-the-shelf boat showing me how fast theirs would go. I would compliment them on their purchase and I would just pull the trigger on them. That one has been sold.

I still have a highly detailed scale Traxxas Villain that will go on Ebay one of these days. It is probably my favorite, with twin water cooled 550's and 15.4 volts driving them. It won many races and it was not even a race boat.

I just added my full scale boat to the list of the smaller toys.

 

[George-CT]

Kinda in the same boat here, slowly weeding out a lot of my toys. What my kids or grandkids, don't think is interesting I sell. Still have one plane left, sold a helicopter, a bunch of cars, trucks for the RC circuit. I even have a small rocket here that I never flew. I went to a few meets, and got the interest but just had to much other stuff that seemed to interfere with other interest.

Now its mostly, RVing, Motorcycle, both off and on road, still have one muscle car, Corvette, Geocaching, and taking pictures. The rest is spent with my kids, or grandkids and wife. My wife is into the horses so we have to balance our weekends which is not hard in retirement. I tend to do most of my stuff on the weekdays and what ever she has going on weekends. Seems to work for us.

I'd still like to build a weed wacker cracker boat to run. My buddy finished his and its a ball to play with. Big easy to see, fast and pump fuel...... To many hobbies, not enough hours in a day, week or month...

Geo-CT

 

[Royal]

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[Royal]

it seems like it would be a lot of fun. Your big toy looks like fun too.

You sure do good work

 

[Wayne in BC]

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[Rob/Windsor Ont.]

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[jims classics]

RonJ............. I am JimB of Houston, Texas. I thought you would like to know Mechanix Illustrated in 1953 or 1954 ran an article on building a model CG95304 and offered plans for doing so. I believe the cutter you have is that model made from those plans. Please contact me jimsclassics@yahoo.com
My dad ordered those plans!