The Mary J. Ward Schooner from Victor Model Products

[surfimp]

Earlier today I placed an order for a Mary J. Ward schooner kit from Victor Model Products (http://www.victor-model.com). I plan to take pictures of the building process and post them here to this forum, though it may take quite a while as my grad school schedule doesn't permit much hobby time.

Anyways, I'm planning to use a Hitec Ranger 2N AM radio, a Hitec 815BB sail winch, a standard servo for rudder, and a 6V 2000mAh NiMH for power. Should get nice long runtimes with that setup! :) George from VMP says that the stock 815BB with 140 degrees of rotation works just fine for the MJW and that there's no need to modify the servo to do 180 degree rotation.

While most of the MJWs that I've seen have been done with green hulls, i'm planning to do something a little different. I'm thinking to do the hull in black, with a white pinline about the standard flat red waterline. I'm also trying to find some tanbark (dark red) colored Dacron to make my own sails out of...just love black boats with red sails! Won't be scale, but that's not a concern for me.

In any event, here's a picture from the VMP website of the boat:

http://www.victor-model.com/images/fullsail.gif

Here's the sort of look I'm going to go for, though my boat won't be intended as a scale model of anything, just a nice looking (IMHO) sailboat:

http://sailangelique.com/images/ship-homepage.jpg

There's a Yahoo! Group for the Mary J. Ward schooners here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mjwschooner/

And a build thread here:

http://www.waters.to/schooner/

Alright, more to come. Anybody know where to I can purchase some 3oz. tanbark Dacron? :)

Steve

[gator]

I've been consumed with the thought of building this schooner ever since I first saw it about 2 weeks ago. I even went aboard a full sized replica of one thats very similar just yesterday in Venice Fla. Also changed my background to a white Mary J I found somewhere on the net. I'm afflicted for sure.
For nearly 8yrs we have been sailing in a fleet of about a dozen Victor Soling 1m boats every Friday and I'm using the very winch you mentioned. It should do just fine with those 2000mah batts.
Your color scheme might require a name change to the Black Pearl:D (With the skull and cross bones to match) If you can't find the dacron you might look into dying them. Check a test piece first though.
What are you doing for a keel?
Good luck. I'll be following your progress.
Gator

[surfimp]

Gator--as for a keel, I'm just doing whatever comes with the kit, as far as I know that means a bolt-on keel with a 5lb. lead bulb at the end of it. You only attach it for sailing, it can be removed for display.

I thought about dying the Dacron sails that come with the kit, but I asked George at VMP about this and he indicated that Dacron doesn't take dye very well. He recommended I use a type of spraypaint made for flowers called Design Master, which is available from Michaels craft stores. I'd rather just make new sails out of genuine tanbark colored Dacron sailcloth, which is available in 3.8oz. (which George says would be OK for a model of this type) though it is quite expensive--something like $15/yard. Ouch!

Anyways, as soon as I receive the kit and get to work, I'll be updating with photos. I encourage you to take the plunge, I think it's going to be a very satisfying boat to sail. At least I hope so, anyways!

Steve

[gator]

My Soling 1m weighs about 10lbs. I think the keel was 8 1/2lbs or so and this looks like it may carry even more sail. It would be interesting to see what other succesful builders have done.
Heres one of my favorite shots of this boat. I set it as my desktop pic and it's startin' to get to me. I sorta like the lighter colors for my older eyes. The top sails add real class and help my beady little gator eyes see it better too.
The link for the Venice fla schooner is:
www.aquarianquest.org

[surfimp]

Gator that boat is quite nice! I'd been admiring it myself for a while now. I especially like how the builder carried the hull color up onto the sides of the cabin and hatches. Looks very clean and nice. Those topsails are a really great touch, too! :)

Steve

[jimhurley]

I purchased the Mary Jane Ward kit awhile back and would like to build it and sail it without the keel, I've been thinking about it and have done some preliminary testing of the stability of the hull. It takes about 9 pounds of lead to bring it down to the suggested water line. I need to go back to check on the suggested water line as I purchased a book with the original line drawings of the hull and they show four or five load dependent water lines, the line that is the highest on the hull based on my interpretation of line drawings is about 3/4 inch lower in the bow than the line suggested in the plans, but about right in the stern. The owner told me he had sailed one with ballast only, but had trouble finding enough room in the hull for the needed weight. I talked to him before I bought the kit so I didn't know all the questions I needed to ask him them. If the boat is ballasted to one of the shallower water lines it will take less weight though.
I bought fifteen pounds of lead wheel weights, the stick on kind that are used in sports car wheels, which I intend to use for ballast. I also bought the suggested sail servo and, now that someone has suggested it I will probably use a larger battery.
This is my second sailing boat kit, my first finished last winter, was a Dumas Huson 24 - wooden hull. It sails very well, even in our rather strong Wyoming winds.
Any thoughts or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
Jim
BTW, I like the white boat.

[surfimp]

Jim I think your plan sounds good, and I suppose you can always add the sailing keel later on if it doesn't work out with the internal ballast. I guess the biggest issue is keeping the boat from blowing over in a strong(er) breeze, the lever arm of the sailing keel would seem to help there. You might try emailing George and asking him for suggestions on how to do it (just a thought). In addition to the stick-on weight idea, it seems you could add lead shot to the hull and keep it in place with epoxy. That would allow as much of it as possible to get as low in the hull as possible, to my way of thinking. Would take a LOT of epoxy to hold it in place, though!

I received my hull (#77) last week and will be getting going on the project in the next while, depending upon how much "spare" time I have. Will post photos as I'm able.

Steve

[jimhurley]

Steve my first tests were with lead shot, but I thought that if I epoxied it in place I would not be able to go back to the sailing keel version because I wouldn't have room to get the epoxied lead out of the hull with the deck in place.
My Hull number is 32 so you can see I've been thinking about this for awhile. I don't want to get into a situation where I have to throw the hull and all the stuff stuck to it out.
I'm trying to get to work on it, but the weather has been so nice here that it is hard to stay inside and after a good long afternoon walk I'm a little low on energy or more probably just being lazy. We're at more than 7200 feet in elevation and the temps have been in the forties. We're supposed to have winters that provide for time for indoor projects.
Depending on how my test go I may give George a call and discuss his results now that I have had time to look over the boat. My plan though is to install everything I would need to afix the sailing keel if the internal ballast doesn't work out. The only thing that I thought I would skip is the cutting out of the piece of keel where the sailing keel fits and I was going to glue the keel along it's full length. I was going to do all the alignment for the sailing keel though. I don't see why, if I have to, I couldn't use a very fine saw to cut out the piece of the keel that has to be removed and use super glue remover to free the piece from the hull.
Thanks for your comments,
Jim

[surfimp]

One idea might be to line the entire inside of your hull with plastic wrap, then do the lead shot and epoxy thing. Then, after the epoxy has cured you can remove the whole "chunk" of lead/epoxy from the inside of the hull. If you did the ballast in sections (using beamwise formers to split the lead up into sections) you could probably sort out a way to get the ballast chunks in and out through the hatch in the deck (if you didn't like the way it sailed, for example). This is just an off-the-cuff idea but maybe it would work?

Steve

[Berg]

undefinedMy Soling 1m weighs about 10lbs. I think the keel was 8 1/2lbs or so and this looks like it may carry even more sail. It would be interesting to see what other succesful builders have done.
Heres one of my favorite shots of this boat. I set it as my desktop pic and it's startin' to get to me. I sorta like the lighter colors for my older eyes. The top sails add real class and help my beady little gator eyes see it better too.
The link for the Venice fla schooner is:
www.aquarianquest.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi Gator. I'm new here. The picture of your model with topsails is stunning.
I definitely want to go that route.

I've built full size boats and one model to proof performance of a sailing dingy I designed. Lofting and scratch building are things I enjoy, however, I haven't a clue about putting RC into a boat. Even though it would be fun to sratch build a replica of the America, or the Bluenose, I thought it might be better to get a plastic hull RC kit such as the Mary J. After I learn how to install RC components and practice sailing, then maybe I'll be ready to tackle a scratch built. I'm hoping to learn a lot from the group's discussions.

Berg

[gator]

Post #1 for berg. Welcome.
Alas the MJW with the top sails is not mine and I still havn't gone for a new one. Have you bought the kit? Since I havn't checked here for a while I wonder how Surfimp is doing on his.
Berg, Adding a servo and winch is no big deal, don't let that hold you up. Keep us up to date and maybe it will serve to encourage those of us who are dragin' our anchors:)
Good luck, Gator