John Storrow

Ive decided to design the cabin and hull to be built all in one piece on the strong-back.  This is sort-of a new Idea I haven't tried. I think It will simplify construction somewhat, plus allow me to get the vertical cabin sides I want. Perhaps there will be a cabin floor, at bottom level of cabin sides a bit under the deck, extending aft in one piece to the aft end of the cockpit, level with waterline. This will also be a good place to install winch and rudder servos.

here's some renders of the catboat I'm fooling around with.. Definitely going to be a worthwhile challenge here's the drawing it came from the part where the deck meets the side of the cabin is keeping me up at night, in a good way. I would like the sides of the cabin to be plum vertical despite how much bend there is in the plan view. Either make a jig of some sort, and hot bend some thin stuff around the jig, then fit to the deck, or use vertical "staves" like the real catboat. Hmmm..

I am going to try to give a blow-by-blow of the construction of my next project, a Fenwick Williams catboat. I will be working from plans which I began to adapt from a Lines drawing in “The catboat book” a few years ago. I love catboats, not just for their Unique sculptural qualities, but also I grew up sailing in one with my Dad. I look forward to figuring out how to build the curved cabin sides, as well as frames and planking. I haven’t done a planked model since the “Mellonseed Skiff” a few years ago. Another Interesting decision is how much to reduce the sail plan proportionally. For a 32 inch catboat model, a full sized sail (proportionally speaking) works out to something like 800 square inches. Here is a pic of the other Catboat that I made

Is there more to life than boats? Duchamp was afraid of repeating himself. The other day I took a picture of a Praying Mantis bug that was right by the staff entrance to the Museum. He was standing at eye level as people walked by him. I said to my Supervisor “Did you see that Praying Mantis?” He had already taken a picture of it. Hard to beat nature itself when it comes to sculpture.

“Without the idea Of a sailboat Dancing in the wind There would be no order In the universe, Only chaos” . Me. ——- About a month and a half ago I finished building a model of Herreshoffs “Quiet Tune”. She’s one of the loveliest shapes ever to kiss the waves. I’m finding it hard to think of any other boat To build a model of. She has that little bit of flair at the waterline right whare she starts cutting the waves, and a long low graceful sheer (profile deck curve) which sweeps all the way back to her perfectly proportioned stern. Her mizzen sail echoes the proportions of her main sail, and her jib balances the whole picture. To build  my Quiet Tune model, I needed to overcome a few interesting technical challenges. Should she have a modified modern keel and separate rudder well aft? Should the cabin top be removable like other boats that I’ve made for easy access to electronics at deck level? Should she have working scale brass turnbuckles for easy set-up and take-...

My new sails. (A story) The Vintage Marblehead National Championship Regatta was to be held that June, so I emailed my entry. Luckily I happened to have a good straight piece of Sitka spruce on hand which I planed and sanded as thin and aerodynamic as possible for the new mast. It took me a whole sick day from work to set up the new sails. The only rigging wire I had was this rather twisty bendy stuff, which wasn’t really supposed to be rigging wire for a model yacht. I had to secure it to the turnbuckles the same way you secure picture wire to the back of a picture frame. I didn’t have any time to test the new sails, except to rig them on the boat in the living room, the night before the regatta, to make sure everything worked right At least I was able to practice for about ten minutes before the first race. She went like a dream, like she was on rails, like a real thoroughbred, the way she silently made her long graceful wake through the mirror smooth water, grabbing her ...

The future is where we are going to spend the rest of our lives. Dear self: don’t forget about the future. Imagine turning your body a hundred and eighty degrees toward the next model boat voyage, and the one after that, etc. On the other hand, it’s fun to remember stuff that already happened, like one of the first times you carried your 17 pound, four foot long model boat, plus tall mast and sails, on the MBTA bus from Boston to Redds Pond in Marblehead Ma. Do you remember what happened when you were waiting to get on the bus to go home? The clouds looked rather dark and hairy, like they were about to burst. Right at the exact, and I do mean exact, moment you got on the bus, and the door shut behind you, it started raining like cats and dogs.

Dear self- You know what your tedious day job is. A whole other book three inches thick could be written about your tedious day job. Okay, let’s just say it consists of endless hours of waking and walking through the galleries in a world class Art museum. Needless to say, dear self, you started your tedious day job six U.S. presidents ago. Yeah, hard to believe isn’t it? On the other side of the coin, you did a hell of a lot of Model boat sailing In those thirty odd years. To figure out how many miles of scale model sized ocean that is, would require a certain amount of math. On average, one trip to the model boat pond per week, about 24 voyages per season, 2 hours each voyage, times 28 seasons. That’s 672 voyages, which comes out to 1,344 hours of Model boat sailing Distance depends on speed so the number of miles will never be known.

Look, (Dear me) You’re going to write a book To inspire people to make model boats. It’s going to be all about how most people think model boats Tip over and sink, and therefore should not be taken seriously. Same reason Kids toys aren’t taken seriously, only guess what! Model boats don’t tip over and sink Unless you leave a hole in the bottom, and/or cut off the keel, which makes them pretty magical in my opinion. It’s also going to describe in exact detail, the many ways model boats can be made. How Servos are installed, what kind of batteries to use, how to make the keel, all the necessary details. But why would anybody want a book like that? I guess it doesn’t matter, somebody might like it, certainly not everyone. Does every book need to appeal to everyone? Nope.