A little background - my Dad passed away a almost two years ago, which is part of the reason for the choice of boat. He raced stock outboard marathons during the 1960s, quite successfully, at that. His favorite boat was a 1959 Sid-Craft DU Hornet, 13-feet long running a 1956 Johnson 30hp, and later a Chrysler 35hp, in what was called '36-Class' (for 36-cubic inch displacement). He even set a straightaway kilo record with that rig in 1966. Fortunately, I still have access to that very boat as it is part of the collection at the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton, NY.

The model will be 1:6 scale, coming in at 26-inches in length. Power will start as an Aquacraft EP1. I may upgrade the motor to brushless if it all works well. In racing trim, Dad's boat ran about 45 mph, so something screaming fast in scale wouldn't look right. We'll see when we get there...

Here are some photos of the boat as it sits at the Antique Boat Museum...

I have also driven a twin to the Museum's boat, as we found a nearly identical 1960 version when I was a teenager and I literally drove the boat into toothpicks. The boat was traded away a few years ago to someone who used it as a pattern to build a copy.

Anyway, on to the build. I am a graphic artist, so I drew up the frame drawings to scale and stared cutting. I know most of you guys seem to use laser cut, but I don't have access to one, and rather enjoy the full frame building process. I am aiming for as close to scale appearance as possible.

Progress continues through December...

And into January... Chines, sides and bottom are all on and sealed.

And last weekend I put the foredeck on...

Scott, great that you decided to write also a build thread here...I've just read the other one in rcgroups...

As I wrote in your presentation thread I'm interested in the materials you used for building the frames and for the stringers.
Do you have data for an offset table of the measures of the original boat of your father?

Hello Scott,

Welcome.

Very nice work!

Gema

Thank you Gentlemen! I will post a PDF of my frame drawings later today as they are on my computer at work. I don't have offsets, per se, rather I just took the necessary measurements and LOTS of photographs to draw what I needed.

I use primarily balsa for the frames, stringers and keelsons. I use 1/32" birch plywood for the skin.

Hi Scott, a warm welcome from me as well. Looks like this might become my first VX racer. You wrote it is 26 inch long at 1:6. That means 156 inch ( about 4 meters in 1:1) and therefore about 762mm in 1:5,2. Should match my Bullet drive, right? And you´re really building with Balsa for everything except the planking? And yes, lots of photographs help a lot when building