My Paddle Fleet

USS Coeur de Lion was a lightship tender loaned to the Navy Dept. in 1861 and converted into a gunship. She patrolled the Potomac and other rivers in Virginia, destroying or seizing several ships attempting to break the blockade. She also engaged two forts, forcing one to surrender. She also had the distinction of towing Thaddeus Lowes's balloon barge, the George Washington Parke Custis, considered to be the first "aircraft" carrier. My model is 22" in length (1/55 scale) and is inspired by a paper model designed by the talented paper modeller, Magnus Morck, now sadly deceased. I would describe all my models as stand off scale, and this is no exception, it is radio controlled, steered by 2 independent motors and although I have altered/ added items as I see fit, I hope I have remained true to the spirit of the original ship. The davits have been moved forward, this makes the removal of the superstructure easier and I have added stanchions/rails - these are not obvious in the photo of the original, but I have difficulty believing that what was once an ocean going ship would not have guard rails, especially on the hurricane deck. The hull plating is an indulgence, I suspect the original was wooden hulled, yet I am unrepentant! The walking beam is operated by a servo that has been modified for continuous rotation, this is Y'd into receiver output for one of the paddles and although the response is best described as sort of proportional, it does allow the beam to rock at a dignified rate. I am also building the balloon barge to the same scale and hope to tow it around my local pond. If everything works out I should be able to raise? and lower a helium filled balloon using another servo converted to act as a winch in the barge. We'll see.
The tug is a freelance designed quarter wheeler, built essentially to test the feasibility of using worm gear to drive independent paddles. The concept works well, however, the steering is very unresponsive, but I can at least bring it back to the dockside. The other ship is an enlarged Santa Ana, a Graham Goodchild design offered as a free plan in 'Model Boats' some thirty years ago.

Very much appreciate the weathering on these fine models. Did you employ a V-tail mixer with the two ESC's used on the side-wheeler? I assume you only required two channels of r/c for that one.

David

David,

Thanks for the comments.

I didn't use a mixer, I have a Robbe Navy F14 and the paddles are controlled independently by the 2 left hand (port?)sticks. I always wanted to try tank steering and the Coeur de Lion will do donuts - the tug does pretty much what she wants to do - I think the rear paddles are so close together there is very little turning moment and consequently the steering is very poor.

Keith.