During the first lockdown I came across drawing by Graham Parkinson published in the May 1980 edition of Model Boats. Its a fairly simple build and very basic with no real detail but ideal for a quick build. (or so I thought) it is semi scale (1:32) 26.25 ins. long with a beam of 8 ins. originally powered by a RS540 type motor with a plain 35 two bladed prop. It now has a brushless motor (2900kv) and two blade 30mm prop powered from a lipo 2S 6000 mAh. 35C hard case battery via a 50Amp ESC with a 4amp BEC. For a change I wanted speed so the ESC and motor are water cooled. the water is circulated via pump that has its own speed controller running of the BEC supply. This only runs in forward and with the throttle set at zero it just a sort of "put put's" while the boat is stationary. Out of the water the current draw at f throttle is 7amps so run time should be around 30 mins at full throttle. The boat described in the article is very basic but dose list a couple of reference books. I found a number of pictures online so decided to make the model more detailed. (mistake no.2)My wallet is now quite light. The main challenge was the twin .5 caliber Vickers heavy machine gun turrets. If I had built this to 1:24 scale the there are plenty of "off the shelve parts" that can be obtained, but not in 1:32 scale. The rear Orelikon gun however is available in 1:32 scale. The Vickers guns are available from Gas Patch in Greece again expensive but very good resin cast in a four pack.
I had just bought a 3D printer so it was put use printing parts in PLA that could not be bought. In the end I have become quite proficient with Fusion 360 3D design software Cura 4.2 and Meshmixer
At the time of writing this I have just painted the hull and it is waiting for its final top coat. I deviated from the construction method in magazine and gave it 2 coats of XTC-3D epoxy, expensive but its the best I have used for this job (50ml's in total for both coats) and it gives a really good finish.
I am not after a true scale model but a good representation. I will be using a basic 2 channel radio with no frills