Just wondering if anyone knew where the HMS Courageous that was builted by Bob P was... I own her for awhile then sold her to someone in Maryland I believe sometime around 2004. She was battling with the IRCWCC for awhile.
The Courageous was my third RC combat model (1996) after a WWII version of monitor HMS Terror built in 1984 under the original RC combat club's rules, and a WWI version built in 1995. The second HMS Terror was from my first fiberglass hull mold and Courageous was my third mold after Hood, both of which are now owned by Strike Models. I think Courageous was the best looking capital ship I've built but did not turn well and had only 2 turrets. Stern guns were useless because she turned too slowly to get them on target unless the target was disabled or its skipper wasn't alert. It worked much better with 75 shot side mounts in the two turrets but that wasn't allowed by IRCWCC rules. Ran it that way under local NABS rules for a year. I think she'd be better under Washington Treaty rules, being one of the faster models and being allowed two 1.5 unit guns. I have the first hull from the HMS Furious mold (also at Strike now) ready to build as a Treaty battlecruiser with that armament. I'd like to know where the model is and would be interested in getting it back, as I did recently with SNS Canarias. Courageous was strongly built - my usual construction of a molded fiberglass deck glassed to the hull. A mostly fiberglass superstructure was bolted to the deck so it could be removed for repairs. The model survived 3' fall with no damage when a kid at one battle knocked it off a retaining wall. Fortunately it landed hull down. After building Hood, Warspite, Gorgon and Espana (molds also sold to Strike) with gelcoated fiberglass superstructures I switched to 2.0 mm styrene for the superstructures on HMCS Prince Robert and HMS Minotaur (armoured cruiser). Styrene is lighter, more resilient and easier to repair than chipped gelcoat or cracked fiberglass
Hello Bob, I was hoping to do the same. I remember the Courageous being a very nice looking ship that was fun to run but not a very good combat model. Because of that I was hoping that whoever has her would be willing to part with her so I could turn her into a fun ship for my son Joshua to sail on the lake while Benjamin sailed the Hood. Thought they would look great sailing side by side. Also would like to complete her detailing so when the boys were not running them on the lake we could display them in our war room. As with the Hood her combat days would be over. By the way, Benjamin and I have been working on the Hood. We made guns for her 15inch turret's, and began changing her paint to her Med/sea colors. Still have a lot of work, but Benjamin really loves the Hood. Today we should get the hardware/running gear needed to start building the Canarias. We will be building her to battle. Looking forwarded to getting started.
I have multiple 4" x 6" colour photos of Courageous running trials and great close up photos of her sinking, shot with a 400mm telephoto lens. Unfortunately I don't have a scanner. There's video footage of her battling against Curt Stokes' Bismarck in high winds and 'surfing' the waves while running downwind. From the same date there's footage of a Lutzow going upwind, plowing straight through the waves and being almost completely submerged. Curt Stocks probably has a copy of the same NABS VHS tape. I don't know if there's a way to get the images/footage on this site.
Curt Stokes has photos of Courageous somewhere in his collection and will post them here when found. He also has the video footage mentioned above. I'd like to know what became of the second Courageous Class hull I laid up immediately after the first. They were both made with the angled aft end of the forecastle deck superstructure molded on in fiberglass. The second hull and turret set were sold locally, then resold to someone in the US.
I am off the weekend So I am going to find those pics and video. I hope to be able to edit the Nabs battles if the quality of the footage is decent. Once done I can post them.
Since new media is added to the front of that list, it'll keep shifting further back in page count as people add new stuff. Here is the direct link to the album itself: HMS COURAGEOUS | R/C Warship Combat
Thanks for the photos Curt. I've added descriptions for them. All were taken in 1997 when the Courageous model was completed.
I saw that Bob. Thanks for filling in the comments. I have a couple of thousand pictures and hours and hours of video to tend to. I think What I will do is compile the photos under a NABS Album with all the ships and their photos under individual photo albums like Warspite and Courageous. If you have anything to add or create you can do so as well and add any photos to Warspite and Courageous that you have. This will take quite some time between the sorting of the pics to getting them uploaded then transferred over to this site.
