Sorry to hear about your problems Curt. The weather remains unseasonably cold and rainy in Nova Scotia too. It's still not warm enough overnight for me to finish molding the last section of fiberglass deck for HMS Indefatigable or to install the completed decks on the Rodney, Profintern and Indefatigable. (My 'admiral' won't allow fiberglassing in the basement, so it has to be done on the roofed front deck when the overnight temp is at least 10 degrees C.) I'm down to one battle ready model, HMS Gorgon. HMS Minotaur is being sold and her refit and repaint should be finished this week. She'll be off to join HMS Hood in the US. SNS Canarias came back to me in a partial trade for Hood and her refit has finally begun. That'll be followed by a gutting and rebuild of HMS Suffolk which will give me a matched pair of ships to battle with at the cottage. Indefatigable will be next; her local opponent will be Ralph's SMS Seydlitz but neither will be finished before September.
Well looks like we have similar issues Bob with the weather. I am making progress on Montana . I need to update the contruction photos here on the forum. I am trying to get Montana launched by Canada Day. After that I may try to get the VU going and the Tirpitz. I really want to get my Gato 1/72nd Sub started and building for next summer sailing. She will be Static diving. I have most of the components already.
I'm making slow progress on combat models. I' ve been working at the forensic hospital far more than intended (3-4 days per week instead of 1-2) and have yet to have time to finish molding the last and biggest deck section for HMS Indefatigable. I finish work for the summer tomorrow and am off to the cottage but have been assigned the Smart Car because the in-laws are coming for 3 weeks in July and Kim needs the Prius to transport them around Halifax. With 2 Scotties, food, clothes and other stuff there's no room for Canarias and Suffolk which I'd planned to start refitting next week. I won't have the bigger car until the end of July so will do the refit in August. I've just finished a complete refit of armoured cruiser HMS Minotaur (3.5 units) and boxed it to ship to Larry Dingle in South Carolina. Larry has Hood and had Canarias for about 10 years, but I got Canarias back in a partial trade for Hood. Larry's interested in Suffolk when refitted but I'm inclined to keep it so Canarias will have an evenly matched opponent. Still debating whether to sell the Rodney hull, deck and turrets vs Vanguard. In reality I'll probably never use either battleship locally and should sell both. Cruisers and battlecruisers are much easier to maintain and transport to NATS. Completion of Indefatigable and Krasni Krim are looking like fall/winter projects. Montana looks great in the Facebook photos.
Been trying to get Treaty reconstituted with my new base out here in north western Indiana. Changed jobs so that's why I'm up here. Been fighting a losing battle with my career back in southwestern Ohio for about 8 years. Finally got a much better job and love it up here (except in the winter! Forgot how cold it gets in these latitudes!). From the split we went through back in the beginning of the 2012 season we've dealt with the death of one of our younger new members, another one dealing with a minor stroke and devastating car accident (as a result of the stroke. He's still involved in the hobby), everyone else dealing with job issues and life responsibilities. We're still alive and kicking (and growing) and are going to be having a battle in the next few weeks. Hopefully when I get out of the apartment I'm living in now and get into a house I'll be able to host building sessions and spend more time showing some of the newbie's out here how to set things up. I've got access to a 5 acre pond and am going to be checking out a large body of water in a neighboring community that is supposedly 5 feet deep with a sandy bottom. Next year the trick is going to have about 5 battles. Also and probably most important is family time. If you have children who are involved in sport, band or academic competitions you have make a choice as to where you will spend your time, because you will never get it back. I was a band parent so I spent Friday nights at games dragging props and instruments on the field for shows and on Saturday and Sunday in the fall I was at competitions. Both of my daughters were also in vocal ensembles and they had contests in the spring along with voice lessons. All that takes time and money and if your job in going about as well as a sick car you make your choices where you will spend you money and time. I think everyone will agree, family trumps everything else. It's hard now a days to try getting people . We're in competition with computer games and people who are not interested nor have the skills to put one of these together. I remember when I was at the 1982 Nats in Amarillo, sitting in Stan Watkins living room with others discussing the merits of Steve Millholand's idea of a business that will sell kits, guns and parts to promote the hobby. Stan said to everyone, "If people want to get into the hobby then they will spend the time and develop the skills to put a ship together. Having them purchase the parts and assembling it won't teach them anything." It was very different back then. We were scattered across the country, we communicated with cassette tapes (sorry, there was no unlimited time on the phone) and the closest person was usually a days drive away so we had to figure it out for ourselves. There were no building sessions (unless you were lucky enough to get a group of local people involved) and there was no businesses in existence to call and order parts. You had to have the drive and intestinal fortitude to do what was necessary to build a ship and drive to do this hobby. Unfortunately that does not exist in the abundance it once did. Finally people were willing to travel more then. I remember Marty saying it took the Maryland guys 30 hours to get to Springfield, Missouri (correct me if I'm wrong Marty!) for nationals. Gerald Roberts came up from Corpus Christy, Dirty Dave from Abilene Texas, Chris Paul from Minnesota, Dan Hamilton from Decatur, Alabama and Carl Cammerati (sorry for the spelling Carl) from New York and a host of others. It was different. Meets were precious and the time together was even more precious. Perhaps this is because of the digital age. Back then I came close to walking away because as a college student I didn't have the money and the closest person to me was in Chicago. I went to meets and took pictures and talked with a lot of guys who were willing to share the knowledge and help a newbie succeed. I just wish that I had listened more and was less headstrong. I might have had more success earlier on than I did. But hey, I did get a ship on the water!! Sorry this has droned on and on. I do terribly miss my friends from back then...
Looks like Montana will see a launch date somewhere in the next 2 weeks .I started ease back to work which begins tomorrow .
The Nova Scotia fleet is down another battle ready model. I've just sold HMS Minotaur to Larry Dingle in SC. HMS Minotaur is a 3.5 unit armoured cruiser, used for several years in NABS with its 3.0 unit team mate AC HMS Black Prince (now in the OAF). Minotaur is a custom 'one off' fiberglass hull built from a Black Prince hull stretched 1". (Strike has the BP mold now.) Nice model but I'd rather see it in use than gathering dust. Larry also has my 1921 version of HMS Hood and had SNS Canarias, which I've bought back and will be refitting along with HMS Suffolk this fall. Though NABS is clearly 'dead' Ralph continues to build SMS Seydlitz (slowly) and I'm building Indefatigable and Profintern (just as slowly). Ralph has recently produced new 1/144 molds for the Fiji/Uganda/Swiftsure Classes of heavy cruiser and for HMS Agincourt, which I'm very tempted to build, good battler or not.
