After spending a few days aboard the vessel sailing around the Western Isles of Scotland during my summer break in August I have decided to build a model of this little ship. Now in preservation and based at Crinan in Scotland this little ship now works giving pleasure trips to paying passengers.
Brief History
The vessel is 66' 4" long. 18' beam. 8' 6" draft at the stern and 4' at the bow. She weighs approximately 160 tons displacement dead-weight. The engine was built in 1943 by Crabtrees of Great Yarmouth. It is a compound steam engine developing 120 horse power. The 'VIC 32' was built by Dunston's of Thorne, Yorkshire in November 1943. This was a busy time for the Clyde Ship building yards and the Admiralty needed 50, victualling boats in a hurry. So they were built in groups of 3 by various different yards in England. 'VIC 32' worked out of Corpach at some time during the war, taking ammunition from barges moored at the head of Loch Eil and supplying the Atlantic fleet with victuals at the Saint Christopher's Base at Corpach. Also worked as a day boat in Rosyth Naval Dockyard after the war until she was sent over to White's of Inverkeithing to be scrapped in the 60's. VIC 32 spent many years in Whitby until it was bought by Nick Walker in 1975. The hold was converted to give a 6ft headroom for the cabins and a floor fitted for the saloon and galley area above by raising the height of the cargo hatch by 2ft. Since 1979 the vessel has been taking fare paying passengers on various trips around the Scottish coastline ranging from Glasgow to Inverness.
The model I am planning to build will be 1/24 scale, 33" (850mm) long, 9" (229mm) beam with electric power. The hull will be of traditional plank on frame construction with a modern twist. More on that later. I was able to purchase a General Arrangement drawing of the ship from the Nick Walker whilst on board but these drawings had no frame sections information. After a bit of research I found a set of drawings for VIC 32 with the hull sections available from Traplet, who produce Marine Modelling International magazine. The plans where featured in the August 1993 edition of the magazine and I obtained a copy from my Dad, ARH, after searching through his extensive collection of boating magazines.
For those that are interested I have written about the journey and produced some videos of the trip at the link shown below which gives a good idea of the mini adventure I had on board.
https://sites.google.com/site/tinytravelstheworld/Home/trip-11-vic-32I mentioned that I purchased a copy of the GA drawing that was on display aboard the puffer and a couple of weeks after arriving back from our holiday a large tube arrived in the post containing a copy of the GA with a note with kind regards from the Puffer Preservation Trust. The drawing shows a side view with interior details and plan view with the deck equipment, but no hull frame sections.
