My story on how I started building model boats...
Many years ago when I was about 10 (1968) I started building plastic kits with my dad. We built cars, fire trucks, planes and ships. All of which I never saved. It seems I gravitated towards plastic ship kits. Sometime around 12-13 (1970) I designed and scratch built a wooden sailboat that was about 20 inches long. I knew nothing about building wooden models. Still remember the smell of Ambroid wood glue! My mom sewed up the sails for me. I sailed it in our swimming pool and at Roosevelt Park Lake in Edison New Jersey. I had no control of it so it just free sailed. At the lake it was attached to a fishing pole so I could retrieve it.
Somehow I became interested in the German battleship Bismarck. At the James Monroe Elementary School library I found and read ‘The Sinking of the Bismarck’ by William L Shirer. Not sure from where, but I bought Edward Wiswesser plans of the Bismarck, Scharnhorst and Hood. My second wooden model was the Bismarck from the Wiswesser plans. I had to enlarge the plans by hand drawing them to the scale I wanted which came out to a model 51.5”long. For being 16 years old in 1974, I got the proportions of the scratch built model damn close. I even designed a switch mechanism to give me forward and reverse. I used a Dumas motor and a Kraft radio.
Around this time (1974-76) I saw an article in a local paper about someone by the name of Charles Mueller. He built model boats, and large ones they were! He happen to live on the other side of Edison! I wrote him a letter, he responded, as it ended up we became friends and I would go to his house on Saturdays and we would work on model boats and I would learn and get ideas of my own. In the second picture below, the sailboat on the wall above the Enterprise I had made in woodshop at Herbert Hoover Middle School. He had built the Sterling Missouri and I borrowed his plans to help me along building the Bismarck. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him, would be nice to find him again if he is still with us. I checked Zillow for his house, been sold a few times since.
The next model was a 1/16 scale model of a WWII Essex class carrier which was the same scale as the Bismarck, also from Wiswesser plans. Never finished it, still have it. I bought ships fittings and airplanes from Floating Drydock, they are heavy being white metal. Will probably never finish the model.
Sometime after completing the Bismarck and while building the carrier the Courier News newspaper contacted me to do an article about me. At the time, way before the internet, was cool to have yourself in a publication, of course for a good reason. Here is the article.
Then came along the Dumas PT-109. Finished it, ran it a few times, then unbuilt it. Surplus PT boats were sold after war and became fishing or pleasure vessels, some of which are still around. I’m rebuilding the Dumas PT as a Miss Belmar party boat which is the predecessor to the SS Miss Belmar. At the top of this website look under the menu for Belmar Boats and you can see where I am with this one. I have a tendency to stop and go on many of my models. This model is currently unfinished.
During 1973 my mom and dad bought a boat! Best purchase ever! What fun! It was a 19 foot open bow with a 115 HP Evinrude. We would cruise around, go fishing off of the coast, even taught myself and others how to water ski. A lot of times I would go out in the ocean off Belmar by myself and enjoy going over the swells.
Since around 1975-76 I was also displaying my models at the Asbury Park Boat Show every February. Was mentioned many times in The Start Ledger, Asbury Press and other newspapers. Always looked forward to the Asbury Boat show. At the time I worked at a boat yard in Edison while going to Middlesex County College. I was painting boat bottoms, rigging boats with electronics and fishing gear and they had me taking Mercury outboards apart even though I was not a mechanic. Fun stuff.
Once I graduated Middlesex County College and DeVry Technical Institute I move from Edison to South Belmar where my parents inherited the house from my grandfather after his passing, it was of off 18th Ave. Now I lived at the shore, family owned a boat, I lived 5 blocks from the ocean, worked in Eatontown. What a wonderful and grateful place and position to be in. Although my model building slacked off because I did not have a proper place in the house to have a shop.
I would ride my bike along Ocean Avenue and up to the Belmar Marina. There I befriended Bob Nash who was the captain of the SS Miss Belmar. The rest of this story can be found on the SS Miss Belmar page.
End of the 80’s, married, had kids, and divorced in 2007. Did not do much model building or boating during that time. 1995 moved to Howell and built a proper shop in the basement. In 2008 returned to model building continuing work on the SS Miss Belmar. After the Miss Belmar I built the USS Marlin which I got from Skip Asay. After the Marlin a good friend gave me Dumas hull which I built into the offshore powerboat KAAMA. Check the menu Other Models for details about those models.
In 2001 I became a certified Scuba Diver. Most of my dives where off the Jersey coast on board Bob Nash’s boat Outlaw. I also dived in the Bahamas on the reefs on the north coast and in the Florida Keys at Big Key.
Sometime around the late 70’s a bunch of people started a model boat club. We called ourselves the Garden State Model Boaters or GSMB. Our meetings were in Spring Lake. At our high point we had over 100 members and put on big shows at Lake Devine in Spring Lake and were all over the place running our models in Malls, retirement communities and static displays on Belmar Boardwalk, libraries and anyplace else we were asked. We are now down to 10 members and we meet in Spring Lake Heights on the same day we met from the beginning days of the club. We run our models at Lake Wadill at Leisure Village in Lakewood five times a year from May to September, sometimes at Lake Devine in Spring Lake and we attend the Antique Boat Show at Johnson Brothers boat yard in September. Sometimes I go to Groton CT and meet with other model submariners where we run our models at a lake on the New London Submarine Base.
Well that’s my story for now. Going forward I’m planning on building four boats that were in the Belmar Marina in the 80’s and 90’s. I’ll be taking measurements off of 8×10 pictures and creating my own hull lines for these boats, then I’ll start construction. They will all be motorized and radio control with working lights. Check the Menu up top under Belmar Boats. As of today June 2019, I have not yet started this endeavor. I have this website to build and other life things going on.