HMS Enigma

[Guest]

Picked up my new boat on the way home last week and threw some electics into it to see how it performs.

The ballasting needs a bit of adjustment as the back end is to high and she is a bit too top heavy. When you feel the weight of the bridge unit and the deck fittings it is not surprising but for a hull of that size with a motorcycle battery in it she should be very stable. Not a great deal I can do about it as she is down to her marks already but I will have to take care when it is windy.

Anyway very pleased with her performance and for her first outing she was entered into a steering competition. We came joint second and in the playoff we did the only clear round of the day.

She does look brilliant on the water though!

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[Guest]

Well done Bunk! She looks beautiful!!!

Jason

[Guest]

she is lovely Bunk

[Guest]

she does look nice on teh water bunk, any plans for her or are you going to keep her as she is ?

[Guest]

Adz,

It is at the back of the list at the moment but I would like to do some carefull weathering, add some figures, do some rerigging, remove the blacked out bridge windows and fit a bridge and fit all the electics.

All I did was cobble together a motorcycle battery, a micro receiver(?) and a speed controller just to get it on the water (all held in place with Blu tac!!)

I have promised that I will finish off the Revel U-Boat and the steam coaster first though!!

I am really pleased with the way she looks on the water though and the way she handles.

[Guest]

very nice richard, is this the one you picked up off ebay?

[Guest]

Richard it looks good but what is it ??? It looks like a tug or is it a minesweeper ??? I know buggar all about boats (sorry) nice job though

[Guest]

Richard,

This is the one I got off Ebay while I was on the ship. It was complete but hadn't had the electrics fitted.

Nigel,

It is an Envoy class Admiralty Tug. There were six of them built namely Enchanter, Encore, Enforcer, Enigma, Enticer and Envoy and they were built and completed in 1944 for the Admiralty by Cochrane of Selby. They were used as fleet tugs during World War II and fitted with a 12-pounder deck gun, two Oerlikon guns and two Colt machine guns for defence when on escort or rescue duty. After the war the tugs were sold into commercial service and renamed.

[Guest]

Ahhh Now i understand it is a superb model mate i thought it loked too new to be ww2 though shows how tug design hasnt changed much !!! speaking of which when did thety start using the bow thrusters in tugs ????

[Guest]

I couldn't put a date to it but bow thrusters have been around for a long time. The QE2 has them and she was launched in '69.

Nowadays Tugs tend to use more sophisticated propulsion methods though such as Voith Scheneider units and Azipods but handling a model such as this one makes you realise just how manoeuvreable a basic set up can be.

Also bear in mind that these tugs were triple expansion steam engines which makes you realise what technology was available at the time.

[Guest]

Thanks for that richard i think i understood one word in 3 just goes to show how much we all think we know and how much there is to learn !!! sorry to be a numpty can you explain the terminology please !!!

[Guest]

A Voith Schneider unit is like vertical blades that spin around on a disc in the bottom of the hull. The blades are all adjustable so can be either in a zero pitch position where they all rotate on a circle giving no thrust or they can be adjusted so that as they go past a certain point on the rotation that change pitch and give a thrust.

This unit is very quick to respond and can give equal thrust throughout 360 deg. It is not very efficient for normal propulsion though.

An azipod unit is a pod that azumuths!! Seriously it is a motor and prop unit mounted outside the hull which can rotate through 360 deg. The QM2 has two fixed pods and two azimuthing pods. Very efficient and very manouvreable but are still prone to leakage issues. Also the QM2 has damaged one which on a normal ship would require a prop change but on her it necessitates the complete pod change which will take two dry docks and a few months of reduced speeds.

Triple expansion is a steam engine that uses exhaust steam from the first cylinder to power the second cylinder and the exhaust from the second cylinder to power the third one. This is designed to extract the maximum possible energy from the steam. The givaway when you look at one is that the cylinders get larger each time as the steam has expanded that bit more during each working stroke.

Nigel,

Have a look at this link for a more comprehensive explanation:

http://www.voithturbo.de/vt_en_pua_marine_vspropeller.htm