Modelling & racing is a popular and growing pastime internationally, embracing technology but also showing significant interest in replicating the original designs of past success. At some stage during the 1960’s Sonny Levi licensed his “Surfury” design to enable modellers to access plans & also apparently a production run of her hull in GRP. A number of scale modelling projects of “Surfury” are currently in work, of significant scale & of high quality. All enquiries for plans & details that have been received are passed on and a section on this site will be dedicated to those wishing to communicate progress and show their completed craft during make or under power.

Please contact chris.grayer@surfury.co.uk if you have any contributions.

 
Tim Mock's Surfury.

The Idea.
I first saw Surfury when she was partaking in the Cowes Torquay offshore race at Torquay in August1967 when she arrived into the harbour and berthed. Although I was very young at the time it left an impression because she seemed to be a ‘proper’ race boat compared to most of the other entrants that were fast cruisers. Looking from the quayside down onto her she seemed very big but in reality only 36 foot but then me being only seven years old all boats looked big.

Model making.
Model boat magazine was a popular read for me in those days and offered loads of goodies to dream about.
SHG Marine advertised a kit of Surfury, I couldn’t afford such a boat in those days but always thought I might one day and finally the opportunity arrived.

The Build.
Having had a moment of inspiration last year when I wanted to build a decent size boat Surfury came to mind. The more I thought about it the more enthusiastic I was. I had been flying large model planes but was finding it difficult to get the time to travel to the airfield for the day and therefore not getting much satisfaction from aircraft.
My first action was to search the ‘net’ just in case there was some info available and this resulted in getting in contact with Chris Grayer who has a great enthusiasm for the boat and a collection of photos of her.  Chris told me that the boat was still in existence and in a museum which came as a surprise but re-inforced my thoughts about building a model of her as I could go and see her if necessary. I contacted the museum at Basildon who was most helpful for photocopies of the original plans of her that included plenty of detail but were original drawings by Levi that I later found out were heavily modified with the influence of the Gardner Brothers . I also purchased a set of plans from Nexus model plans service, these proved not to be very accurate but would produce a sport scale model if that’s what you want. They did however provide the frame outlines that I wanted.

Having studies the drawings I decided to build the model at 6ft long which meant doubling the size of the plan. The simplest way of doing (that know of) this was to photocopy the half frame sections and double their size on the copier but I soon found out that copiers are not accurate when using a percentage increase so by measuring the enlarged copy I then reduced the enlargement down to 199 % to give a reasonable accurate effective 200% increase. There are also distortions to the enlargement to be considered but I concluded that it was insignificant.
Once the half frames were enlarged I printed two sets, reversed one set and joined the two half’s of the paper together with cello tape and produced 7 complete frame line drawings at the correct scale. A bold central and lateral line was drawn on each frame so as to aid alignment on assembly.
The individual frame sections were then glued onto 6mm plywood sheets and then cut out on a band saw.
The keel section was doubled by the same photocopy method and sections glued onto 6mm ply and two keels cut out. The shaft hole (angle taken from plan) was routed out of each half and the two half’s glued and pinned together to give a keel of 12mm wide. With a shaft hole already established but not big enough as I did not then know the size of the shaft to use, but opening out a hole is a lot easier than trying to drill a straight hole at an angle in a narrow piece of ply.

Framing up.
A jig was built to hold the frames as the boat was to be built up side down consisting of a 7ft length of 6inch x1 inch plank with 2x2in supporting blocks glued into the frame positions taken from the plans and doubled. The frames were then screwed onto them using the central and lateral lines to get them squared up. The stringer positions were notched out of the frames and the spruce stringers glued on as per the plan. Starting at the stern and keeping all frames square they all meet at the bow where it gets a bit tight but is manageable.

I had considered different methods of building up the hull i.e. large sheets of ply steamed around or carvel planking or strip planking double diagonal. I finally decided on strip single planks on the diagonal as the hull shape is quite rounded and I felt this method would represent this well. I had also decided to plank in balsa wood as it is easy to bend and shape and finally finish off in fibre glass and cloth to water proof. The balsa is also light and when finished any ballast being needed can be put at the lowest point in the bilge making the boat as stable as possible with a low centre of gravity. I selected the wood with a thickness of 4 mm to allow a reasonable amount to be sanded away to get a smooth shape, the 4inch wide sheets were cut in to 1 inch strips and soaked in water to soften.
Starting in the amidships position and from the keel the planks were laid over and super glued on. The dampness in the wood helped both the bending and setting of the superglue. Once the glue was applied and the plank fitted they only had to be held in place for 30 secs each. I started at the amidships position so as to eliminate any distortion during the build. I fitted about 6 planks on one side then six on the other working my way aft and fwd alternately. I am convinced that if I had planked all one side and the wood dried I would have ended up with a banana shaped hull.

One hundred and six planks completed the hull but really didn’t take long with a helper to apply the glue. I think it took about 3hrs in all.

The big mistake.
Once the planking was completed it became evident all was not as it should be and that the hull was showing signs of sagging between frames. This was due to insufficient frames. Obviously the frames provide the shape of a hull when planked but with too few wide apart the planks go flat between them loosing the shape. After a panic I decided all was not lost as the hull would need a lot of filling before the fibre glassing and could be rectified then. If building one of these I would suggest fitting more frames just for the planking and then removing after to keep the weight down.

The hull was completed in woodwork terms and needed to be finished off so it could then sit in a cradle without damaging the soft balsa whilst being fitted out.
A friend of mine by the name of Justin Adkin from Rowsell and Adkin boat builders suggested using filler that he uses on the Atlantic Challenge Rowing boats he builds. It is as soft as the foam laminates these boats are built from so when sanding down it sands easily and therefore stops you sanding away the surrounding material leaving the usual harder filler as a mound.
The entire hull was covered with this green ‘goo’ by trowel and left to harden overnight. A long 2ft sanding block was used to rough out the filler giving a nice smooth consistent finish without all the sags between frames, it worked very well.

The hull was then fibre glassed all over with a chopped strand matting and resin. Once cured the weave was filled in with car body filler and sanded and filled about six times to get a good smooth finish. This task took ages and is extremely monotonous but it is worth it in the end.
The spray rails were now cut out of spruce strips put through a thickness machine sat in a wooden jig to hold them at the required angle. The rails are not an equilateral triangle section but of a section with one longer edge what ever that’s called. The only way of machining them is to do it this way as it’s done on full size boats. I didn’t make enough of them at the time and then the workshop and machine got flooded with sea water in the autumn storms and very high tides so was off line for some time. As a consequence the rails as fitted are not quite right as they should be a bit longer in the bow but still look OK.

With the hull completed I now had the option to take a mould of her but did I really want one?
After all the work it seemed a lot more effort to go to when all I wanted was to finish off the whole boat but I finally decided that should anything happen to her I would then be able to make another fibre glass one quite easily.

Having made the decision I cut out a large piece of hardboard to make a rim around the deck line so as to create a flange to fibre glass up to and screwed this to the top stringers and radiused the flange with decorators caulk as glass fibre has difficulty going into tight corners.
Six coats of release agent polish were applied and then one coat of gel coat being left to cure for a day or two. I bought several metres of a light weight glass cloth, enough to give two layers and duly stuck it on and rolled in the resin. The whole job taking a couple of hours.

Breaking the Mould.
The idea was not to break the mould or ‘plug’ as this was to be my ‘Surfury’ but she was stuck fast in there and no amount of heaving was shifting it. After some deliberation and when I wasn’t there the lads in the boatyard where I glassed her up got serious with it and out she came, the cause of the sticking being the spray rails of the correct section didn’t allow them to slide out of the mould easily and one broke but the new mould is in my opinion ‘bloody marvellous’ and was worth it all.

Fitting out.
The deck was left off till all the internal fitting was complete to make access easier.
The first item to be fitted was the rudder tube and mounting block. The tube is made from a stainless metric steel bolt with its head machined round and thinned down to form a flange, and a hole bored through to match the rudder stock diameter. Using an old bolt meant that I didn’t have to cut a thread into it or buy any material.

A hardwood block was cut and a pilot hole drilled through using a pedestal drill to ensure getting the hole square and then using the block as a guide when drilling through the keel in the boat. The block was then epoxyied into place and when set the larger hole drilled through into the keel.

The two water scoops are also stainless bolts with their heads turned off, bored through and a washer silver soldered on to make a flange to seat onto the hull. The threaded portion going through the hull and a nut and washer fitted inside squeezing the assembly tight like the rudder tube. Both the rudder and scoops were fitted with a sealing compound through the hull to lessen the chances of water getting into the balsa planks.

The prop shaft now had to be fitted and the commercial one available was 10mm od meaning I had to open out the hole in the keel. This was done with a long drill bit turning slowly. The pilot hole helped to keep the bit on track and all turned out well. The tube assy was epoxied into place with special attention paid to the hull to make sure glue was all the way up the hole as the balsa planks met at the keel line and could get soggy if sea water got in. Inside the hull the tube protruded thru the keel with very little material supporting the side so two pieces of ply were glued in as a pair of cheeks either side of the keel to aid support. The left over epoxy was then warmed and poured into the void around the tube and cheeks making a very solid fixing.
Mounting the engine required a bit of thought as I wanted to use rubber mounts to remove harsh vibrations from the hull but these if mounted direct to the engine were quite narrow and a long way from the hull frames they ultimately had to connect to. An alloy mounting frame was made as a cradle to support the engine that would reach the frames and transfer the thrust into the hull. Two alloy brackets connect the fwd end and two studs buried in epoxy into the hull the aft end. The engine was aligned with a dummy solid coupling as the fitted one is rubber and impossible to align to the shaft. Once held in place with pieces of wood and clamps epoxy was poured into the stud mounting area and allowed to cure, the fwd brackets marked off onto the frame and bolt holes drilled through.

The radio box is a waterproof enclosure available from electrical wholesalers and had to be mounted off centre so as to give clearance to the tune pipe that runs down the centre line. To get a slop free linkage to the rudder the large scale Hitec 700 servo is in its own water proof box mounted as close to the rudder as possible and the wires run inside a plastic tube to the receiver in the other box. I think it’s best to assume that the model will at some time fill with water and therefore protect the electronics from the outset.

The engine is a Zenoah 26cc PUM as bought from e-bay that having test run, seems quite lively on the tune pipe. The mounting arrangement is quite heavy and I’m sure other modellers would consider being over the top. My thinking was that if the engine is not powerful enough I could fit a bigger 75cc? Motor within the same framing rather that hack the hull about putting in bearers. It does also provide rubber mounting points for the engine, all of which was made from scrap marine grade alloy I already had. Nuts and bolts are all stainless steel as I intend to run this boat in the sea as there are no fresh water lakes near me.

The exhaust apart from the tuned pipe is of stainless steel tube and water injected where it bi-ficates to create the impression of working twin outlets. The engine cooling water into one and the manifold cooling water into the other. High temp resistant silicone tube joins the tubes.
Two fuel tanks are fitted that are paralleled together to give a good endurance but may prove to be excessive. If only one tank was fitted in the space available (don’t want any more weight in the bow) the boat would take a variable list as fuel is consumed. I have purposely put all the machinery in the stern area because a hull form such as this has little buoyancy in the bow at rest and would sit significantly bow down.
The trim tabs have been make and are going to be working each with its own servo that might be ‘mixed’ on the radio control transmitter to work coupled the throttle to independently counteract the ‘torque reaction of the propeller. Trials will show if this is necessary.

Finishing.
The whole boat has yet to be sanded down and a significant amount of filling to be done before the top sides are to be epoxy resined and painted. I am obtaining the correct paint colours for her but as with other aspects of the boat she was changed over years, close inspection of the photos via Chris Grayer show this. There is also some additional ‘toe rails’ fitted that werenot present in the early race day pics.

Conclusion.
A few more weeks should see her complete. I will provide more pictures as I progress.

Tim Mock 2005.