The pond at Terrace View Park in Oak Brook is a popular hangout for geese, ducks, pebble-skipping kids and the Yamato, a Japanese battleship from World War II.
“It was the biggest battleship ever built,” explained its captain, John Grove, 48, of Schaumburg as he maneuvered the vessel alongside the pier. “It was sunk during the war.”
On this sunny Sunday, Grove was also steering the New Jersey, an American battleship from World War II that most recently saw action during Desert Storm, while Bob Growden of Glen Ellyn readied his Chinese junk for a leisurely sail. The two were later joined by about 15 other fellow boaters intently maneuvering their ships around the 5.7-acre pond.
Admittedly these boats are a bit smaller than the original vessels-1/350th the size in the case of Grove’s boats-and any danger associated with sailing them is more likely to come from a curious carp or an irritated goose than from enemy fire or pirates.
But the captains of these scale models seem to get as much of a kick out of manning these radio-controlled versions as they would commanding the real thing.
Most are members of the Northwest Commodores Scale Model Boat Club and/or the Scale Model Ship Masters, two loosely knit clubs boasting a collective membership of about 60 model boat enthusiasts ranging in age from 12 to 70-plus. According to Jack Robles of Chicago, president of the Northwest Commodores, they’re not out to prove anything, make a statement or reach lofty goals. Rather, their mission is to simply have fun and share their hobby with anyone who’ll listen. Their slogan: “He who dies with the most toys wins.”
“When I’m on the water, I kind of make believe I’m in the boat,” confided Dick Zander, 67, of Glenview and the captain of a 42-inch mahogany tugboat. “I’ve always been interested in boats, but I figure a model is a lot less of a liability than a full-sized one.”
Zander’s boat, which he built from the original plans of a tug built in Weymouth, Mass., in 1866, is equipped with a Lilliputian-sized crew of nine, including a steersman hidden away in the pilot house, three tattooed deck hands and a little boy with a dog.
Other types of boats you’re likely to see plying the waterway in Oak Brook during warm-weather months include the aforementioned junk (a micro mini stereo in the ship’s underbelly provides atmosphere in the form of lively Chinese-style music), an eight-foot PT boat (complete with a radio-controlled torpedo), a selection of cabin cruisers and pleasure craft, a World War II freighter, a Belgian shrimp boat and a Swedish lake steamer.
“I’m 65 and still playing with toys,” said a grinning Art Gallet of Chicago as he blasted the fog horn on Betty, his 33-inch English fishing trawler.
A close inspection of models like Gallet’s, however, reveals such a high degree of care, craftsmanship and attention to detail that it’s obvious these boats are more than just toys.
Painstakingly crafted, many from scratch using life-size plans, they can take anywhere from six months to several years to build; values range from $100 to thousands.
Gallet’s trawler, which is built to 1:20 scale (one inch equals 20 inches) and based on a boat he visited in Bridlington, England, has a working radio, running lights and mast lights, even tiny baskets Gallet wove himself and filled with minnows preserved in lacquer.
And unlike the sleek gas-powered model racing boats capable of reaching speeds in excess of 60 miles per hour, these intricate vessels house six-volt batteries enabling them to bob along at around three to five miles per hour-tops.
“What we do is build exact replicas for detail, seldom for speed,” explained Dave Hampton, president of the Scale Ship Modeller’s Association (SSMA) based in Indianapolis, an international organization with about 300 members in the U.S. and Canada. “The common denominator seems to be some need in these people to create-it’s `the boys and their toys’ kind of thing, but it’s also the idea of building something. Most of the modelers will spend years building one model.”
Indeed, Hugh Adam, 38, who lives in Itasca and serves as yeoman of the Northwest Commodores, said he spent 50 to 100 hours just working on the torpedo for his model PT boat. Built to 1:10 scale, the finished boat and torpedo are the result of combining 30 different sets of plans to get just the right look, he said.
A replica of PT 559, the first boat to sink another boat with a torpedo using radar bearings alone, Adam’s 150-pound craft is made of household grade plywood, fiberglass and plastic.
“Actually, I made the torpedo first,” Adam admitted, “then I had to make the right size boat to go with it.”
Not all the models are as big as Adam’s, though. Sizes range from eight inches to eight feet, but the average is about two or three feet, according to Grove.
Grove, the vice president of the Northwest Commodores, says he has a weakness for warships, while Robles, a charter member of the 21-year-old club, is passionate about what he calls “small ships going in harm’s way”-tugboats and small patrol craft.
Robles, 57, whose wife Myrtle shares his enthusiasm for tugs and is one of the few women actively involved in the hobby in area clubs, estimates he spends upwards of 100 hours on research alone while another 200 or so hours will go into the actual building.
“But I don’t pay a lot of attention to time because it’s more of a work of love,” he said. “Lucky for me, my wife tolerates it.”
While radio-controlled hobbies (namely airplanes, cars and boats) add up to an estimated billion-dollar-a-year business in the United States, they are still considered one of those lesser-known hobbies, said Debra Love, president of the Champaign-based Radio Control Hobby Trade Association (RCHTA).
“A lot of people don’t know a lot about RC (radio control),” Love said. “I think we’re the best-kept hobby secret around.
“But we’re growing,” she added, noting that thanks to better radio technology and lower prices for equipment, an increasing number of folks are enjoying RC hobbies.
Sue Bathauer, executive secretary of the International Model Power Boat Association based in Fountaintown, Ind., said membership took a big jump three years ago and have steadily increased since then. Current membership for the IMPBA, which includes both scale electric and gas racing boats, is around 3,000 in nearly 100 clubs in the U.S., Canada and Australia.
“It’s fun,” Love said, “and more people are being exposed to the fun aspect of it. I would hazard a guess you’ve seen more of these models in the last three years than you’ve probably seen in the last 10.”
Indeed, according to Gus Kaufman, owner of Ship Chandler, a marine hobby shop in Mt. Prospect, the availability of kits has helped spawn a steady growth in scale modelling.
“Back in the old days, you had to more or less do it all by yourself,” said Kaufman, who at 63 is also a charter member of the Commodores and president of the Scale Model Ship Masters. “Nowadays, the range of materials . . . well there is no range, there are so many things available to the modeler, it’s unbelievable.”
Love agreed. “Years ago you had to be able to build your model before you could really get involved,” she said, “but now with the degree of prefabrication, you can walk into your hobby shop, you can buy the boat, you can buy the radio and the batteries and be on the pond in 15 minutes. That has really helped bring a whole new generation into it who maybe weren’t builders, who really didn’t want to have to learn how to lay out planking or decking on a boat.”
For most of these modelers, though, building the boat is at least half the fun.
“The building is my favorite part,” said Gallet, who’s been constructing models for more than 25 years. “I get tired very quickly of running. There’s only so much you can do when they’re on the water. I like to take my time (building) and put detail into it.”
A true testimony to that claim, Gallet’s 28-inch Belgian shrimp boat, the Marie (named after his wife), took more than a year to build. Tiny weathered ropes, carefully strung fishing nets, half-inch woven baskets and working lights make this craft look like a life-sized boat was somehow magically shrunk. Gallet even simulated the wooden pegs found on a real deck by drilling hundreds of little holes and filling them with shaved down toothpicks.
That’s not to say that running the models doesn’t have its share of drama.
Len DeSalvo of Chicago, past president of the Commodores, lost radio contact with a warship he was sailing on a lake (the radio range is 1,000 to 1,500 feet) and it literally sailed off into the sunset, never to be seen again.
And Mike Lee-Hunter of Des Plaines, a member of the Scale Model Ship Masters, said club members have come to depend on him for at least one good sinking a year.
“This one was down for two weeks,” he said pointing to his 31-inch Swedish lake steamer. “I had to have a scuba diver go retrieve it. It sank beautifully. It sank just like a real ship.”
Lee-Hunter said his current project is a U25 German submarine. “I haven’t put the sub in yet . . .,” he said, trailing off.
“Yeah, the bet is that it won’t sink, it’ll fly,” Kaufman chimed in with a snicker.
Kaufman noted that while many boats are built to 1:96 or 1:48 scale (similar to model railroading’s HO and O scale), a good percentage of the boats are built to odd scales since there’s no need to fit a certain size track as there is in model railroading.
“But (when you build in an odd scale) there are no scale parts available, so you have to make your own,” Kaufman said.
“How creative you are is really a factor of whether you want to buy something or make it,” agreed SSMA’s Hampton, who conceded to swiping the plastic ends off the pull chords from his mini blinds to make fire hose nozzles and hollowing out golf tees to make air horns on a cabin cruiser. “My kids’ toy box is a treasure chest,” he added laughing.
Kaufman, who has built more than 40 boats in his modeling career, said he has made smokestacks out of PVC pipe, air scoops out of the bottom of Legg’s pantyhose eggs and winches and gears out of serrated bottle caps. “It’s a matter of what looks right,” he said.
The following Chicago area model boat clubs welcome spectators and new members. All club outings and meetings are free and open to the public.
– Northwest Commodores Scale Model Boat Club: Meets the third Sunday of the month at Terrace View Park, 1 Parkview Plaza, Oakbrook Terrace, from 1-6 p.m. In the off-season (October through March), they meet at the Bensenville Public Library. Call Yeoman Hugh Adams, 708-250-0422.
– Scale Model Ship Masters: Meets the first Sunday of the month at the Terrace View Park lake, 1 Parkview Plaza, Oakbrook Terrace, from 1-6 p.m. In the off-season they meet at Ship Chandler hobby shop, 518 E. Northwest Highway, Mt. Prospect. Call Commodore Gus Kaufman, 708-577-8044.
– Watts Wake: Meets on the second Sunday of the month from May through October at Twin Lakes Pond, at the corner of west 59th and Williams (300 W. 59th) in Westmont from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. In the off season, they meet the second Wednesday of the month from 7:30-9 p.m. at Naperville Fire Station No. 5, Diehl and Washington. Call Yeomann Kurt VanDahm in the evening at 708-968-3189.
– North Shore Model Boaters: Meets the first Tuesday of the month from 7:30-9:30 p.m. at a private home in Waukegan year-round and plans boating events periodically throughout the summer. Call Jim Schmidt, 708-816-8542.
