Maggie M Hull access arrangements

I am just starting to build Maggie M and have looked at some very helpful posts on the site. I'm a complete novice in this area never having built a boat before. The thing that is bugging me right now is how best to make provision for access into the hull of the completed model so that the (rather large 12V) battery can be taken in/out, the control gear can be adjusted and the ballasting can be set up whilst at the same time making all of the decking and superstructure securable when sailing.


I wonder if anyone can provide advice and/ or photos of how it's done?


Any contributions would be most welcome.

Hi Rotr..I built six shelterdeckers some years ago, 1 a Cambletown 87 footer and the other 5 were  Miller 87 footers for the owner and crew of the real boat........both very similar to Maggie M..............

as long as you position the battery "case"..........in my case it was just a piece of 6mm ply with a raised "wall" of around 15mm high glued onto the 6mm base to encompass the battery ( in my case they were 12v 7amp hour standard Yuasa gell cell batteries) so that the battery didn't slide around inside on a rough day it was absolutely sufficient to hold the cell in place........and the base was glued into the hull using car body filler...........I made sure that it was level in the bath and sitting level in the water first before permanently fixing with the filler.............and it sat just in front of the motor to give a relatively central position.......in that position it was easy to remove the battery through the hole in the deck that the main cabin sits over..........plenty of room,

and no need to make anything else removable.

this work must be done first though, before you get round to putting the main and inner deck ( if there is one) on to the boat as it would be difficult afterwards as access to inner work will be much easier.


I only have photos of the finished boats as was working with celluloid film negs at the time........hadn't gone digital in those days so don't have any photos of the inner set up, and the boats all went to owners in Scotland, but I could draw you a diagram if you want me to no probs. neil.

I haven't built the Maggie M, but I have built other Model Slipway kits. Their instructions are the best in the field in my experience, and for the models I built dealt very clearly with this question. Put simply, there is usually an opening in the deck defined which will be covered by part of the superstructure. This hole is lined with vertical strips of plastic which serve to keep the superstructure in place, and the water out.

I will locate a photo from one of my builds and post it her - it wont be a MS boat - like Neil I didn't use digital then.

Barrie

Take a look through this build log of mine - you will see what I mean -I hope

https://www.thercmodelboatforum.com/t626-loyal-moderator

A club member built the maggie m last year, and although tight he can squeeze a 12v 7amp lead acid battery through the wheel house hach, it may be worth looking at the smaller 12v 3.3amp lead acid batterys if your concerned about hatch.
The 3amp versions are almost half the depth of the 7's and i see no reason to not use two hooked up in parallel to bump your amps to 6.6 for a longer run time, a solo 3.3 battery will run one of the mobile marine T12's for several hours, a torpedo 850 for about an hour at full blast, or 2 of the mfa geared motors for around 3 hours consistently (i use these in a lot of my heavy weight models so speaking from direct experience)

You can get the 12v 3amp LA's from the component shop linked here ...

http://www.componentshop.co.uk/12v-3-3ah-sealed-lead-acid-battery.html

RR

and just some photos of the model....,.


This was from last year when we ran our models up the tamar river (sea water) on not such a calm day, for a charity event.
Full album here ( yes i'm in it, guy wearing the neon blue t-shirt)














RR

that looked a fun day matey.............would love to have had a lifeboat down there........great shots indeed.

That was a great day about 7 miles down river with the outgoing tide, from St Germans sail club to MT Edgcombe house.

Took about 4 hours, I've put the full 900 photo album up lots of awesome shots and how well the models endured the task.

Neil next time bring a life boat