TRANSCRIPT – MARGARET C MODEL
Welcome back to Coastwatch.
You know this old boat of mine’s got quite a history. For more than 30 years she was home and Workhorse to her original owner, the
late Dick Carol and his mates as they fished professionally around Moreton Bay.
Now in her time she’s carted home tons of fish, towed dories and carried ice, nets and supplies. Back in the late 60s on one memorable
trip she took a short wheel-based land Rover, drums of fuel, roof frames and building material for a shed over to Moreton Island.
She’s had a song written about her by Brisbane singer songwriter Dave Avery on his CD weekend fisherman; she’s been painted and
sketched by a couple of local artists. The big refit I did on her in ’96 and ‘97 was documented on Coastwatch and she’s been asked to
make public appearances at boat shows throughout Queensland. Now the Margaret C’s likeness has been captured in 3D in the form of
a radio controlled model.
For 20 years Brian Delissa has been building model racing yachts in the backyard shed of his home in the Brisbane suburb of
Ashgrove.
“Oh I just like old boats… anything old actually; motor bikes, cars and I decided I’d like to build a model boat a model of something that
was around Brisbane, and Margaret C seemed to be the logical one.”
After taking photographs of the Margaret C. Brian picked up a sheet of plywood and some scraps of pine and set about the task of
recreating it in miniature. Now because Brian’s built a few life-size boats in his time, the way he modelled this one’s unique.
Other model makers usually carve their pieces out of one block of wood.
“Mine’s built the same way as a proper boat: frames, a keel, chines, gunwhales are plywood and it’s all put together that way — the
same way as a proper build.”
I was totally Blown Away with the lengths Brian went to, to get perfect detail.
It’s a scale model with a ratio of 1 in to 1 ft
“The anchor chains old necklaces; the air vents are thimbles; the anchor is just pieces of aluminium glued together; the throttle is just a
piece of aluminium with a little wire on the side; and the ball on the end is actually a daisy air rifle bullet and uh the radar and uh stuff on
the dash is parts of electric light switches with a bit of plastic glued into them.
That’s the duck board on the back that was made out of a fly swat. The gas bottles are just turned out of a piece of wood and the prop –
I couldn’t buy one suitable — so I made it on the lathe.”
Brian worked on the model every day and because of his construction technique it took 6 months to finish. It’s fully radio controlled
and like the original has forward, neutral and reverse gears.
We take it in the Wynnum wading pool and give it a run down there. The kids run up and down the pool beside it they think
it’s terrific.