When myself and Ian Stewart decided to embark on building these frigates there was a lot of discussion about scale. Ian's choice of size was based on the largest model ship he could fit in a Ford Galaxy. I was not too concerned about transport as I always imagined I would use my speedboat to launch and retrieve the ship and as a result it could travel to and from the loch on the back of the 'Mothership'.

But with the Type 22 batch 3  being 1/48 I decided this would be large enough as well.

It left me with a couple of problems which I have solved in very different (who said idiotic!) ways.

The type 22 is quite narrow, but the width of the type 23 left me able to fit in a wide power plant.

I decided to use a garden leaf blower. By directing the blast from this into 2 separate tubes I could then indirectly drive 2 turbines which could be connected via geared shafts to the propellers. This also allowed a fabulous noise of the turbines spinning up, plenty of power and the option to reverse thrust by redirecting air or power additional objects from simple computer fans working in reverse to generate power.

A few experiments with 2 bought 65mm diameter propellers proved the power output and made up my mind. With sufficient silencing to mask the sound of the 2 stroke engine and the benefit of a real engine exhaust being blasted from the funnel by the turbine waste relief pipe I decided it would look pretty good.

The simple keel was laid in September 2006 and soon had cross sections of ply to make the shape of the hull.

At 3.1 m long the hull initially was in my garage but was moved into the spare room for a first Balsa layer and then a layer of fibre glass