Sandown Model Show
6-7th May, Sandown Racecourse

By: Mike Dunn

Well, seeing as I couldn't get to the SMMLie-Con in Boston, I thought I'd do the next-best thing - go to a model show being held near my house. While it was a lot cheaper, I still think I got the bum end of the deal! The show was OK, but was aimed at those interested in buzzing things mainly - yup, the r/c flyers of both aircraft and helicopters. There was a land-based contingent as well, about the same size as the boats contingent - say 10% of the whole. Aircraft covered at least 70%, with the rest made up of tools & such.

I was rather disappointed at the noticable absence of ship-related stuff on the vast majority of the stalls. While a few did have some plastic kits, they tended to be the LARGE kits, big enough to easily fit r/c gear into - nothing smaller than 1/350, and those few were generally larger than that. The Show was fine if you are keen on the other areas of modelling, but you really had to look long & hard for anything related to this branch. But what did impress me was one model helicopter in particular - must have been six foot long, with the bodyshell being a camoflaged US Marine attack 'copter - with armament! COOOOL!!!!!

So - the boats. I'd seen about half of them at the Alexandra Palace show late last year, and was a little disappointed that there weren't more on show - I'd guess at about 75 of them in all. The types varied a lot, from scratch-built to high-end kits, and the quality varied tremendously, especially when looking at the working ones. While a lot of them were of a very high standard, there were quite a few that I wouldn't dare display until I'd given them a thorough overhaul, especially in the paintwork dept. There's a massive difference between weathering a vessel, and not bothering to keep the paintwork in a good condition!

Below are pictures from the Boats area of the Show. While it may look like I've concentrated on Royal Navy, the majority of the warships (and that's what this List is mainly interested in, after all) were RN. The main exceptions were a couple of USN vessels, and some U-Boats. Where the vessels were named, I've included this in the caption. If any un-named ones are recognised by you, please let me know so I can update this page.