The Victory build began with a donation of Oak by Folly Patterns Ltd, the fact that it was French oak did make us stop and think for a moment, but the thought of the look of horror on peoples faces when we told them, made up our mind to use it. We had the wood now all we needed was the plans and some idea of how big to build it.

First thing we had to do was work out a scale, this was kind of decided for us as we already had a model we wanted to use as the French ship. The Victory would be 1:40 scale.

Colin and Graham pose for a local paper.

Victory hits the water for the first time, and she leaks!

The build is delayed three weeks while we fibre glass below the water line.

John joins the club and asks that fatal question 'What can I do to help'.

He hasn't stopped rigging since.