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Albatross - Paignton By Nigel Hancock There were two ranges of model yachts called "Albatross", made by two different and unconnected manufacturers in two different eras. The use of the name by the second manufacturer was pure chance, a coincidence. The first range was manufactured by Games Industries of London, and consisted of Bermuda-rigged sloops in the following lengths, 16", 21", 25", 30" and 36". They were advertised by Gamages in The Meccano Magazine, dated June 1954, (page xvii), and March 1956, (page xvii). To see these pages, go to www.nzmeccano.com and click on the header “Meccano Magazine”. This article is about the second range of Albatross yachts, which was manufactured in Paignton in Devon between 1988 and 1996 by Ian G Cornish, with the invaluable help of his wife Freda, who made the sails and carried out the business administration. The Albatross yachts that I have seen have a label on the deck which says, "Albatross Model Boats, PO Box 36, TQ3 3FB." On 5th October 2006, I contacted Torbay Council's Local History unit in Torquay Library, and the member of staff whom I spoke to was very helpful, carrying out research on my behalf that same morning, with the following results. The Yellow Pages for 1988 to 1990 list Albatross Manufacturing, and the 1991 edition lists Albatross Model Boats, both at 170, Kings Ash Road, Paignton, and the 1993 edition lists Albatross Model Boats at Unit 3, Rear of 36 Palace Avenue, Paignton. 170 Kings Ash Road is a private residence, and the electoral rolls for 1988 to 1993 list the occupants as being Ian G Cornish and Freda Cornish. However, the 1994 electoral roll lists different occupants. The 2006 telephone directory lists an Ian G Cornish living at 2 Galmpton Farmhouse, Galmpton Farm Close, Galmpton. The electoral roll office confirmed to me that the 2006 electoral roll lists the occupants of 2 Galmpton Farmhouse as Ian G and Freda Cornish. Thus I had discovered and located the proprietor of Albatross Model Boats in only a morning, and he seemed to be but a phone call away. Was this too easy and too good to be true, I asked myself, and indeed it was, because Mr and Mrs Cornish had moved away in about March 2006, and no one knew where they had gone to. During the following weeks, I made many telephone calls, including to the Galmpton village post office and most of the people named Cornish in the local and adjacent telephone directories. The postmaster was able to tell me that Mr Cornish was in his seventies, and this, together with suggestions from some of the Cornishes that I spoke to, led to me asking a government organisation called Traceline to find him. Consequently, on 22nd March 2007, to my great pleasure, Mr Cornish telephoned me. What follows is what he has told me. Ian Cornish was born in Falmouth in 1933, but by the time that he was five, his family had moved to the Torbay area, because his father's work was hotel management. By the age of twelve, he was very interested in model yachts, and he and a friend converted various commercial 12 to 18" hulls to two and three-masted square riggers, sailing them on Goodrington Park pond. There is a small article about this in Model Boats magazine for January 1973. When he was fifteen he joined the Paignton and District Model Yacht Club, being a member from 1948 to 1951. He sailed borrowed 10-raters and Marbleheads with Braine gear and older steering systems, and aquired a 36" hull which he rigged as a jackyard gaff cutter. He left technical college at seventeen, moved to Bristol, and entered into a five year general engineering apprenticeship with Bristol Aircraft, most of which was spent in the toolroom. When this apprenticeship ended, he became eligible for National Service, and selected the option of serving four years in the Merchant Navy. After leaving the Merchant Navy, he worked as an engineering fitter at various engineering works in Bristol and then Plymouth. Latterly he moved back to Torquay and purchased a guest house which his wife ran while he continued his job in Plymouth. Eventually he found himself facing redundancy, and knowing that he knew how to make a small model yacht sail, he decided to go into business producing toy yachts. He started work in a small shed behind the guest house in 1988. He sold the guest house and moved to 170 Kings Ash Road Paignton, and continued building the yachts in a shed there. However, he decided that he needed bigger premises, and so he moved the business into a small industrial unit, Unit 3, Rear of 36 Palace Avenue Paignton. The unit at Palace Avenue was divided by heavy polythene curtains into three bays, administration and sail manufacture, machinery and paintshop. Tools used for manufacture were bandsaw, spokeshave, sander, hand-held router, pillar drill, horizontal drill stand, sandpaper. The paintshop contained spray equipment. Ian started the development process for a new model by first making a drawing, and calculating the centre of lateral resistance and the centre of effort. He then made a oneoff development model and sailed it on Goodrington Park pond. When satisfied, he made plan, profile and cross-section patterns of the hull in aluminium. The materials used for production were white or red deal purchased from general timber merchants, dowel for masts and spars, rolls of cloth for sails in white, blue, red and brown. The paint used was commercial quick-drying water-based paint. Hooks, bowsies and rigging twine were also purchased. The steel fins were made by a local engineering works. The timber was purchased in long lengths of appropriate cross-section. The starting point was to cut these into pieces of various lengths, each appropriate to the length of one of the various different models in the range, so that knots and bad areas could be negotiated, and maximum use made of each piece of timber. Each piece was then cut with the slot which would ultimately house the sheet metal fin, but which was initially used to locate the plan pattern. It was marked out with the aid of the patterns and then cut to plan and profile with the band saw. Corners were also cut off with the bandsaw. A block was screwed onto the deck so that the hull could be fixed upside down in the vice and brought to shape with spokeshave, sander and sandpaper, with the aid of usually three aluminium cross-section templates. Those hulls to be hollowed were hollowed with a hand-held router. Decks were stuck on with paint and pinned with brass pins. The hole for the mast was drilled with a pillar drill. Finally, the fins were hammered into their slots in the bottom of the hulls. It took about one hour to make a hull. The hulls were then sprayed, first with a few coats of clear primer, and then with the finishing colour. Masts and spars were tapered by hand in a horizontal drill stand, and drilled for rigging by means of vee jigs marked with the drilling positions. They were finished off with water-based varnish applied with a rag. The sails were made by Freda Cornish. First she cut out each sail half an inch oversize with the aid of a template, and then finished it off to size using an attachment on her sewing machine which both cut and overlock-sewed the material. Assembly was usually carried out by Ian unless they had a large urgent order, when casual help was sometimes taken on. A new departure was made when it was decided to go into production with what became the top-of-the-line model, a 24" gaff cutter with a fibreglass hull and plywood deck. The fibreglass hulls themselves were bought-in, being made by a professional fibreglass moulder in Yeovil. The plywood decks were stuck on with window sealer. Marketing At the beginning adverts were placed in CLASSIC BOAT magazine for six months, in the trade magazine TOY TRADER and in MODEL BOATS magazine for two or three issues in 1988 to 1990. However, such advertising was not very successful, and the way forward was found to be by direct representation to toy shop outlets in London, Bristol, Bath etc., and most toy retailers in the South West. A great number of small toy barges and "pocket money" boats were sold through two catalogues. The business was operated intensively from 1988 to 1993, and was then allowed to run down with no more orders being sought, and production continued only to fill repeat orders. Final production was about 1996. Ian Cornish still has a stock of partly finished parts for some of the yachts, so if anyone takes a particular fancy to one of the yachts illustrated, Ian may be able to make one up. He now makes scale half-models as wall decorations, so if anyone wants to commission a half-model of his favourite boat, Ian is a man to talk to. His telephone number, given with his permission, is 01752 296851. Ian Cornish is now a member of The Vintage Model Yacht Group. Photographs Click on the 1) First production run of wooden 24" KATHLEEN gaff cutters in the workshop. 2) Later production run of fibreglass KATHLEEN gaff cutters in the workshop. (The hull is not the same shape as the wooden version.) 3) Wooden 24" KATHLEEN. 4) Fibreglass KATHLEEN yawl. Few made. 5) Production fibreglass 24" KATHLEEN. 6) Wooden 20" . 7) "Tonnage" class yacht, length 26", beam 4". Required 5lb of lead. Few made. 8) 22" Brixham trawler, NISHA. Few made. 9) VALENTINE, stretched 30" version of KATHLEEN. Six made. 10) 20" pilot schooner. Many made. 11) NEPTUNE, 18" pilot schooner. 12 made and then developed into the 20" version, photo 10). 13) 22" JOLIE BREEZE. Few made. 14) 9" children's barge. Thousands made. 15) Barge, 6" and 11" pram-bowed hard-chine MIRRORs. 16) 12" and 14" solid sloops. The 14" was also made hollow and decked and with a bowsprit. 17) 16" hollow sloop. 18) 15" and 18" gaff sloop. The sloop was developed into a gunter-rigged cutter, and then fitted with the NISHA Brixham smack (photo 8) rig. 19) 18" hull with NISHA rig. 20) Two masted lugger. This is the prototype, 20" long and double-ended. Production models were 17" long with a transome stern. Later this rig was discontinued and the NISHA rig fitted instead.
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