Swiss Model Boat Builder takes an interest in the MV Uchuck III

Story and photos by Lorenz Schmuki

Erbauer Erbaut's career as a model boat maker started 40 years ago, when he fixed a damaged boat his 12 year old son rescued from the middle of a small lake.

With this experience I thought I could build my own vessel and bought a kit of the push tug boat “Oranja 1”. I made the vessel so powerful it could move real boats up to 1400 kg.

Soon after I became a member in our local model boat association and also was in the managing committee for many years. Since then I guess I built more than 20 boats and they are still somewhere in the attic. For many years I built everything on the kitchen table with simple tools, now I have a small work room with some light machinery in the basement.

Some years ago, I was visiting my son and daughter-in-law in Courtenay, BC. We made a trip to Port Hardy and had the possibility to visit the Coast Guard Station. We could have a walk in and on the vessel. I took more than enough pictures to reproduce the vessel as a model.

Also I made a family trip to Friendly Cove with the amazing “Uchuck III”. and of course I took countless pictures. For the “Uchuck III” it was not easy to find plans. But finally I found a good plan of a Minesweeper, like the “Uchuck III” was in an earlier time, on the internet. The whole vessel is a scratch built model. The boat is highly detailed and everything works by radio control. Even the derrick boom works like the original and is able to load or unload freight off the deck or the cargo hold.

At the moment I am building a tug boat that was originally built by the Rosser Brother shipyard in Ontario. Sometimes I display my Canadian vessels on exhibitions and the crowds of people like them very much, because all vessels are unique and copies of the originals and well detailed.

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