It was perusing Model-Boats' website that I discovered the boat of my childhood ~ my Rosebud if you will ~ was not scratch-made but a plywood kit. Both Aerokits and Irvine engines were located together in High Barnet in North London... once of Hertfordshire. Both are defunct*, despite the latter having powered a model aeroplane to nearly 200 m.p.h. off the back of just 2.50 cubic centimetres... cube for cube I doubt that could be beat.
You can see dear reader (Ed. less of the Jane Austen?) how we would struggle with launching this from one side of the pond in a Liverpool park only to catch it at the other, absent any form of remote control... this bad boy mounting a 10cc diesel.
I have asked that my cremated remains be mixed with fuel and powered by such a boat into that eternal sunset on whose other side there is neither need for catching, nor any tears.**
Finally may I take a moment not to bother apologising for the quality of the image?
* Not North London or Hertfordshire.
** And that was last Sunday's sermon.
