Gondola is a steam-driven excursion launch running on Coniston Water in England’s Lake District. It is owned and operated by Britain’s National Trust, an organization which preserves and manages historical properties in England. Originally built in 1859 by the Furness Railway Company to enhance their tour operations, Gondola was retired from service in 1936.
In 1975 a group of local National Trust staff and members organized a salvage operation and after many setbacks arranged for the boat to be reconstructed by Vickers Shipbuilding in Barrow-In-Furness, on England’s west coast about 20 miles south of Coniston. A new hull and machinery was necessary but some of the original frame and many fittings were reused. The restored boat was relaunched on March 25th, 1980.
For Jim Fish, the idea to build a model grew after having ridden on the boat during a vacation in England. Although daunting as his first scratch-built project, he’d always wanted to build a steam-powered model and decided to have a go.
Jim adapted a Wilesco D-49 marine engine which is a two-cylinder V, reversible, and self-starting. The engine is mounted under a coal-fired horizontal boiler which is fired by butane.
The two-channel radio control gear came from a model sailboat except the functions of the servos were reversed. The sail servo operates the rudder and the rudder servo provides speed control and reversing. There was no room for conventional bell-cranks so the servos were mounted midship and connected to rudder and engine using poly string running around the pulleys and through nylon tubes along the gunwales.
Below is a brochure of the real Gondola steam yacht from 1997:
Read an in-depth overview of the building and mechanics of this model written by Jim Fish here.