Eric Wardle: 1st March 1944 to 8th June 2017: Loved and Respected by all who knew him.

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See the new Boat12 page above, for how we made Snoopy Sloop 12 from Eric's IOM boat. How, with Snoopy's Autopilot, it set a new Bray Lake Test record !

Eric's Model Boat page

Last update 1745 Sunday 24th September 2017

Hi ! I'm Robin Lovelock, a retired grumpy old man, who shares an interest with Eric Wardle: filming of Snoopy's robot boat, only 1.2 metres long, intended to cross the Atlantic, from UK to USA. That's me on the left and Eric on the right. More about me is on my "Home" page, and about Snoopy on the "Snoopy" page at the very top.

Eric and I decided to set up this page in March 2016, to share some of his photos and videos, many shot on local model boat club waters. Eric and I would love to hear from you, particularly if you know more about some of these model boats, or are interested in helping with Snoopy's attempts to cross the Atlantic !

You can contact me via my "Contact" page above. e.g. email robin@gpss.co.uk or 'phone 01344 620775. Eric loaned me a pile of old CD and DVD, and some pictures are below. He still has photos and videos tucked away on his old PC hard disk. I'm helping him by adding pictures and videos here, as we find them.

Videos from Eric's Youtube channel on www.youtube.com/user/ericwardle/videos ...

More videos from Eric's DVDs uploaded to Youtube ...

Here are more of Eric's videos, from his DVDs, uploaded by Robin onto youtube. The first was "Multihulls Re-Cut 2009". The method was simple: use of the .VOB file copied from the DVD. This only took 20 minutes to upload for a 2 minute video. It would be better if on Eric's Youtube channel, but for now, Robin has put them "unlisted" on his. Now we need to find the best DVDs to upload next ! :-)

That Snoopy rescue video of Robin's was never uploaded to youtube, but was found among Eric's DVD. Snoopy Sloop 4 was an IOW (International One Metre) yacht given to Robin by Eric in our early years of autopilot experiments. After the rescue it sailed again, and was eventually converted to a trimaran. Most of these videos are short, but that last but two is 20 minutes and took hours to upload ! I must try Snoopy's autopilot in a Micro Magic - the smallest boat able to attempt the Atlantic ? Eric's Internation One Metre (IOM) smashed the Bray Lake Test record - see Boat12 and the video ! The last video here was added on 24th April. I hope it is the one Eric described, which included Graham Palmer's paddle steamer.

Places Eric has visited with his camera boat to film and take pictures ...

Maybe some of you can help, including friends at local model boat clubs. e.g. perhaps you can identify a boat or find a picture ?

• Goldsworth Park Lake near Woking and Radio Sailing Woking - previously Woking Model Yacht Club (WMYC).
• Silvermere Lake near Cobham and Phoenix Marine Model Club.
• Black Park Lake north of Slough and Black Park Model Boat Club.
• Bray Lake near Maidenhead and Bray Lake Watersports. e.g. filming of Snoopy :-)
• Abbey Meads Lake, near Thorpe Park, Chertsey and Guildford Model Yacht Club.
• Wey Navigation Canal near Byfleet ? That rowing boat with two young ladies at the back, below.
• Frensham Pond south of Farnham and Model Yacht Group (MYG) at Frensham Pond Sailing Club.

a few pictures from prints and found on CD ... Click on a picture to enlarge it ...

Sorry Eric: that last one is your posh hotel, from your Army posting in the jungle, back in the early 1970s. As we discussed, that will be a different page :-)

This seems to be from the December 2008 Woking Model Yacht Club Event. The DVD has photos and MPG videos of the races.

This is part of a frame from one of the videos from Silvermere. One was the Phoenix Club Open Day on 2nd August 2009.

Eric: I've ordered an Affinity model yacht: only 0.6m long, so HALF the size of Snoopy's other boats. It looks like a good alternative to those little MicroMagics that inspired me. I expect it to be on Bray Lake, with an autopilot, within a week or two of it arriving :-)

A message to everyone: Eric has LOTS of video DVD that need to be looked at more closely than I have. Don't judge what Eric has by what we have on youtube: there may be more of other places. e.g. Abbey Meads where the last few stills was taken.

Eric's second IOM sailed by Snoopy ...

See How we made Snoopy Sloop 12 from Eric's IOM boat - and tested it. It is a "Boat 12 Blog", describing progress on conversion of Eric's second IOM into Snoopy Sloop 12. Eric's first IOM ended up being Boat 4. Boat 12 may even attempt the Atlantic in future years.

Anyone want to try Snoopy's autopilot in their boat ? ...

Sorry about saying this here, before it's put somewhere on Snoopy's pages, but it may be of interest to the guys starting to look at this page who sail on one of these lakes. Robin would like to hear from you if you want to try plugging Snoopy's autopilot into your boat instead of the receiver. Standard Futaba leads and it only requires that rudder servo clockwise = turn right :-)

Do all those full sized boats have a man overboard, or are the crew all having a kip with their autopilot on ? :-)

Inspired by Eric's video of little MicroMagics: Robin put Snoopy onto an Affinity - just 0.65m and 1.5 kg ! Check out the video below ....

Who is visiting this page ? How it's done is explained at the end of the Snoopy page.

There have been visits to this page since 30th March 2016.

© 1991-2016 Eric Wardle & Robin Lovelock. 22 Armitage Court, Sunninghill, Ascot, Berks SL5 9TA, United Kingdom.