Our part of the hobby - a contest commentary

We can be big fish in a small pond.

I am surprised since you are on the coast.  Every contest I have been at near the oceans always had fair turnouts of sailing ships which really openind my eyes to this division of modeling, since I grew up in Montana and live in Kansas, where I have always been used to having to compete with myself if I entered a sailing ship. 

Ummmmm, scottrc? That's West Virginia.

That is how it is with me and helicopters. Sure, there are plenty of forum posters here, and you will see quite a few at a bit contest. But many many times I am the only person in the catagory, or maybe one other......Yesterday at Cajun Modelfest we had a whopping FOUR entries, and for this particular local, its a LOT!

1/48 Prop will almost always be biggest table filler.....oh well......

 

David  

mfsob wrote:

Ummmmm, scottrc? That's West Virginia.

Yup lets get this straight. Don't go mixin' up the two Virginias.

Caused quite a ruckus here once before, and it is still a sore spot for many of us true Virginians!




We don't claim them from that place on the other side of the mountains!

Check out this years Toledo Weak Signals Show, 1 car class; 4 boat classes; 12 aircraft classes.  Best of Show was won by a 1:96 scale model of USS MISSOURI.

 

Sorry for you, Mike F6F, having to live in that boring old state of East Virginia *grins* Just kidding!

Other demographics I noticed at the contest were race and gender. Outside of my daughter, only one other girl competed, and no adult females. There was one African-American gentleman with a 1/72 scale 727 that was to die for, but no other obvious people of color. The overwhelming majority were middle-aged (and older) white guys. About a dozen boys. Not good for our hobby's longevity, gentlemen.  

 

All War of Southern Independence issues aside...

One thing that gets me about the contest is the "all types, all scales" thing.

I'm not much of a model contest guy anyway yet, I understand the needs for ease of contest organization. In a contest expecting only a few ships being entered, based on their past experience, it would seem a waste to have lots of ship categories. However, I'd feel for the contestant that entered a wonderful tugboat or other small craft only to lose to a mediocre large, fully rigged sailing ship in such a category.

Of course, no arrangement can please everybody.

I was thinking about entering my Wasa at Mini-con in So-Cal this june but the model ship categories are pretty thin. It's ship's millitary and civilian, all scales and types subs included. Or pretty much anything that you can put in the water. But there has to be a minimum of 3 models by 3 different people to start a new catagory. i would agree that the scale categories for sailing ship's pretty much goes out the window. but I do feel that there should be a different catagory for sailing vs powered.

I've aired my comments on model contests several times in the Forum, and I don't imagine anybody wants me to do so again.  Briefly - I don't believe in model competitions.  But to each his/her own; if somebody else wants to enter a competition it's not for me to talk him/her out of it.

Enemeink's comment reminded me of my days (1980-1983) as curator in charge of ship models at the Mariners' Museum.  One of my more frustrating duties was to come up with a set of rules for the museum's next ship model contest.  (The first one had been held just before I got there, and it was planned as a once-every-five-years event.  That MM competition had quite a reputation until, if I remember right, 1995, after which one of my successors decided to discontinue it.)  I sent out a form to all the people who'd entered the 1980 contest, asking them for suggestions.  Bad idea.  The notion of breaking the competition into subject categories was obvious.  (There had been no such categories in the 1980 contest, largely because the museum had expected about a dozen entries.  More than a hundred showed up.)  If I'd followed every suggestion I got on those forms, one of my successors would have been in the position of writing a letter reading:  "Congratulations!  You've won the second place award for a semi-scratchbuilt, full-hull, plank-on-frame, unpainted, rigged model of a nineteenth-century sailing ship more than 100 feet long, built to a scale larger than 1/16"=1', with hand tools, by an amateur - outside a bottle."

We eventually settled on three subject categories:  sailing ships, powered ships, and small craft, further divided into scratchbuilt, semi-scratchbuilt, and kit (modified or unmodified) models, with a special division for junior modelers.  (To my knowledge, nobody ever entered the junior division.There's a sad commentary.)  I think the museum retained those categories till the contest shut down.  There's been talk of reviving the idea at some other institution.  I believe the Navy Museum in DC has expressed interest, but to my knowledge nothing's been done about it yet.  If that competition does get revived, it will have to do it without me. 

I won't say I'll never enter another model contest; if I hear about one in which the grand prize is a new Ferrari and the runner-up gets a Chevy Corvette, I just may show up.  Otherwise, though, no more model contests for me - and I'll never judge another one.