MALCOLM DARCH

Model
student
A ground-breaking model
of Agamemnon has taken
five years. Now he wants
to model the great
classic yachts

WORDS ROB PEAKE

PORTRAIT NIC COMPTON

52 CLASSIC BOAT JANUARY 2018

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round 5,000 hours into building a replica 1/64 th the full fleet of seven historic Salcombe lifeboats. These, as
scale model of Nelson’s Agamemnon, Malcolm modelled by Darch, can be seen in the RNLI museum and shop
Darch knew one thing for sure – next time he’d on Salcombe quay today.
build something simpler! Darch set out with the aim of doing 100 models in his
More than 10,000 hours in – six days a week over the last lifetime. Aged 67, he’s reached number 57 and may continue
five years – the completed model sits in the home of its owner, for another 10 years. “I wanted to represent the best of each
a retired Salcombe businessman who commissioned it for a style of vessel, predominantly British. I’ve been talked into
tidy sum, and it bears something not seen by naval historians building two Napoleonic era vessels and I have no desire to
for some time – an accurate stern. build any more. They’re a nightmare. The wooden walls really
The search for this elusive element of the build took Darch take it out of you. My desire now is to build models of the
two years of detective work alone. “There was no known record classic yachts – Suzanne, Latifa, Rainbow, Jolie Brise and
of what that part of the ship looked like in detail,” he says. “A others of that ilk.”
painter can shade the stern or hide it behind a sail, but you He never does more than one model to maintain individual
can’t do that with a model. Every inch of it has to be accurate.” values and each carries a hidden logo, usually visible with a
What Darch has discovered about the rear end decoration of dental mirror, to prove it is a genuine Darch. He is renowned for
the 64-gun third rate battleship, launched from Buckler’s Hard working to the highest standards and says his work is an
in 1781, will surprise some, as it goes against famous depictions attempt to reach ‘the pinnacle’ of model making.
of her, but Darch knows he has answered one of the questions “All that training in boatbuilding and naval architecture, as
that has dogged scholars of the period for more than a century. well as simply thinking about the way you tackle a problem, I
Darch was born to artistic parents in Bristol in 1950. In a tale have used it all, but in miniature,” he says.
he must have repeated 100 times, he almost cut his thumb off Each model is built using satin walnut or English boxwood,
aged six, making a model aeroplane. “My mother said: ‘That’s dense and steamable. Darch points out the tiny steamed planks
the last model plane you’ll make, my boy.’ So I went to boats.” on the stern of Agamemnon, which sits on the worktop in his
Taught to sail by the Island Cruising Club in Salcombe, Darch harbourside attic studio. Of his search for the missing stern
was a dinghy instructor aged 14 and after details, he says: “I found out that the
excelling at engineering at school, decided painter Nicholas Pocock had been
he’d become a yacht-building shipwright. “All that commissioned by Admiral Hood to
“This was 1966 and an entire generation was depict a scene at the 1782 Battle of the
told to be computer programmers,” he says. training in Saints. Research subsequently proved
“Aged 16, I called up the youth employment boatbuilding that Pocock painted Agamemnon from
office in Bristol – the first time I’d used a life when she was being repaired in
phone – and said I wanted to build yachts. and naval Chatham Dockyard in 1784. It turned out
The man told me it was a most unusual architecture, the original work is hanging up in
request and that as far he knew, yacht Admiralty House, in Portsmouth Naval
building families didn’t employ outsiders.” I’ve used it in Dockyard. It shows the position of all the
Darch’s experience making boat models miniature” figures carved on the stern, which has
and the fact that his father had taught him always been elusive for artists and model
how a lines plan worked won him an makers in the past. Ships of the time
apprenticeship at the new Shipbuilding were similar, but each had a unique stern,
Industry Training Centre in Southampton, with much hands-on as the carving there represented the ship’s name in neoclassical
work in the new yard of Port Hamble. sculpture and frieze painting.”
“Port Hamble was very posh then. Rope Walk [which is now Darch is a perfectionist whose eye for detail and skill in
residential] was a two-storey wooden yacht store, full of bits of miniature is written all over Agamemnon. Painting the frieze
yachts and kit that people would die for today. A maze of steps that weaves its way around the ship alone took 240 hours. The
and store doors bearing the names of famous yachts, all deck planks are individually laid and tapered. The copper
smelling of Stockholm tar and canvas. It was a joy to go round.” sheathing on the hull is 2,000th of an inch thick, with each of
Darch worked on many of the famous boats of the time, the tacks marked in place. Each cannon is rigged and bears the
including Morning Cloud, Noreyma, Casquet and the Yeoman king’s cipher. The rigging is the right thickness, all ropes spun in
boats. After graduating with the top prize in the country – he natural or man-made yarn with the correct lay. The ship is fully
proudly shows off the silver medal today – he took a job as fitted out down below.
shipwright with the Island Cruising Club, back in Salcombe, in “There are people out there who will point out the fine
1971. He never left. “I was young, I had long hair and I never had details if they’re wrong,” says Darch. “For instance, until 1793
any luck with women anywhere else!” he says. the main preventer stay would have been secured to the
But when the luxury tax on yachting, imposed by the Labour foremast, but thereafter it went onto the bowsprit. This model
government in 1975, put Darch and many others in the marine depicts the three-year period Nelson was aboard and changes
industry out of work, he had to look for an alternative way to took place over that time. All the books said the deck planks
make a living. Darch returned to his childhood love of model weren’t tapered, but I’ve found out they were, from a model of
making. “Not as a commercial model maker. I wanted to build the period that showed a proposed upgrade of the Ardent
at my own pace, for connoisseur collectors.” class, of which Agamemnon was the first to receive the new
He found an early patron in local hotelier Bob Northcott, style. You have to get things as they were. It’s a journey of
who accepted the 25-year-old Darch’s quote of £7,250 to build historical research and deep discussion with many experts.”

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