Charles Mower Design #22

August 2025
Thank you for your interest in this kit by Modeller’s Workshop, of Montreal, Canada. We hope you like it and hope you have as much fun constructing this boat as we had doing the research and the design. It has several interesting features that put this model in a new class of kit construction.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“Charles Drown Mower (1875-1942) of New York was a noted yacht designer and author, and was at one time design editor of the Rudder magazine and a contributing author to Motor Boating magazine.
He started studying yacht design in 1895 with Arthur Binney and later Bowdoin B. Crowninshield, moving on to a partnership with Thomas D. Bowes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1911. During the first World War he served as a lieutenant commander in the Construction Corps, Naval Reserve.
After the war Mower worked either alone or in partnership as Mower and Humphreys Ltd. He was also a chief naval architect at Henry B. Nevins, Inc., at City Island, New York, and in 1937 was associated with the office of Nelson & Reid, Inc. He was also official measurer of the Manhasset Bay Yacht Club, the Cruising Club of America and the New York Yacht Club.
Most of his surviving designs are held in the Mystic Seaport Library, where a total of 433 sheets represent 107 designs.[1] A lot of his work was destroyed in the 1992 Noreaster and 1954 Hurricane Carol storms that attacked Connecticut. All of the surviving boat models once owned by Charles P. Mower (Mower’s son) are with Mildred Mower Pastula, granddaughter of Mower, and her sons; David, Stephen and James Osler. At times models have been loaned to Yacht clubs in Greenwich CT.”
The model is designed by Rick Shousha and is 1:8 scale and is 42 inches long. The kit includes the following features:
- 27 bulkheads plus angled surfaces for the stern
- Notches in all the bulkheads for internal stringers
- A T-rail to ease construction of the model
- A presentation cradle that is high enough to include the rudder and propeller
- Front and rear benches
- A subdeck with openings for the cockpit
An optional parts package for the model includes the following 3D-printed parts:
- 2 wicker chairs
- 2 starboard chocks
- 2 port side chocks
- 6 small cleats
- 2 large cleats
- 1 dashboard
- 1 steering wheel
Designing the Model
The design started with a simple line drawing, and a few pictures.
First, we create a 3D hull shape using software designed specifically for making organic shapes and then this 3D model is inserted into the manufacturing software, where we add internal parts as well as the designs for the parts that will be 3D-printed later on.
Internal Stringer Design
The intention was to make a revolutionary kit design where the internal stringers look just like what they would on a real boat, and that is to have them follow the curvature of the hull. Most kits I have seen either have no internal stringers or they have a few straight ones.
3D-printer Parts Design
The 3D-printed parts are available as a separate kit. Note, the cutwater is a fairly complex part. A modeller can use the part or can create their own chrome surface on the bow of the model.