Burnaby Association of Marine Modellers
Welcome to the Burnaby Association of Marine Modellers or BAMM
A Word from the President
On behalf of the members of the Burnaby Association of Marine Modellers, it is my pleasure to welcome you to our website and the world of Marine Models.
Our home is the beautiful pond in Central Park located in Burnaby B.C. surrounded by beautiful trees and walkways. Burnaby allows us exclusive use of the pond Sundays and Wednesday mornings. Club members come from all over not only to run our boats, but most importantly to meet as friends and promote our hobby.
Whether you have purchased a ready to run boat or are a scratch built modeller our club welcomes you. You will find that members are more than willing to share their knowledge and help everyone build the model of their dreams.
See you at the pond!
Rick E.
President
At the Pond Slideshow:
At The Pond Photo Gallery
August 17, 2025
Photos by Ulrich G..
(Click the photo above for a slide show.)
Announcements and Current Events:
This year our Annual Regatta was held on
Sunday August 17th.
Photos are in the gallery above.
We meet every Sunday morning at our pond in Burnaby's Central Park between 8:00 am and about 12:00 pm, weather permitting.
You can find us on Facebook here.
At the Pond
Our 66th annual regatta was once again a great success and we were blessed with very nice weather. We had lots of participants from many places, including south of the border and Vancouver Island. Several competitions were held including static judging, tanker towing, a steering course and sailboat race (the winners are shown in the gallery with their trophies). Gord's family was responsible for the wonderful lunch and we thank them for that. We must point out the efforts of the many volunteers setting up and knocking down the event and I'll single out Kyle who once again donned the chest waders and not only set out and brought in all the infrastructure in the pond but did several rescues as you can see in the photo gallery to the left. Lorne's large tug was recovered but unfortunately Syd's little Coast Guard vessel lies in Davey Jones' Locker but not for want of a long heroic search of the bottom with a rake by Kyle. Perhaps it will show up in the fall when the water clears.
I've updated the feature on the Imperial Tofino below since the late Ted Heard's family attended the regatta. They were pleased to see and run the Tofino that he had built as were we to welcome them.
Ulrich
We are proud to announce our Children’s Program:
Children, accompanied by an adult, are given the opportunity to work together to experience the world of RC model boating. The program is available free of charge on Sunday mornings.
See you at the pond!
A chance for you and your child to interact together and be “Captains” of your very own tug boat.
SHELL WELDER
We have added a very nice model of the Shell Welder to the BAMM fleet. With surprisingly little TLC she has become fun to run and fun to tow.
In 1976 the 10 foot 8 inch long (that is 3/4 in. per foot or 1/16th scale) highly detailed RC tanker "Shell Welder", formerly “AARDVARK”, was completed by BAMM members Bram and Alex Deruiter. Bram is shown in the slideshow below (second picture) posing with the model at her official re-launch on May 6, 2018. For many years the tanker sailed the BAMM pond before being sold and moved to Bowen Island. She was also featured in the RC pond at Expo 86. Recently, Dave Tarvin of Burnaby Hobbies acquired it and it was subsequently sold to Bram Deruiter returning it to one of the original builders. Our president Rick Evans saw an opportunity to bring the vessel back to the BAMM pond and we have recently purchased it from Bram. It was in very good condition and only needed a gentle refurbishment and running gear update. Here is a link to some information on the original 170 foot long Shell Welder the model was based on.
Lorne towing the Shell Welder with his tug Gillfoam.
A time lapse of the Shell Welder being hauled out of the pond.
IMPERIAL TOFINO
BAMM is proud of its latest addition to its fleet, the 8’ long, 1/24th scale Imperial Tofino scratch built by Ted Heard (see newspaper photo below) and donated by the Heard family so that all may enjoy watching her sail the waters of Central Park Pond. The Heard family attended our recent 2025 regatta and honoured their late husband, father and grandfather respectively, enjoying running the Tofino that he had hand crafted. They also brought a nice model of the African Queen he had built.
The Imperial Tofino is shown below along with the Shell Welder in the background. A photo of the Heard family and also the African Queen is also below.
"Imperial Tofino" was built in 1973. In 1973-1993 she was owned by Imperial Oil Ltd., Toronto ON. In 1993-2009 she was owned by Coastal Shipping Ltd., Goose Bay NL. In 1979 she was lengthened and she was rebuilt at North Vancouver BC. Her mid body Section was built at Burrard-Yarrows Corp. North Vancouver BC in 1979. She had a capacity of 200,000 gallons of fuel. She replaced the Imperial Nanaimo (ex-Beeceelite). She had a cruising speed of 11.2 knots. Sold in 1993 as "Sibyl W.".
The above paragraph is from "Auke Visser's Other Esso related Tankers Site" where you can also find some great photos of the real ship.
There is another good article to be found at the Shipfax site by Mac Mackay.
ESSO Stuttgart
Thank you Nick M for your work to refurbish the ESSO Stuttgart tanker built in 1960 by a BAMM member! Its never looked better!
We're so proud of our youngest member Reggie M. and his tug “Seawitch III"
Reggie is proving to be a very capable skipper with the tug built by his grandfather Gord M.. As you can see below at the unveiling, Lorne S. has built Reggie a very nice barge to tow around. Reggie was very pleased to say the least.
Rick E. - President and photographer
ICE DANCE
March, 5, 2023
When a nice big ice floe is sitting the middle of the BAMM pond the right thing to do is to get that thing spinning around. We had some fun doing just that and ended up just pushing the now smaller piece in one direction causing it to eventually breakup.
Video of the Ice Dance time-lapse can be found here.
MOVING THE ICE FLOE
The weather was bright and sunny on Sunday, March 10th, 2019. There was just one big ice flow left on the pond in the shadow of some trees so Lorne M. and I decided to push it out into the sun to melt. It was attached by some thinner ice so I was able to break through and get it going. Many thanks to Mel for breaking the flow free from shore with his trusty sledge hammer and of course my lovely cameraman Rick.
Video of the move is here.
Hello Everyone!
If you have come here for information and have questions and/or want to be put on the e-mail list for updates and info just head over to the "Contact" page and send us an e-mail message to that effect.
Any thoughts, corrections, complaints, or constructive criticism will certainly be greatly appreciated. Just go to the "Contact" page and drop me a note. I am also looking for content. Photos, videos or articles will be appreciated.
Thanks - Ulrich