Best pictures as Rawdon Model Boat Club hosts open day

Playing with boats years later – “an old lad these days” – Mike enthuses about Rawdon Model Boat Club which held an open day this weekend. The original club, known as The Bradford Model Yacht club, was formed in 1886.

After a number of years sailing on various lakes and ponds, the club settled at Larkfield Tarn in the early 1930s, which was dug in the 1820s to provide water for a nearby textile mill.

Over its long history the club has seen good times and bad and has been renamed a few times to suit changing fashions, but today the club says they are one of the best in the North of England.

On Saturday (Aug 19), the club invited people to visit their “pleasantly secluded” private lake and club house to see the boats and maybe try one out.

Mike describes the club as a friendly group of people of all ages and backgrounds with a common enthusiasm for model boating. There’s everything from racing yachts to scale schooners from pleasure steam boats to cargo and warships – however no petrol or diesel engines are allowed as they might spill into the lake and harm wildlife.