Two career yachtsmen who spent the better part of their lives hop-scotching across oceans have set their sights on new scaled down horizons.

Boat captains Guy Clifford and Brian Fulford, both originally from the Isle of Wight off England’s south coast and now of Fort Lauderdale, are gearing up to launch a new, loosely organized remote control model boat-racing group.

Participants can be young, old, experienced or not. The only requirement is willingness to enjoy model boat racing for the love and fun of it.

“Other clubs are already out there, but they are mostly made up of more serious competitive racers. There are so many rules to follow and the competition can be fierce,” said Clifford.

Florida boasts 37 American Model Yachting Association (AMYA) clubs but only five are in South Florida and just one, the South Florida Model Sailing Club meets in Broward County. Most AMYA clubs race Soling 1M sailboats and sailboats of other sizes.

Clifford, who often attends events with the club at C. B. Smith Park in Pembroke Pines, said the new group will focus on R/C scale model boats of all kinds; sailboats, tugs, schooners, military ships and whatever floats the model enthusiast’s interest.

Fulford said racing the vessels will be an exciting bonus for boat model hobbyists also driven by creativity, history and spending time with fun, like-minded people.

“We want to see a diverse group with a diverse collection of carious boats: steam, sail, electric . . . except nitro. Nitro is not our cup of tea,” Fulford said with a distinguished English brogue.

In the office of his waterside home off the New River, Fulford is surrounded by his own handmade R/C boat collection that includes a turn of the century paddle steam boat, a coal and sail-powered tug boat and harbor tugboat, the vintage schooner America.

Fulford is a detail fanatic. Roaming the deck of a tugboat are vagabond cats, hanging from the side of the tug are bumpers made of rewoven rope; black paint recreates soot that would have collected from coal smokestacks to charge the engines; and two tiny seagulls perch on a sail.

“Someday I will paint dribbles of poop on the deck right under the seagulls,” Fulford said.

A handful of years ago, he bought a sewing machine so he could make his sails more authentic looking with perfected stitching patterns and threads that hang like ties. Sometimes remnants of building materials find homes quite unexpectedly. Once, when the leg of a scale-sized deckhand broke, Fulford replaced it with a whittled piece of found wood — suddenly, the deckhand was dubbed “Pegleg.”

“We had such a chuckle over that,” Fulford said. “Boats bring such adventures.”

Fulford said he and Clifford met on a sailboat docked in Antigua Guatemala more years ago than either care to remember, and became fast friends. Their paths crossed several times through the years at events and by coincidence when they “told each other such lies” like seafaring men often do.

On a recent Saturday they met again at Fulford’s office to check out a few scale model projects in varying states of completion and to talk about when and where to launch their remote control, scale model boat club.

But the new venture is not the duo’s maiden voyage into model boat racing clubs. Twenty years ago Fulford built a fleet of sailboat hulls and then gave them away for friends to finish. The group then gathered on Sundays at a wetland near Bass Prop Shops in Dania Beach for races and camaraderie.

The group was never officially named and eventually stopped meeting as fellows moved or passed away. Still, the remaining hobbyists continued to participate in shows and contests hosted by other scale model boat clubs that came and went. In 2001, Fulford took first place in the Shipcrafters Club’s Tug Regatta for barge pulling.

Fulford, now retired at 78, and Clifford, about 20 years younger and a professional boat surveyor, are ready to start another group. They are enthusiastic about helping novices and people with nautical backgrounds get started. For Clifford, the fun has already begun.

“We are already here for the hobby and laughs. Anyone can join us,” Clifford said. “We welcome submarines, oil riggers, aircraft carriers, anything you have. We’re not waiting for a fan club, just people who want to show up.”

No membership is needed, no dues are required. At this printing, no particular meeting place and time has been set, though Fulford and Clifford say they hope to bring a nice size group together, somewhere, within weeks.

“We know there are people like us out there. Let’s get organized and get our boats in the water,” Fulford said.

For more information, or to get in on the fun during meet ups, call Brian Fulford 954-463-2474 or email him at b38fulford@gmail.com.