MICRO MAGIC is a small radio controlled sailing boat which comes as a building kit designed and manufactured by Graupner company in Germany. In late 2001 some Micro Magic Skippers from south Germany (Stuttgart) have had the idea to create a Micro Magic class as basis for their future sailing activities with Micro Magics. Their idea was to sail some friendly races in their local area in a way of a free class association with not much effort to take part: no entry fees, no club organisation and no strict and complex rules. However they designed a small class rule to have a background what the Micro Magic should be and with which basic right of way rules they want to race. For their communication and information about tips and tricks for the boat a Micro Magic website (www.micromagic-rc-segeln.de was generated. The idea was also made popular by some articles in the german modelboat magazin SchiffsModell and things developted slowly but steady on. In 2003 now over 80 Micro Magic skippers are registered and several races have been made in Stuttgart and also growing in North Germany e.g. Bremen, Hamburg and Hannover.
MICRO MAGIC is a small remote controlled sailing boat designed and manufactured as building kit by Graupner in Germany. Since its introduction in 1998 many skippers already have made the experience that this model is no primitive toy just for the bath tube even its small dimensions may suggest it on first sight and some may have had doubt about its performance quality.
But the tiny thing really sails very well indeed!
No wonder, priority during design process was given to the sailing performance. MICRO MAGIC is designed to show that also very small rc-sailing boats can generate a lot of sailing-fun not only bigger ones may do. In some aspects the boat is similar to a half sized earlier international one metre (IOM)-boat and some construction details are taken over from that class.
The small size makes it ideal to be the boat for holidays or for waiting in the car all day for a free minute or two. It fits fully rigged and ready to sail easily in any car and none of the common transportation problems known from bigger boats have to be handled. MICRO MAGIC offers at low cost and low effort a very successful step into rc-sailing.
The complete kit is available in any model shop easily.
The kit is easily to assemble in short time, only a few simple hand skills are required.
The kit quality is good - no need for special improvements.
Only a simple low cost RC-equipment with two functions is required.
There is no need for a special and expensive sail winch, a simple second standard servo works for the full sail control.
MICRO MAGIC is not specially designed just for beginners. Due to her small size and design as racing boat the model reacts and sails in a very responsive manner, maybe like a flea on the water, sailing circles around some other even bigger ones. A real beginner may prefer a boat, which is less quick responding and may sail without any steering its way over some distance - making beginners sailing life easier. A MICRO MAGIC needs to be sailed sensible and active. This attracts the more experienced skippers who are looking for best performance and speed. Whilst some may think this is not good for a beginner there is another view that it leads to good boat control which allows the beginner to progress easily later on to larger competition designs such as the One Metre or even a Marblehead. The same idea is common among full-size sailing boats where dinghy experience is often a basis for the top keel boat sailors.
With some advantages on one side, attracting a lot of different skippers all around, you have to keep in mind, that even MICRO MAGIC can already sail on a small pool of water and can handle a lot of weather conditions with good results it is not designed to sail in open water (offshore / rough water) nor in stronger wind conditions (greater than 3 bft) without some modifications. The boat with its relative big sail area is obvisouly designed for mainly light to medium conditions and due to the light weight of the boat it may get problems tacking in rough water.
However, you can update the boat with smaller sails on your own ideas to increase the performance of the boat for stronger weather conditions up to 6 bft.
Kit-construction:
The kit includes every part of the boat except a radio set with two standard servos and some materials for the minor building process (e.g. glue, some sand paper, some tools). The body of the boat is made from two ABS vac-formed shells which are already cut out by CNC and ready for use. Hull and deck shell are easily clued together. Central point of the structual loads and for the RC gear is a combined mast-keel box made from two vac formed ABS parts in the centre of the hull. The correct position is given by the parts itself. Some light pre-cutted plywood reinforcements are added. This gives a resistance and stable body with only minor weight. The removeable keel is designed with a tall and very thin fin, made of strong injected fibre reinforced plastic with a well shaped NACA 0009 profile which is fitted with a ballast lead of about 350 g at the bottom. The rudder is also made by injected plastic and of good shape (NACA 0012) ready for use.
The light rig is made from thin alloy tubes and fibre reinforced injection plastic fittings. The mast can be trimmed at deck level by a small injection moulded part, which gives the possiblity of fine tuning. The sails are made from spinnaker cloth and are nearly ready for use. Three different colours are available, red, blue and bright yellow, but you have to take pot luck on the colour in your kit as this is not a matter of ordering.
There is no painting of the model required as there are two decal sheets included in the kit for hull and deck designs. A wooden display stand made from pre-cut ply wood is also part of the kit.
The kit contains not only a full-size plan / drawing but a thorough manual with ten building photos and plenty of instruction text, including first tips on setting up and sailing the boat.
The optical layout / origin of the boat is based on small 6,5 m single hander transatlantic racing yachts.
Technical datas:
Lenght: 530 mm
Beam: 180 mm
Mastheight: 980 mm
Sailarea: 1550 cm?
Weight: 980 g
