Ok, I started this nearly a year ago, I final finished it enough to go sailing. So I took it to work and sailed at smoko, which was the original plan to start with when I started building it. Its a Razor design, with Microsailors bendy wire rig I started with a swing rig with ball bearings in the mast tube but the swing rig got the better of me so when I saw Bretts elegant rig I got re motivated and finished her off , I used a micro servo for the rudder utilising the whip staff arrangement and a standard servo with a arm for the winch, Didn’t modify the travel at all just worked out how much travel was required and drilled arm to suit. The sail is drafting film ex. top of a IOM main that I made. It is too heavy at 80gsm, I said to the wife I have to go to a florist shop, she got all excited until I told he why :). the rig is 1.6 stainless welding wire, a balsa composite mast( balsa 6mm square, stripped in half then carbon fibre sandwiched between half’s, CA’ed together and sanded round) and a bit of carbon fishing pole for the boom The keel is just a lump of brass hex until I get a lead one sorted, Its 180 gm’s, the whole boat is 488 gm’s in sailing trim but I should be able to shave some of that off and add it to the keel.
A couple of photos sailing off Maritimo Offshore’s production wharfs.
Regards
Nick
Congrats! My Pintail took a year also. Now I dont feel so bad knowing I am not the only slow builder! 
Sailed my footy with no change from last sail at my local club day today, 20 knot winds with gusts of 30. It sailed realy well. No one else was game to throw their sailboats in the water, I first put my IOM in the water with “B” rig which was extremely fast until water ingress affected the receiver. I then thought why not, It handled the conditions realy well, it did bury the bow downwind but didnt loose to much momentum unlike the IOM which came to a screeching halt. It almost sailed directly into the wind. As others has said people are realy suprised how well these little boats sail. I will have to construct an Internet course next.
Regards
Nick
How big was your sail for these windy conditions? Did you use the 1-foot mast height, or something bigger?
Walt H.
Nick, given who yiou seem to workm for, it’s quite likely you are actually measuring, not guessing the windspeed. What are tye actual abd calibrated heights of the instrument?
A.
Hi Angus and Walt,
The sail was the same as the photos in my first post, 24 cm foot, 46cm luff leach 46 cm also but large roach, sorry Angus windspeed gleaned from current weather observasions at nearby recording station of Bureau of Meteorology so acual conditions at the lake may not be the same. My IOM with B rig did get knocked flat on the gusts.
Another interesting thing that happend is the rudder popped off the servo arm at one stage. I think that there was enough pressure on the rudder to overcome the servo and disengage the whipstaff trom the servo horn.
Regards
Nick
Photos of this afternoons sailing, First time I’ve sailed with another Footy, a GoSpectre boat, I had the edge on him but did have a larger sail area. We’ll probably set up a internet course now there is a couple or three of us with Footys.
Regards
Nick
Congratulations.
I’ve been working on mine for a couple of months and am stuck at the sail design stage. Early decisions are now working against me and I am winding up forced into a corner. The more things you have done the less choice you have as you progress.
I hope I get things resolved in less than a year though!
Nice pictures.
Nice to see you back on line Angus! I hope you are feeling good.
Pete
Pete, if you look closely, I think you’ll see that the date on the post previous to the one above yours is dated from 2007…
That said, keep up the good work – what I found with my first footy, was that there came a point where I just had to stick a sail on it and go… the second footy worked better than the first, and the third better than the second… now that I am on the fifth… well, I’m still learning! Keeps it up, we look forward to seeing your finished footy!
Oops…
Thanks for pointing that out!
I like my this boat and it has some good points that I will probably try on a second and third etc. but I did sort of paint myself in a corner from which there is no easy escape.
I will probably get a sail on this pretty soon, problems and all, and I don’t expect it to be too bad, just a bit different than I had planned.
I have some bass wood and hope to carve a male plug for my next boat. That will have some similarities and some departures from the norm.
With boats this small you can afford to put a little imagination into your designing. My biggest hangup has been not knowing how to do things, never having seen a footy or examined an RC sailboat.
Pete
Sorry about that I was going to start a new thread but revived this one instead As you can read I still haven’t built the internet course yet and it was 9 months since I promised I would:bag: the first time round.
I have changed a couple of details, its now all carbon bendy rig with a 2mm wire component and I put a fishing weight on the keel instead of the brass hex I initially had. Its a bit heavy now but I can shape the sinker some to smooth it out.
Pete, the sails are easy, they are so small, I think I’ve made about 10 overall not including changing the size of the ones I’ve already made. Just go with flat shapes with minimal reinforcement. The sails and rigging was the same hang-up I had when building as you’ve read in my earlier posts.
Regards
Nick
The hassle with sails is getting set up and finding a material I like. I’ve got some very light mylar that might be too light but worth a try. Work space is my biggest problem.
So far I’ve set up a piece of foam board with a profile of the boat and some tracing paper taped on. I’ve laid my McRig on it and drawn the outline and am modifying the front bend to get the area right in relation to the keel.
Looks like my rig has to be a bit more forward than planned. I guess I have to get used to the idea before I start cutting. Another problem is things disappear in the clutter, and my narrow double stick tape seems to be missing! I want to make a sleeve up front, and that’s how I was going to do it.
Pete (struggling with problems of my own creation)
keep it Simple Pete,
Heres how to make a sail easily and cheaply,
Go into kitchen draw and take out polythene trash sack,cut the bottom of it and lay your mast inside it.Draw the outline of your sail with a marker pen.
Heat up a soldering iron and cut around your outline with a straight edge,add some reinforcement to the corners from electrical tape.Add sail battens also if needed,thin plastic or similar does the trick and can be held on with the tape as well.
There one sail…cheap and easy and performance is the best bang for the buck you will get.
Thanks to Roger for this method.
Please excuse the packing tape keeping the water out!! cheap and easy too!
Hi Brett,
Thanks for posting that sail making method. I’ll give that a go. The material in the pictures of mine is laminating film, I’ve always thought it was too heavy.
Regards
Nick
I have access to acres of 3M paint masking film. Its some sort of plastic similar to shopping bags but lighter. Would this make a good material for sails?
A suitable material for the Macrig perhaps?
Regards
Nick
Hi Nick,
I was checking that stuff out in the hardware store at the weekend.
It appears to come in 2 weights,10microns and 30 microns.
Bearing in mind that these sails are double surface I think the thin stuff would be ok.
Hey Nick - Besides lightness, resistance to stretch is a criteria. Some light materials stretch along multiple axes or sometimes just one. You want whatever material you use to retain it’s shape in different wind strengths and gusts. Light weight sometimes means compromised strength. It sounds like that 3M film will probably fit the bill. The only way to tell is to make a set of sails and test them. Please post your findings so we can all learn from your experiments. Best of luck!
OK I’ve made the sail to the same dimensions as the one in my last picture post, I tended to need slight lee helm to sail upwind with that sail? so I may need to fiddle with the size.
The sail is considerably lighter than the laminating film version, no more than 3 grams vs at least 12 grams in sail material alone.
If I really pull at the material I can stretch it in the same way as shopping bag plastic but it definitely needs more force. You will have to wait till Sunday for a sailing report.
regards
Nick
Thanks Brett,
I have plenty of plastic bags, all I have to do is choose the color!
I also have some super light mylar but it is probably too light for this.
Pete
Sailing report,
I sailed this morning, one of those rare windy days, the boat sailed most of the time downwind with the bow buried under water. The sail material itself held up perfectly, the rig with the lighter material is too stiff, but was fine with the heavier material. I need to work on sail shape and battening I have a crease in line from the end of the boom to the peak. The other footy wasn’t game to sail:scared: so I have no speed comparison.
Regards
Nick