The developing hobby of rc sailing on parking lots, ice & dry lake beds has recently been given a boost through the efforts of David Goebel. A new website has been created at:
http://www.ircssa.org.
The Int’l RC Surface Sailing Assoc has participants from as far away as Australia,
Italy & Britain.
Sail Fast!!
Bill K
hey bill sounds intresting . any ideas where i can get plans to download?
cougar
Hey Cougar,
Here are some of the guys currently making hard surface craft:
http://www.amya.org/suppliers_boats.html#Ice%20Boats%20/Land%20Yachts
As far as plans go, iceboats are not like soft water boats in that they do not need to be hydrodynamic. You put 3 runners out at the corners for stability and then make the thing as aerodynamic as possible (dart-like). Rig position is not super critical as the three runners can balance out a lot of ills in mast position. The biggest thing to worry about is making sure your runners are straight and sharp and you have a nicely shaped sail.
Look at the boats here for an idea: http://www.rclandsailing.com/ . They are little more than stick figures with a sail. Not much planning for that.
The only think you will want to pay some attention to is the class specifications. Basically they are max height, width and length. Pretty simple!
Good Luck beating Bill! Last winter he clocked his boat (onboard GPS) at over 33 mph. I’m sure he and Tony Johnson and a few others will try to top that mark this winter…
Will Gorgen
guess what??
I ordered an LS3[:D]
Wis
if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it!
Cougar,
The Italian website ( http://www.carriavela-rc.com/index.html ) has plans to download as a zip file, although my computer has never let me do that for some reason. Thanks much for the interest, they’re alot of fun.
We had excellent ice around here until a recent snowfall, but unfortunately I was unable to beat my previous mark of 33 mph. My goal is 40, but I’ll need a steadier wind & some improvements in my rig before I’ll be able to achieve it.
There are several suppliers of kits to be found at http://www.ircssa.org Let us know what you end up doing.
Regards,
Bill Korsgard
http://www.iceboat.org/RCBoats/rc_boats.htm
ps to Wis: Your LS-3 will make you IRCSSA’s charter member in Japan,
so please sign up
Bill K
Hey everyone, I could not let Bill have all the fun. I am the proud owner of an LS-4 landsailer and am nearly done with a custom landyacht. Both are class III yachts. Both Bill and myself are trying to beat Bill’s current record of 33.3 mph. The custom yacht is built to hopefully do just that. If you enter Bay City RC Landsailors in your browser it should go to our landsailor page. There you will find the new T-3. (Tsunami Class III) Hope to hear from everyone. John - Bay City RC Landsailors - Happy Sailing!
Bill and/or Baycity, just out of curiosity is movable ballast legal in any of the rc land yacht classes? I built one quite a long time ago and it seemed that it might benefit from such a system. What is your feeling about any benefit aside from the legality?
Doug Lord
–High Technology Sailing/Racing
<blockquote id=“quote”><font size=“1” face=“Verdana, Arial, Helvetica” id=“quote”>quote:<hr height=“1” noshade id=“quote”>Originally posted by baycityrclandsailor
Hey everyone, I could not let Bill have all the fun. I am the proud owner of an LS-4 landsailer and am nearly done with a custom landyacht. Both are class III yachts. Both Bill and myself are trying to beat Bill’s current record of 33.3 mph. The custom yacht is built to hopefully do just that. If you enter Bay City RC Landsailors in your browser it should go to our landsailor page. There you will find the new T-3. (Tsunami Class III) Hope to hear from everyone. John - Bay City RC Landsailors - Happy Sailing!
<hr height=“1” noshade id=“quote”></blockquote id=“quote”></font id=“quote”>
interested to see what they look like… Mind posting a pic?
Hi Chad, yes I would but being new to your forum I don’t know how to post pics. I am going to see if I can figure it out, but any help would be great! Thanks, John - Bay City RC Landsailors
Sorry Chad, all my files seem to be too large to be downloaded. If you want to see pictures, go to: http://www.tsunami3.ehost.com/baycityrclandsailors/ Hopefully in the next day or two this site will have the address of www.baycitylandsailors.com. I’ll keep you posted.Thanks again for your interest Chad and Happy Sailing! John - Bay City RC Landsailors
Doug,
On full sized iceboats, we add ballast to the boat for higher wind, so it seems reasonable that movable ballast would help. Generally, the heavier boats do well upwind and the lighterboats do well downwind. The maximum speed is downwnd soo if you are simply out to set speed records movable ballast might not help. But for around the buoy racing, it should.
You already have a nice platform to move the ballast on (the runner plank). At the speeds of these little boats, the aerodynamic drag of a ballast box would not be as big of a concern as they are on the full sized boats (at 90 mph, extra windage is a big concern).
Bill should be able to answer the question of legality of movable ballast.
Will Gorgen
Movable ballast is not prohibited under the basic IRCSSA class rules which are simple “in the box” size restrictions. For example, Class 3 is max 1.5m long X 1.0m wide X 2m high. However, IRCSSA also makes provision for one-design classes numbering at least 20 boats, in which case it would be limited by the design.
I haven’t pursued the option for a few reasons,including being a believer in the “KISS” school of design . At the speed these things move, it takes most of my concentration & dexterity to handle sheeting & steering. I’d need a third thumb as well. Another reason is that heeling moment can be dealt with in other ways, primarily through bending of the plank (crosspiece) & mast which can automatically adjust mast angle and sail shape in order to absorb gusts. Thirdly, in conditions needing ballast, it’s needed on the leeward side as well as windward in order to put weight on the leeward wheel (or ice runner) & reduce side slippage. In winds over 12 mph or so, I put a 10 oz ballast tube inside the aft end of the hull. This is about 20% of total weight. In stronger wind, it’s time to reduce sail to the B or C rigs.
Bill K
Wow - cool stuff!
Being a Michigander (Kalamazoo), I may have to try to look you guys up sometime!