Hi Everyone,
My name is Enrico. I must confess that I am an active RC Sailplane flyer. So you might waner what on earth am I doing here. Well, Last weekend while visiting the local park, My father in law and I got to meet some nice folks who were sailing their bigger ships. Needless to say, it was awesome to see them cruise and sail and after one of them let my in law sail one of their big ships, we were hooked.
So why did it catch my attention? Well, being a rc sailplane pilot I am very attracted to dealing with the unknown forces of nature like wind, thermals and such. Sometimes flying time is very rare so I needed something to coupe with not flying, and sailing iis the next thing in line that can be done when the weather doesn’t allow flying. (yeap, I know, up to certain poiint)
Anyway, my dad in law and I lurked around the weekend looking for a good alternative to get us sailing ASAP. So we came across the Footy class. It met all the requirements: can be scratch built from plans, simple and not expensive, competitive, and most of all, easy to learn to sail.
Last night we decided to take the plunge and printed various set of copies of the Razor 3 footy and the Harpy footy, went back to the stash of balsa we had and starting making some balsa dust! Yeah!! in three hours we got ourselves in enough trouble that we had to go back to build logs and the internet to find out how to continue. Finally we got both hulls made and ready for the inner bracing and installing of the RC equipment. Boy this is going to be fun!!
About me: Like I said I’ve been flying model airplanes for 28 years. I started flying gas airplanes and then moved to free flight, sailplanes, Pattern airplanes and helicopters. I build most of my airplanes and I am good at reading blue prints and plans and making and inventing my own parts.
I have sailed a couple of times as a crew member in large open class sailboats, but that came to a quick stop since Iwas 18 and going to college. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to resume that side of the hobby.
Finally, I am really excited about getting into sailboats. Hopefully we’ll be able to maiden our ships this weekend before my dad in law goes back to Ecuador South America. But his got also the bug and will be building back there until he comes back again in march of next year. By the way, my two kids, 6 and 3 are also excited about the sailing experience. they helped us last night with the paint design of the boats each is going to sail. I guess i’ll have to build a third one if I one to have my own!!!
Enrico