May I introduce you to footy hull #331. Many thanks go to Bill Hagerup, both for providing the plans for the hull (a slightly-modified Razor variant he calls the Razor2) and for mentoring me with my first footy build.
Construction is 1/64" ply, with a 1/8" lite-ply deck frame rail (not shown) and 1/8" lite-ply equipment rack. All parts are laser-cut (I own my own model glider business which requires ownership of a laser) from Bill’s plans. This is not a kit, I just use the laser for my ‘fun’ projects too to increase repeatability and accuracy.
Equipment is a 6-gram Spektrum RX, 9-gram sub-micro rudder servo and an HS-81 servo for the winch (possibly will be upgraded at some point). Both rudder and keel are removeable. Keel bulb is 7.5 oz. Total weight as shown with 4xAA Alkalines in a heavy radio-shack battery holder is 461 grams. With lithium cells and a medium sized McRig I’m hoping to be right about 500g which is Bill’s specified build weight.
Now all I have to do is get some rigs built, and hope for some melting so I can learn how to sail before the first regatta of the year in April!
(Don’t mind the jewlery on the hand - my wife was holding the boat while I photographed it)
Looks like a really nice job. I like the lines a lot better than the standard razor, which looks too narrow in the bows to me.
Hey, I am an RC flyer, what kind of gliders?
My own footy is similar but fuller in the bow and stern both, and maybe a little less deep. Basically more of a racing dinghy shape, which should not be too surprising since my last full sized boat was a thistle and I’ve done some International 14 sailing.
I have to admit to a certain lack of craftsmanship in my hull since I built the thing more or less in my lap as I designed it! Still not finished since I took a hiatus during and after the WRAM show, but am now back at it, designing and gluing as I go. I can hardly wait to make my second, just so I can have a boat with fewer built in mistakes.
When I designed my also wide at the bows hull that is exactly what I had in mind, even though I knew nothing about footys. A friend owned an old New England Cat of 28 feet (about the equivalent of a 40 footer in normal boats) and he described sailing downwind with the bows dipping under and the boom occasionally dragging in the water and making it impossible to steer without sheeting in first.
I shaped my hull with that in mind and also raked the tubes that the rig pivots in so the boom would be up on a run. Have been told the second idea has it’s own problems, but I think (I hope anyway) that I can handle them. If not, these are easy boats to build and I am already designing my second in my head.
I’d love to try a DLG, but my right arm is seventy years old and gets used for fiddle playing a lot. That and a torn rotator cuff from a mountain biking crash a few years ago limits what I am willing to risk. I have a slightly bent ASW 28-18 four meter that I hope to resurrect wunnadeezdaze. (Tow plane ran into it on the ground!!!)
Well I got to get my Razor2 wet today at the Minuteman club’s ice breaker event. Us footys moved to an unused portion of the course and trimmed our boats for next weekend’s postal event.
Most of the day called for ‘C’ rigs with about an hour of ‘B’ rig time. I’m very excited about the boat. Bill H. had his cobra there and also there was a Razor1 there too. My boat seemed to get along just fine with both. Later in the day a few others joined us.
Bill H. helped me trim things out, but basically we got lucky and it trimed out right off as built. Call it beginners luck, with the skilled mentoring from Bill. Larry Bird always claimed it was better to be lucky than to be good. Like Larry, I think Bill has a healthy amount of both.
Thanks for a great design, and all your help Bill!
Allan
Good to have you here Allan and read of you getting your first footy wet. Great to have another aircraft designer here too, today I am scalesailing.com but I was, and to an extent still am www.mcallisterdesigns.com . I think we have a mutual friend in Dereck Woodward?
I’m not sure I know Derrek by name/face, but I’ve probably bumped into him at contests here and there.
Thanks for the kind words. In some ways being an airplane modeler has helped ease the learning curve here, in other ways it’s been a liability, having to re-learn the way fluids work at this end of the Reynolds number spectrum.
Ah, I just checked Allan, wrong person, I was thinking of Gary Wright and the Kwik-E model which Dereck raved about when it appeared some years ago. Dereck has written the electric column in QEFI magazine for many many years. Just an ooops, :rolleyes: