Nice ideas. I must get out and put my efforts where my mouth is (for once)
Biggest Footy open meeting yet?
10 boats at Southwater, UK.
See Website News for details (soon if not yet!)
The UK has now hit 40 registerd Footys - up 15 on three months ago. No less than five boats are under construction at the well known Bourneville MYBC in Birmingham and thee are plans to hold an open regatta there next year.
The North-west has another five boats in planning or under construction.
I am told that the first kits have been sold to Belgium and Sweden.
A five-page article written by Graham McAllister about the Kittiwake Footy is included in the Winter Issue, #146, of Model Yachting magazine. Twenty-eight photos illustrate the boat’s step-by-step assembly. Two drawings illustrate the Footy Measurement Box and Footy Class Rules. This exposure in Model Yachting is bound to promote the Footy Class.
3,400 Copies of the magazine have been printed. About 2,800 copies of which are being mailed tomorrow to AMYA members. (Note: 68 pages, four-dozen writers, over sixty photos and ON SCHEDULE.) This issue of Model Yachting featured articles appropriate to “Getting Started in Model Yachting”. The AMYA Membership Sec’y will send out the available additional copies to new members as they join AMYA. Being part of the AMYA New Member Package, this issue having the big Footy article, will even give more “legs” to promotion of the class.
Rich Matt
AMYA #004
Footy #009
More publicity for the Footy and there’s genuine interest in a European Championship (any from outside the European Union warmly welcomed).
Brett has found a Footy thread on a French website and I’ll try to use my linguistic skills to get them into the frame.
420 sailor and Mudhenk 27 have unveiled new designs - which are going in more or less opposite directions in terms of shape, weight, etc.
Tmark is thratening to inflict a super-sophisticated proa on us (God help the rule makers if it works!)
Things are coming along.
Incidentally, not many people have looked at Brett’s recent thread ‘New Stuff from Downunder’. This deals with the latest boats from Kiwiland including vacuum formed hulls.
It now appears likely that the first Footy international event will be held early next summer in Birmingham UK. It will be a one-day event to be called Euro Grand Prix or something to that effect. It is hoped to attract some 20-25 boats.
Anybody else done anything to promote the class this week?
My Internet race could be considered International.
Great stuff Angus,The class is growing weekly.
Good times ahead for this Footy class.
OK - you get it in first. I’ll bow to you on that!
If you draw up a pretty (and dead lefal) notice of race, I’ll get it in the various MYA publications. Have you sent it to Charles Hall?
I have purposefully kept the NOR fairly informal.
The racing of course with this method is informal to,so I think it is right.
Anyone who challenges the sailing conditions etc and doesn’t take the event in the spirit it is intended can…well you know.
Keep it up with the Frappr map, people. We’ve now got two Footies within a few blocks of each other in Toronto!
Not in my UK window I am afraid so I will be going through my influential northern mates to find a keen and ruthless young racer to campain a ‘Banshee’!
Graham
The British magazine Model Boats has a free plan and article for a semi-scale Footy ‘Wonder’ designed by Richard Webb in its December issue.
With traditionl bowsprit, gaff mainsail and topsail and flying jib, Wonder is a peautiful caricature of a 19th century sailing workboat. The description ‘model racing yacht’ may be slighly optimistic, however.
Since Model Boats is only very vaguely into model sailing yachts, I’ve written a lettr to the editor congratulating him abd Richard on the design, but pointing out that Footys do come in other flavours!
And more growth opportunities.
As of Today, there’s another UK based website with a Footy bias. It’s sponsored by the MYA and it’s called MYA Interactive. Anyone is very welcome to join.
Address is
We’ve now got at least two open regattas arranged in UK this year - one in Birmingham, the other in Gosport. We’ll try to run at least one more in North Wales in the dramatic scenary at the foot of Snowdon!
Bill Hagerup says he’s desperate to come to the event in Birmingham. I hope he comes. If he does it will be only the second Transatlantic Footy meet: I and my mate John have payed for the tickets to go to Sheboygan WI to see Graham McAllister in mid-May, hopefully bearing two state-of-the art UK designed Footys.
I hear rumours of vac-formed hulls from all quarters - one just down the road (using my design and there are teething problems, as ever).
I hope that we have a volunteer to write the software we were talking about a month or so ago for worldwide leagues. Keep you posted about what’s going on.
Anyone who wants to volunteer to help is eternally welcome!
My understanding is the Footy is a Beginners Boat intended to give newcomers and old salts an alternative to the High End of racing with an emphasis on the Fun aspects of R/C Sailing.
Not everybody is a Hydrodynamic’s Guru or a Composite Material aficionado, :rolleyes: so a lot of people look for something that can be put on the water quickly and relatively cheaply.
Personally I’ve seen a slight change in all forms of Model Yachts towards high end boats and design as opposed to the Fun and enjoyment of the Sport.
I see two classes developing within the Footy, one for High End Racing, if ever there is enough local participation, perhaps referred to as OPen Footy,
and one class for boats of simple construction where building and sailing is not over complex and can be achieved by almost anybody with basic skills.
Kits can be geared towards both levels of expertise but we can’t expect to grow any class without understanding and supporting it roots. 
It’s not the one with the biggest bucks or the one that always wins, but the one with the most to give that should be applauded. Who dares always wins… Even by Losing you have learnt something for the Future. 
Keep pushing the envelope in a development class towards high cost exotic materials, fittings sails and soon there won’t be anybody left to enjoy the class. It’ll become cost prohibitive for such a small yacht.
[ul]
[li]The Footy should involve building a simple boat that can be sailed between friends.
[/li][li]Simple wood/plastic construction keeping the costs down and the Fun Up.
[/li][li]Develop a foundation and gain respectability of the other classes.
[/li][li]I for one see the Class growing only when there are a few more Plans and drawings available from the Internet
[/li][li]A generous amount of information and detailed drawings on construction of sails and rigs.
[/li][li]Maybe even how to make fittings with sizes, weights etc.
[/li][li]Spread the information more openly and a lot more people will come out of the woodwork.
[/li][li]Keeps the racing close and a lot more fun.
[/li][li]Help out the Newcomers as without their involvement there can be no future
[/li][li]Never talk down to nor denigrate somebody who might not be as knowledgeable as you.
[/li][li]Everbody has humble beginnings, no matter what our current expertise.
[/li][/ul]
Get people involved by building two boats and bring a spare along to the pond to loan to genuinely interested people. Maybe even offer to be a mentor if they want to try building a boat. They are local after all and might even be a future competitor.
Just the thoughts of an ex-IOM sailer, and current Buoy Laying Tug Boat Skipper who can’t be bothered with the politics.
As they say K.I.S.S. :zbeer:
Hi,
You got the right idea on making the Footy Class grow.
That’s what I am trying to instill when we started our Footy user group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FootyUSA/?yguid=274629827
As soon as I find a useful new link or items, the next step is to get in onto
the user group website.
Sven
I, too, see the Footy as a beginner’s boat. But I don’t think this has to mean that a Footy has to be crude or even all that simple.
I don’t know anything at all about hydrodyamics, but I would like to. What better way could there be to learn than to start out with a simple boat that you can build yourself? Mistakes are bound to happen, especially if you designed the boat yourself. Because the Footy class has supporters (Footers? ) with a breadth of experience, you needn’t be on your own with these mistakes. They can be discussed on the forums.
Hopefully soon you will be able to race your Footy against others, and there you will learn even more. As you learn what is needed to make your little boat stop going round in circles, you progress towards the Footy class’ big feet.
I am attracted to Footys for this reason - I think I’ll be able to get a boat on the water, learn a lot from it, then get my own design wet, and hopefully learn a lot more as I try to make it work as well. And then I can hopefully point myself in the “big” feet’s direction. The Footy class has caught my attention by its accessibility. To continue to hold my attention, there need to be the “blue sky” projects and the high-tech Footys so I can test the worth of my ideas against something concrete. But if I knew at the outset that to compete at that level I would have to spend $thousands on nanotechnology servos and micron-scale couplings for that last tenth of a gram, I wouldn’t even try to get boat in the water.
So as long as state-of-the-art Footys aren’t playthings only for those with supercomputers, testing tanks and hundred-thousand dollar metrics software, I think the class not only has a place for all levels, but needs all of those levels.
To support this it would be nice if the class elders could establish something like a virtual Footy R&D Center that could guide us neophytes to those books etc that are of relevance to model yachts, if nothing else. Footy-specific explanations would be better of course For example, I think it could be profitable for someone to write a book on model racing yachts concentrating only on Footys - starting with the basics, explaining the relevant theory, then showing how that theory can be used to improve the basic Footy, right through to the use of exotic theory, designs and construction techniques. It could be a BIG book, but it could cover an awful lot.
I agree almost exactly. In this forum I am probably the ‘numbers’ man (and I do not for one moment mean that this necessarily means the best designer, merely an attitude of mind!). My stock in trade consists of high school maths (and the willingness to use them), a spreadsheet and some (mostly second hand) textbooks on naval architecture and fluid dynamics. If (repeat if) I produce designs that win, it is because I have used these relatively inexpensive tools better than the opposition.
Similarly, although I believe very strongly that Footys should be properly engineered (hence various outpourings about servo arm angles, scantlings, …), I have no intention (with one caveat) of using any techniques that go much beyond ingenuity and my kitchen table. The late Dr. N.G. Calvert of the University of Liverpool, one of the best engineers I have ever met, always used to say that an engineer is a man who can do for five shillings what any fool can do for a pound. The ingenuity and low cost of some of his creations was amazing - an oceanographic current meter for a couple of pounds (now) based largely on a pot of plum jam and a boy scount compass.
My formal qualifications are in law and languages. I find it quite fascinatinatiing to play at being the engineer I would like to have been at little financial outlay and no greater other risk than that of being laughed at when the thing goes horribly wrong (most of my more way out designs have ‘dog’ names so that I can get it in first!).
The sole caveat is that I am involved with a couple of people in producing designs for series production, either as ‘just add water’ or as kits. Here again the emphasis is on simplicity and ingenuity, but I regard it as quite appropriate to use facilties available from progrssive small, local light engineering companies.
Long live the Footy!
Couple of ideas from a complete newbie.
A friend and I looked for something similar a few years ago after getting a go on some small yachts at Falmouth maritime museum in Cornwall. But could not work out a cheap and easy way of making a hull.
Emphasise the low cost by showing a break down of materials and prices for a typical razor or bob-a-bout (or any other design) maybe with ideas of possible sources (kite shop for sail material etc). I’m using radio equipment from an old RC car and a £3 aluminium mast from a hardware store.
A couple of lines on the web site that would pick up a google search if some one sees one of these boats on a pond somewhere. ie “small boat with a foot print on the sail” “model yacht with bare foot on sail”
Can we add a description to Wikipedia? Currently footy comes up with some strange games involving balls? This may cover the idea above.
Appologies if these have been mentioned before
Dave (2/3rds finished my first razor)
Dave,
Intersting ideas. I really like the Wikipedia notion. See what we can do.
Why don’t you register your boat with the class association. It’s free. You can find my contact details under registration on the Official Footy Website (direct link from this forum).
Angus, UK Footy Registrar/Class Secretary