If you were going to make a smaller set, would you make some that
- Don’t go all the way up the mast?
- Don’t go all the way out the boom?
- Both?
- Neither?
- I don’t know enough to ask an intelligent question?
Almost certainly both. Try finding some literature on sail plan balance. http://www.onemetre.net is a good place to start looking.
If you need any more help, ask.
A.
A gut feeling says to reduce all measurements in proportion, but I wonder whether you couldn’t sail without the jib, although that might give excessive weather helm.
Martin’s gut feeling is unlikely to produce a disastrous result.
A.
See Avitar -
if it’s balanced in relation to rudders and boards (keel) a uni-rig will defintely work, and point much higher than a rig with jib and main. Just harder to dial-in downwind.
Martin’s gut feeling is unlikely to produce a disastrous result.
You have a way with words.
I make my living out of them!
I received a Nirvana II last week and was able to set it up and spend a few hours playing with it in a swimming pool. Though I’m a total newby to model sailboats (and sailboats in general) and the wind was weak, I’m impressed!
My only concern so far is the noise I hear from the sail-trim servo. There’s a slight “grinding noise” when the servo is pulling in the sails to full trim and at other random settings between full trim and out. (It’s not the physical jerking, twitching activity reported by others… just a sound.) My first thought was that the servo was struggling to pull in the lines, so I adjusted the lines so there was less load on the servo at full trim. However, this appeared to make little difference with the sound.
Question: should there be no load on the servo when it pulls to full trim? Or is it ok to set the tension so that the servo has a “little more to go” after it gets to full trim?
There’s always some noise from the gear trains of servos. Is it similar to the noise coming from your rudder servo? If so, it’s probably not worth worrying about. Btw, “fully” closed, the main boom should be pointing more or less at the corner of the transom and the jib should be slightly more open, maybe pointing at the shrouds. You run the risk of stalling the servo if you adjust the booms to be in line with the hull.
My Nirvana Pro was my intro to sailing this summer, and I’ve had lots of fun with it.
When a servo “groans” it’s usually trying to pull farther than the thing it’s connected to will go. Maybe you’re hauling your sails in too tight. It’s not going to hurt anything except running your batteries down faster. I found the standard little servo couldn’t pull the sales in if there was more than a breath of wind, so I bought Futaba’s sail servo. That works fine, but cost me twice what I paid for the 2 channel radio:p
You’ll want a space a little bigger than a swimming pool.
Yes, by the time I get a good tack, it’s time to turn it around. I’m just sailing it in the pool to get the hang of the controls and to fine-tune the rigging.
The HS 755 from Hitec is fairly economical but the GWS SO4 is cheaper still. Both have enough muscle, especially with 6 V) but may need adjustments to your radio box.
Two questions on the Nirvana II remote:
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Who manufactures (OEM) the remote?
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What is the typical range of the signal? (I have the antenna going up the backstay.)
Is it just me, or is that “pond” really a flooded parking lot? 
- Don’t know, although Futaba do supply others, e.g. Kyosho.
- You wouldn’t want to sail that far away;)
I think I saw on the megatech site that it’s made for them by Futaba. My Futaba servos fit the cutouts, but the radio compartment is pretty tight. I had to cut the mount a little bigger to fit the sale server.
I run the antenna up the backstay and have control all over the pond. It came undone once, and I had range about 3/4 of the pond with the wire dragging in the water.
A flooded parking lot? It’s landscaped, gardened, the restaurant has a terrace on it…
I usually sail from the dam at the corner of the north building. My office is right at the sw corner of the north building on the first floor. I have big windows looking out on the water.
Thanks. Can we get a little more precision on this? :mischievo
Like, can I sail it to the end of a 80’ wide lake, or would it be advisable to turn around after about 50’?
80 yards would be a more practical limit. In practical terms when its to far away to make out which way it’s pointing.
You see, by radio control, you don’t really know what’s going on onboard and have to guess by sight. When the boat gets far away, you’re guessing, is it turned toward me or away from me. I don’t really know how long this pond is, but when I’m standing on the dam, the other end is about too far away to see what’s going on. Occasionally, I’ve had to walk to the other end 'cause I thought I was sailing NW, but was actually going SW and ran aground.:rolleyes:
It’s below freezing this morning. The days for barefooted boys to be playing along the bank with toy boats are passing.:moptop: