When the water’s too hard to sail, and you enjoy messing around with boats, you’ve got to find something to do. There’s a large fleet of Graupner Saphirs in the Netherlands and some have had the idea of converting this semi-scale cruising yacht into something a bit racier.
Drawings are attached and as the project develops, it will be logged on http://www.modelzeilen.nl/forum/viewtopic.php?t=620
Although the preferred language is of course Dutch, there are no problems asking questions or offering comments in English or German. Build threads on the forum are usually very well illustrated and this co-operative project promises to be more so.
Martin -
with pricing at $350 (or more if shipping costs are added) and questionable performance with other sailboat classes of similar size at 36-39 inches (it is 37+ inches), the possibility of a US class is questionable - especially considering other established class options already out there.
As an example, one of our largest US classes is the Victor Products Soling. At 1 Meter in length, the kit sells for about $126 and comprises the most registered boats of any US Class. They also offer their “Cup Class” series, and we have Fairwind and Seawind classes which are also recognized and provide more “scale” appearance than the Soling. Slightly smaller, but very widely sailed is the CR914 and the Victoria Thunder Tiger which also offer performance, large classes and are recognized.
I don’t want to discourage you, and I also realize this discussion site is read by non-US sailors, but for those new to the hobby over here, it is a boat that would fit into the Open Class with other boats that as yet have not achieved class status. No problem if a new sailor wants to buy it for appearance, but a bigger problem finding enough numbers or locations in which to race in competitive fleets. Europeans and other countries must realize the physical “size” of the US - coupled with air travel restrictions, makes it difficult for someone to have to trave 3-4,000 miles to find a small competitive fleet. Travel in some of our states can take 3-4 hours of driving time just to cross one state (compered to the crossing of entire countries over in Europe). Having to cross multiple states to race a radio controlled boat is an issue to be considered. A class could consist of 50 boats - one in each state, and bringing them all together to one central point for a weekend (or full week) regatta is an impossible task.
Just wanted to point out a few things that new sailors might not consider when seeing photos of neat looking sailboats from other countries.
Cheers 
There was no attempt to sell a class. Exchange rates, shipping costs on lead ballast etc. make it a non-starter in different parts of the world. It was just posted for interest’s sake. Seeing threads on boat construction are always interesting to me if only to see how well other’s do it and how problems common to most boats are resolved. For instance, I quite like browsing the EC12 sites even though they’re big, expensive, unavailable in Europe but really beautiful looking.