New to RC boats

[MasterRichParticipant @masterrich]

Hey all,

I never got into the RC boat hobby before, it's normally been model railways or RC cars. We have a nice medium side pond in Edinburgh where a small boat club drive their boats there every Sunday.

I want to get into this and what I feel would be my thing is getting a Sailing ship. Not a speed boat or a Yacht but something on the lines of the Cutty sark or HMS Victory.

I done some digging around and I see that in order to get an RC ship like these you have to buy the model kits and build it from scratch. Now I know this won't work for me as my modelling kit exp is not good enough to make them.

So I need some help here or someone to point me in the right direction as to where I can get ships like this for RC where it does not require too much modelling or pre-built ones. If not then I'd have to find something smaller and less detailed. Something on the lines like this..

http://www.cornwallmodelboats.co.uk/acatalog/CEN_BELLE.html

Thanks for your help

Rich

[MasterRichParticipant @masterrich]

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Welcome to the Forum Rich,

There are not very many working, 'ready to run' sailing model ships out there and you have done well to find that example from Cornwall Model Boats.

Large sailing ships such as Victory or Cutty Sark don't make very good working models as when you scale them down the sail area reduces by the square root while the displacement (weight) of the model reduces by the cube root so they very soon end up carrying an amount of sail that is totally out of balance with the ability of the hull to support it. Basically they fall over! Thames barges represent a compromise which can give an acceptable sailing performance although they will often require an external keel to offset the pressure of wind on the sails.

Thames barges are not too difficult to build and we have an expert on the forum, Kim, who can give you much better advice than I can.

I am afraid that, realistically, you will have to rule out any idea of building a working model Victory or Cutty Sark.

MyHobbyStore offer plans of the Tea Clipper Ariel **LINK** as a working model but this does require scratchbuilding expertise.

Colin

Edited By Colin Bishop, Website Editor on 15/09/2014 19:30:00

[MasterRichParticipant @masterrich]

Thanks Colin for your help, I thought as much that making them any smaller than the current size of those large sailing ships will of course, cause it to tip over and I don't want that

Thanks for the link, I'll do more looking around and see what there is.

[Master ShipwrightParticipant @mastershipwright]

You might be interested in a book, Scale Model Sailing Ships, Ed. John Bowen, published by Conway Maritime Press. It is out of print but second hand copies are available through Amazon.co.uk for a few pounds.

It has examples of working and static models. Also provides information on how to make them.

Martyn

[Kimosubby ShipyardsParticipant @kimosubbyshipyards]

Master Rich

greetings and sorry for a late reply, only just caught up with your thread. [Thanks for the plug Colin, expert eh – according to my wife that's a "drip under pressure"].

Agree with Colin , as he says period ships and others with several masts are very difficult to sail well, but it can be done. Bristol pilot boats are good, they come at a nice scale too. Thames barges are now built at scales of 1/12 1/16 1/24 and 1/32 and are raced as the MTBSC under the auspices of Richard Chesney and AMBO. Indeed, Richard has recently designed and a kit is available for the Veronica thames barge.

The AMBO website has many other plans and also has any models currently up for sale too.

I have converted a Bounty to motor, keeping the sail rig as well, so that she sails on her own with a following wind and beats up with the motor on.

Aye, Kim

[MasterRichParticipant @masterrich]

Thanks guys for your feedback as you know I posted my first sailing boat i bought but I have been so busy I had no time to do anything at the moment…

[Tony HadleyParticipant @tonyhadley]

For anyone interested in scale sail, a group dedicated to this section of our hobby has been created on Facebook.

Tony

Edited By Tony Hadley on 25/09/2014 14:35:18

[Geoff SleathParticipant @geoffsleath41411]

Interesting that Kim mentions the 'Veronica' barge kit/plan pack (I don't think the kit – supplied from 'another source' – is anything like complete, but includes hull ribs and other parts difficult to cut by hand). I've just ordered one to build over the winter as a change from my usual aeromodelling. I also ordered the DVD which describes the construction.

I used to race dinghies a lot when younger and my first foray into RC was building and racing a Rhythm 1 metre from the free plans in this magazine 20? years ago. Because my nearest racing club is 30 miles away I started aeromodelling and have a loft full of models from small electric to 30cc petrol scale. However, sail has always interested me and a barge of a decent size fills the bill perfectly.

If there are any other Veronica builders here, it might be useful to start a thread devoted to the build. It certainly helped me building a Tucano with the dedicated thread on the aircraft forum here.

ARTS (Almost ready to sail) kits don't seem to be as available as ARTF (Almost ready to fly) aircraft kits so I guess the OP (MasterRich) look like either spending a lot on something like the Cutter he references or rather less on a Bermudan rigged yacht. One thing he should check is the depth of water at his local pond. My 1 metre's fin is far to long to sail on the model boat pod in our local park in Derby for example.

Geoff

[Andy HustlerParticipant @andyhustler32076]

Hi Rich welcome to one of the most addictive hobbies in the world !!! I started as most with the Airfix models and won a Perkasa mtb in a prize draw whilst on holiday with the ex and the girls one year ,in fact the box was so big we had to tie it on to the roof of her little Nissan micra .Anyway what I'm trying to say is that no matter where you start be it big or small whether you have built boats or not there are so many people out there to help be it on line , in shops or at the lake side by other boaters you will fins a miri ad of help out there from building a simple boat to a destroyer with all guns firing with bells and whistles there is always some one out there to help .

Good luck and Enjoy

Andy from Cardiff

[MasterRichParticipant @masterrich]

Thanks for your help One sunny Sunday afternoon, I will take my sailing boat out to the park along with the other boaters. It should be fun to give this a try. I’m just going over the instructions to set up the boat, making sure the sails and mast are straight. It’s more rewarding with a sailing boat than just a ready-to-run speed boat that you just drop in the water and off it goes

Edited By MasterRich on 05/10/2014 20:08:54

[Author]

Posts