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Nigel and Craig went North with Jim for the weekend and had a fantastically close weekend at West Lancs, …especially on the Sunday. They all made a lovely job of it!!
Take a look at that scoreline. Nigel and Craig took a 1,2….Most of us had to get the Tie Break rule explained to us AGAIN!!
You might have thought it a grey and damp weekend! It didn’t stop us having cracking racing and a full programme for the UK Ten Rater Rankings 1&2!!
Saturday was a little wet until lunch time, but across the day HM packed in a full 16 race programme. Racing on the north course was great – safely out of the way of the rather huge youth training event at the main club!
It was a super win from a dominant Graham Bantock (22pts) from Austin Guerrier (25 pts) and Rohan Williams, who was going jolly fast in his new Trance… on 34 pts.
Best Dressed Skipper of the Day Award : New boat needs new and coordinated Helly Hansen wardrobe!! Terrific kit all round! (Ed : severe kit envy from me)
The second day, Ranking 2 , was a proper nail biter. David Lindsay, sailing his new Ten (new from Ante winning the worlds in it!!) really set the morning on fire!! The morning breeze was quiet and we only got four races in before chilli con carne – and David found the Croatian “power button” and won thee of them!! Unfortunately for David, he had to depart for Sweden after lunch leaving the whole thing wide open again!
The breeze cooperated and PRO McAdoo crammed in another 8 races before frankly competitors and race team were ready to call the whole weekend a wrap…. but wow was it close racing. Constantly battling it out were Graham Bantock and Austin Guerrier – with our very own Austin grabbing it by a single point just at the end. Gripping stuff !!
Two Trance skippers, Austin (68) and Rohan (73)
We honestly had a whole number of text book starts during the weekend.
Phil getting the Blade into gear….
Graham Working on The Proteus Project while scoring
Fellow members GH and RU are always ribbing me in the bar that I should just chuck my Futaba antenna wires into the pot as a frame makes no difference!! G and R – this test result is for you!
For some time, I have used a 3D printed Antenna Frame from SailsEtc for £5.50. Do you all know what I am talking about??
Here is my frame installed in a beautiful UK built F6 Marblehead. It is that little black arc you can see at the top of the pot. You might think that dangly wires on the receiver are “all aerial”…. but the lengths of aerial wire shrouded in grey that you can see in the photo are actually shielded. The lengths of wire that are unshielded and the actual “signal” bits, are the 5-6 cm end tips that are threaded into the frame at right angles. If you have Futaba receivers these tails have total length of around 8-10cm. If you have an RM ER6 the tails are 20cm long – but it’s still only the 5cm tips that pick up signal.
1/ Adding the Antenna Frame increased my Futaba radio reception range by 50% on the test “course”
2/ Adding the frame put the Futaba in just about the same league as Radiomaster ELRS setup using a ceramic aerial. … further than you can reasonably see a radio controlled boat for racing purposes. I’d guess that a RM ER6 receiver would change the range-game again and be in another league altogether. NB uses one in his VISS.
3/ Most probably all these receiver components come from the same Chinese factory, so I’m still thinking that a FlySky setup would benefit by 50% with an antenna frame.
4/ If you have a Futaba in a SailboatRC boat, check the threading of the tails. Thankfully no carbon fibre to worry about, and the custom pot is fabulous with ready threading holes for the antenna. However, check where the tips are. If it ever stops raining, I’ll try the test with my K2/Futaba T6K.
These ranges are not as far as flyers claim for planes, but all ranges are much more than we need for sailing.
GH : bring you FlySky over in a carbon hull and we’ll check the range… with and without an antenna frame!!
Datchet Radio Sailing - Making It All Much Easier !! 