Category Archives: Boat

What Colour Floats Your Boat …?!

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I sometimes wonder at the sight of a multi-coloured fleet of boats and ponder the choices which each skipper may have made regarding the choice of boat, patch, luff colours.  I imagine for a lot of skippers it’s of little or no importance, but for some it’s obviously all part of the enjoyment.

So as a lighthearted distraction I wonder if skippers and builders would like to share any thoughts they might have on the subject.

Which colours if any are difficult to produce?

Which are the most used colours?

Which colours are most or least visible?

Which colours fade?

I recall seeing at least one boat which was colourless/transparent. Maybe the decision for that skipper was just too much!

Red and Green should not be seen without a colour in between. Imagine if this rule were adopted by IRSA!

The introduction of multi-coloured fittings and mast tube has also taken us to a new level of what’s possible.

What’s your colour?

And why?

PH

How They Weigh a One Metre ?

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When you come into Radio Sailing, you hear a lot about weights. It’s a hot topic, just like it is in dinghy and keelboat racing.

As an aside : when I ordered a new Dragon keelboat, I remember going to the builder (who had lots of Olympic golds, world titles and the rest of it) and asking what weight he thought the boat would come out at. He said 1700kg is the rule. I naturally asked, “Yes, but what weight do you think you can build mine to?”… “1700kg” came the reply. And he did. Amazing.

So in at least One Metres and Marbleheads, owners and builders have the same keen interest in weights as my Dragon Builder.

I was keen to see my new IOM weighed. The photo above shows the setup. A digital scale with fine graduations plus a wooden IOM standing bracket. Easy enough to see how the Measurer does his job now.

In fact, here is my boat being weighed. Note hatches and onboard battery are inside the weight limit.

Thinking of my Dragon story above, I thought you’d be interested to see how accurate my IOM builder was. “He’s 21Gms over!”, you proclaim !!

Well, I thought that too, so I asked him. I take it that lots of people do. I received a well practiced answer. He says that they target 20gms over because they find that scales around championships do vary. So if you weigh in at a Championship and it looks like you are 20gms over, you can always pop the corrector out.

OK – so he was 1gram over !!….

Our Trial Sail Program – and The New F6 Marblehead !!

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If you are thinking of taking up any new sport, new pastime, new hobby … well, you need to try it first, don’t you agree?! It can sometimes be a little tricky to arrange in radio sailing.

For quite a while, Datchet has had a very smart International One Metre Class loan boat available for newcomers to try.

Today we are making a huge leap with our Trial Sail program. We are adding a 2023 F6 demonstrator Marblehead to the program, supplied by the UK builder K7Yachts!! As I write, well… it’s brand new! Our demo boat is finished in smart blue and looks fantastic. It’s the same hull shape as the 2023 UK Champion.

Why are we adding a Marblehead? To start with, the Marblehead is beautifully suited to our 475 acre lake and our ‘wave’ conditions. They are very fast on these waters and our fleet is extremely active. We race them every alternate Sunday through our 10 month formal season, plus Open Meetings etc.

It’s an interesting time in Radio Sailing. Builder lead times for One Metres is extremely long and measured usually in years. You can get a Marblehead from K7 in months not years. Here is the thing that surprised me – contrary to popular belief, a new Marblehead fitted up for at least Club Racing comes in at a substantially lower cost than the bill for my new One Metre.

Interested ?? See the “Trial Sail” tab on the main menu bar of this website – just below the website banner photo. Contact us by email at the email address shown on our Contact page.

And really, you ought to try one – racing with them is amazing!!