Tag Archives: London radio sailing

Advanced Radio Sailor’s Guide to the Futaba Transmitter

Last year we wrote Beginners Manuals for radio sailors with Radiomaster, Flysky and Futaba transmitters. There is an excellent Spektrum manual from the USA for which we also published the download link. The manuals have been enormously popular and downloaded about 1,500 times in twelve months. Interestingly the most popular is for Radiomaster, followed by the Radio Sailors Manual for Futaba.

We have been busy recently on both Radiomaster and Futaba finding out how to implement some more advanced features for radio sailing, over and above what we all use normally.

These are:-

. Advanced Mainsheet Management

. 4 Position “Pinch and Puff” using joystick plus switch

. VMG Fine Tune for Mainsheet using volume dial control

. Flick Gybe on a Button

. Advanced Rudder Management

You can download the Implementation Guide for these features on Futaba by clicking here:-

https://drsailing.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/sailing-radio-controlled-pdf-version-general-topic-advanced-futaba-t10j-guide.pdf

Our Chaps Do Well at Chipstead Marblehead Games…!!

It was blinking cold down at Chipstead yesterday. Only five skippers turned out but the racing was actually jolly close. The F6 cleaned up the podium!!

Breezes were fickle as can be – classic Chipstead but the best guys kept own getting it right. They managed 11 races by lunchtime so there was plenty going on!

Our Datchet members did well, cleaning up first and second – With Nigel just squeezing it from Phil by 0.8 points!!

(Phil’s F6, number 66, looking very nice in the light breeze beating out to the top mark)

Estimated Total Number of Radio Sailors Worldwide…by AI !!

In the last few days, we have been musing on IOM Worlds Sponsorship. We know from UK’s MYA that their number of members is 2,250 …. but for Livestream TV to a Global Audience, how many skippers are “out there”? NB decided to ask AI …… and this is what it said…..

Here are the key indicators we do have:

IRSA has member national authorities across many countries.
Four major IRSA classes (IOM, Marblehead, 10R, A‑Class) are sailed worldwide.
World Championships typically draw 70–90 sailors per class, with strict qualification limits.
Large national associations (UK, USA, Germany, France, Australia, NZ) each have 1,000–2,500+ registered sailors.

Using these indicators, we can build a reasoned estimate.

📐 A realistic global estimate

Most countries with active IRSA membership have hundreds of sailors; the largest have thousands.

A conservative model:

Region	Estimated sailors	Basis
Europe	8,000–10,000	Many active IRSA nations; UK alone has 2,000+
North America	2,000–3,000	US + Canada
Asia	1,500–2,500	Japan, China, Singapore, HK, etc.
Oceania	1,500–2,000	Australia + NZ
South America	800–1,200	Brazil, Argentina, Chile
Africa	200–400	South Africa mainly

Global estimate: 14,000–19,000 active radio sailors worldwide

This aligns with class registration patterns, national membership numbers, and IRSA event participation.

If you have nay “real data” we can think about, please send your thoughts to the the email address on our “Contact” page of this website.