When I came to radio sailing, an early realisation was that my lifetime sailing tools and their toolboxes were going to be useless. An interesting challenge with radio sailing is, relative to big boats, the smallness of everything.
You need some basic tools on hand, just right at the start – to give you confidence apart from anything else.
These are the first four things I dropped in my new radio sailing toolbox.
1/ If you see any hex nuts, they are going to be small. For example, shroud rigging screws on an IOM. I bought these:-
2/ So far, I’d say slightly more in demand, some good allen keys. I have found so far that 2.5 size is in high demand. From my cycling days I had a lovely set of allen keys, going right down to 2mm and having the magic 2.5mm. However, the keys have quite long stems … possibly 10cm. I think you also need something shorter, and you anyway should be carrying two sets to protect yourself against losses. I what I went for with the second set was these (below). It’s got the magic 2.5mm, plus they have short stems for tight spaces but I really, really like the colour coding.
3/ I’ve not had to break open the screwdrivers yet, but where there are screws they are jolly small. For the moment I have packed a set of these
4/ Again different to big boat sailing, I felt I needed some glue in the box. If I have superglue in the box for rigging knots, then I thought I might need something a bit milder – non impact adhesive to allow wiggle room. I bought this silicone glue. I see it has already been used!
So that was my four part toolbox for day one of radio sailing. Oh – I bought some long tweezers too. More about those in another post.
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!!
Datchet Radio Sailing - Making It All Much Easier !! 