The Datchet Team did very well indeed at the Nationals in Keighley, not only from the excellent results all round, but also for the strong representation within the total number of competitors.
Great video here, which shows the boat well in a breeze!
I think anyone coming into radio sailing boat ownership for the first time is going to find the digital radio kit somewhat daunting. (personal experience!)
FlySky and Futaba are both commonly used at our club. Pick up the instruction manuals for both of them and they are baffling….. and totally written assuming you use drones, planes, helicopters and gliders. No mention of Radio Sailing!!
In radio sailing we only use a small subset of the functionality that these transmitters offer. I reckon most of the content of the rather large user manuals is not needed by radio sailors.
I’m inclined at some point to produce some user manuals for both systems on what Radio Sailors need and put them on this website as downloads. That assumes I shall ever figure out how to set them up!
In the mean time, here are two great little videos for FlySky and Futaba as it relates to setting up for radio sailing. FlySky video first, then the Futaba video.
I was chatting to a fellow member the other day who felt his steering and rudder did not feel quite “right”. Upon close examination, it was just that the clamping screw where the shaft goes in to the steering arm was not gripping well. Have you looked at yours?
It may be perfectly cylindrical and nice and shiny – bad for clamp screws!!
Ideally the shaft should have a little flat bit where the clamp screw bites. Can you see it in this photo above? If you don’t have a ‘flat’, possibly a little patience with a flat file would fix it.
This subject introduced me to the whole topic of “do you take the rudder off to travel?” I must admit, in the boot of the car I don’t bother. However, any more ambitious travel and you might want to take both the fins out. I attach a great (short) video below of how this works on a K2 IOM, how to get your fingers in, what angle is best to held the boat when you do it etc. They use a little retainer spring in there too – clever.
Datchet Radio Sailing - Making It All Much Easier !! 