This guy build his own RC Dutch Barge and I have to say it looks quite nice.

Here is a link to the article of Ravishal playing with his virtual boat and where you can even buy the boat (if you are in Second Life). Also has another picture of the barge under full sail.

Second Life RC Sailboat

Firstly – It’s relaxing:
As long as you don’t have a phobia against water, standing and watching over a nice lake or the sea is just wonderful. And compared to a loud RC motorboat, where you constantly need to exchange batteries or fuel up, a RC Sailboat lets you enjoy the atmosphere and you even get the time to watch what else is going on around the lake.

Model Sailboat - Art you can play with

Secondly – Boat Building
If you are in to working with your hands and create beautiful things, then a Model Sailboat should be high on your list. Somebody called it – Art you can play with and that describes it perfectly.

Thirdly – Learn to sail
Honestly, what do you think is more fun? Learning from books or buy playing with a RC Sailboat? Obviously model sailing is especially a good way of teaching sailing fundamentals to children, but also grownups enjoy this hobby where you don’t need to get your feet wet.

Fourthly – Competition RC Sailing
The racing fever will quickly infect you as soon as another RC Sailboat crosses your path. And it is a lot of fun chasing each other of the water, seeing your model sailboat fly across the water just powered by the wind and your skills (Actually check out my review of the Nirvana II to see you don’t really need much skills to get started)

If all this didn’t convince you to start with model sailing as a hobby, than I don’t know what.

If you need more plans read my review on this model ship plans dvd.

Sorry but this offer is no longer available. Try ebay.com and search for “model sailboat plan”

Banks Dory Model Sailboat

If you need more plans read my review on this model ship plans dvd.

iPhone Wind App

I got send this link to this really cool gadget for the iPhone that could be very useful to a lot of RC Sailboat captains.
It is a iPhone Application and when you want to know the current wind speed, you just hold your iPhone in to the wind and activate the app.
And it converts between mph, km/h, knots, fps, m/s, and Beaufort.

Click on the picture and you can view their video showing a comparison to a regular hand held wind meter.

PS: What kind of gadgets do you have for the RC Sailboat hobby? Click here to let me know

Free sailing is a pleasant pastime to do with your grandchildren if you have the right pond.

Picture from U.S. Vintage Model Yacht Group

It used to be pretty easy to buy a small wooden sailboat, sloop rigged was best (one hull, one mast, one large sail and one small triangular sail “up front.”) (Of course you could build one, but you would have to use your imagination and some luck to find a proper weight to fasten to the bottom of the wooden keel that you attached to the bottom of the boat. A good sized bolt would be good.)

The “right pond” was a medium sized one that you could walk around in 15 minutes or less and has solid banks without lots of reeds or cattails. A public park pond with stone or concrete edges would be good.
These boats could sail close hauled (heading about 45 degrees from the wind) or even directly across the wind- 90 degrees from the direction the wind came from), Usually the big sail behind the mast had a thin wooden “stick” attached to the bottom of the sail (and it was called a “boom.”) The string that was attached to the after (back) end of the boom was called the “main sheet” and you would adjust the boom so it stuck out maybe 30 degrees from the fore and aft centerline of the boat.

Now the “trick” about sailing well was to adjust the jib’s sheet so that the jib would not “luff” (shake) while the big (“main”) sail might just luff a little. With the sails adjusted properly the little boat would sail a pretty straight course across the pond.
Thus if the wind was blowing directly from North to South you could sail northeast or northwest. You could also adjust the sheets of the two sails so you could sail directly east or west. However, problems arose when you tried to sail further south, and you could not sail directly down wind.

Now this is NOT just something we did long ago. You can search on the web and find these boats for sale today. The only thing that has changed is the price! (Just as the price of a candy bar has jumped from five cents to a dollar.)

     Try it, you will enjoy it.

PS: If you want to know more the U.S. Vintage Model Yacht Group has a very detailed description on free sailing

PS PS: George gave me the book tip for people interested in building model sailboats, which provides as he explained a “more accessible and clear description of the ideas and methods of modern naval architects”
The book  is called “Yacht Design Explained …” by S. Killing & D. Hunter

See here a video of the event in the news:

Have fun. Wish I could be there.