Light is faster than sound. That explains why some people appear bright until they open their mouths!

Assembly instructions are really detailed for this kit and it ought to take just a few evenings to build. That said I think it took me a week as I really struggled to figure out the mast stays and was not rushing it. The drawings are quite detailed but I couldn’t get my head around what it was telling me. In the end I could’t see how the stays hooked into the mast, but that became obvious in the end.  I’ll write some notes and add it as a .pdf here as soon as possible. See the box instructions below.

These shots show some of the assembly processes. The tubes have been glued to the hull with additional packing (nut) to make the water tight  joint robust. The battery compartment is tidy with standard servos though the side view exposes the servo arm feeding a deck pulley at a silly angle - I’d like to sort this!

1. Great kit, detailed instructions, neatly packed items in marked bags. Really lightweight sails. Mast stays are cord. Keel is removable. Finished yacht will fit in most hatchbacks. Kit very complete with winch arm, stand, Y lead for twin servos, battery pack & switch,  glues. You just need radio, receiver and 3 servos. (Buy good quality winch servos!) Package says its for 14+ age group.

2. Paired winch servo jointing rod was the wrong length but I easily made a new one.

3. The kits guides you to bond the deck to the hull. I didn’t want to do this as access to the servos is restricted, BUT, I’m sure its the sensible thing to do. I applied silicon around the deck and hull to keep the water out after initial set up and trial sailing.

4. The sail winch arm and deck mounted pulley are not in alignment. This suggests that the servo is pulled downward. I don’t know why they did this. I could re-orientate the deck pulley but I’ll see how it goes first.

5. I had a hell of a time figuring out how to rig the main mast. The drawings look really simple but I couldn’t figure out where to hang the hooks and run the cord. I’ll draw some notes up and attach here.

6. The stand is weak and feeble, apart from sitting in the corner of the lounge to show off the yacht. I will build a robust stand to take to the pond.

7. The servo mounting tray really keeps everything tidy, with velcro pads for the receiver and batteries. I’m using a 2.4ghz Spektrum receiver because the crystal would be quite well down in the boat and be fiddly for my father-in-law. Otherwise I’d consider running an extension crystal lead to make it easy to change quickly.

8. No painting is required. Only supplied decals need applying to the finished boat.

9. So far I am really impressed and can’t wait to get it on the water. I bought it because the reviews and a shot on Youtube indicated it would really sail well and provided me with a quick build to get it on the water. In our short time of sailing model boats we believe the appearance is important and sailing ability. - It needs to look good on the water, and I’m sure this will.

10. The two chord tie down blocks fitted to the mast don’t seem to hold the chord tightly and its not a greased chord. I need to look at this.

11. I bought a pair of Futaba S3014 water resistant servos for the winch and the S3003 for the rudder. The S3010 is the same servo but not the b”waterproof” version.

Another guy at the pond had the TB but the servo travel was negligible. I suspect this was because the twin servo link was stopping the servo swing. He went off to look at it. If one of the servo’s hums, it is struggling against the other servo and will draw more current or wear out prematurely.

Here’s a few pictures of my boat on the water.  It really is a sweet little yacht and has a good presence that looks good under sail.

We've sailed it in strong and light winds and it really sails well. This is really a great model yacht and we love it.

My father in-law cannot bend down/kneel to launch the yacht and so we needed an aid to launching. I created this simple launch trolley that drops over the edge of the pond to launch the boat and can quite easily be hooked under the yacht at the water’s edge to retrieve it again. I’ve since added a cross brace to stop the keel folding under.

This Youtube video did it for me. On my local pond, it shows the yacht sailing in real light winds. Here

In a further moment of madness I have bought this model yacht for my father in-law. It goes together quickly and sails really well in light and strong winds.  I bought it from Cornwall model boats at a good summer discount of £144 plus a couple of servos, radio and receiver.

There are no details on the web to help decide how it goes together or what equipment to buy. For example it is designed to use a pair of servos back to back with a long arm to act as the sail winch. I would have preferred to use a rotary winch and do want to get it launched quickly so didn’t have time to hang around and order extra bits.   Youtube has a great shot of it in real light winds at Basingstoke pond - my pond.

I chose this kit after seeing the Youtube movie. This confirmed the fact that it sails well in light winds, all we seemed to get for most of the summer.

I started a forum enquiry to see other people’s experience of building this yacht because the winch arrangement using two standard servos, back to back, seems a little odd and very expensive if you buy the recommended Graupner digital servo’s, Like £75 each!. I wanted to use the Graupner regatta Eco drum winch which I have on my other yacht. Let’s see what others have done.  Forum enquiry I  initiated

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