Three of us at work have been monkeying with R/C boats and have drawn up and scratch built about three different designs over the last couple of years (not including an overpowered catamaran that uses a one meter rig!). We drew up another one and were so pleased with it after quickly scratch building an operational model, that we've decided to build several vacuum bagged carbon versions. I'm working on the female mold now and almost have the plug completed. The boat fits within the US One Meter box rule and is 39 3/8" long, will have something near a 65" carbon fiber mast, and a 3 to 4lb lead bulb on a fin keel. Neville is beginning work on the lead keel mold while I'm working on the plug. After the female mold is made, I'll fab up bulkheads and create a sheet of bulkhead molds and move on to creating molds for the deck. Meanwhile Neville, with the lathe and milling machine in his garage, will be working up some of the custom hardware rigging bits and creating the foils. We're documenting the (learning) process at http://www.teamseacats.com.

Here's the plug - I have one more round of wetsanding to remove some slight orange peel and then it will be time to form up a mold.

That is NICE! I used to build small sailboats myself way back when. We were so dirt poor we had to swim behind our boats. LOL, I guess that is what made me such a good swimmer. ahhahahahha

Wow!
How do you get the 3D shape and did you base the design on an existing boat?

The short answer to your question is that this shape is simply hand carved. Bogy, one third of our trio, is quite an artist and carved the plug after we had a sketching session where we came up with several profile sketches of what we wanted this version to look like - narrower than the previous ones and we wanted to try kicking up the bottom of the hull near the stern from the water (like modern catamarans). I wanted to draw it up in 3D on the computer and slice out bulkheads to strip plank build it but Bogy already had this plug and it was very pretty and already proved to be faster than the other versions we had made...it just needed a bit of fairing. So we moved forward with what we already had.

Nice work, Jake, that thing's really cool. I've been wanting to get an R/C boat for winter/off-season sailing. Be sure to post pics of the finished product.

I've got my RC Cat plug sitting around here somewhere. I need to go back to work on it. Way to go Jake on motivating me once again.

Howdy Jake,
How do you protect the onboard electronics from the water? Have you considered making a cat or tri? Are there any good books on RC boats that are newbie level?

David Ho
TheMightyHobie18 1067

David

I do have a catamaran ... I'll try and take some pictures this weekend. It's very quick but very sensitive to puffs. I'm reworking the rudder system to get more motion out of the rudders because the boat doesn't steer fast enough right now.

In this boat, the radio receiver will be mounted in teh center of the hull on a plate off the bottom of the boat. A portion of the deck will be removable and will be held in place by a decal that is shaped to the perimiter of the hatch. The boat should be so watertight that that will be all we do there. The on off switch will be connected through the **** bulkhead by a small piece of rod with a ball on the outer end so it's not directly exposed.
The charging jack will just be mounted on the same bulkhead with a rubber insert.

Typically, however, like in the catamaran...the receiver is in a plastic bag with a couple of rubberbands surrounding the area where the wires come out to the batteries and the servos. By and large, the servos and batteries are water resistant so if you can keep them from being submerged, they'll be fine.

Now, why are there no solid wing RC land/ice yachts? That could be some seriously fun craft to play with, and at that level cost should be reasonable.

Anybody with good pointers to how the Cogito twist wing mechanism works?

I would reccomend using a party balloon and push your reciver gear inside it and zip tie the open end closed around the wires. Also locate some sponge at the low piont in the hull to collect water and avoid splashing the electronics. Some guys use a sealable lunch box to house there gear with rubber bellows to allow the steering rods to move in and out while keeping the container sealed.

If you need radio gear let me know as I have a full brand new 2ch kit 12 months old with a winch to suit 1 meter class at home. The left overs from projects that time would not permit.

"Project One Meter" continues... We have a new (and improved) hull shape and I'm getting ready to lay up the first half mold. The deck and the hull will be molded as one piece "clam-shell" style like typical modern catamaran construction. The gelcoat for the 1st of two half-molds is planned to start going down tonight. Keep up at www.teamseacats.com

Tough question, can you cross just ONE eye and prove it?



http://www.teamseacats.com

Jake, you've been sniffin' way too many fumes. It's a little too late for the breather...

I need to invest in one of dem thingers. I've been sanding way to much pinkfoam and epoxy lately without breathing protection.

You appear to be proud of it. The way I see it, a $40 respirator is cheaper than chemotherapy.

I thought it was funny to take pictures of my white boogars.

Jake:

I am anxious to see the first hull come out of the mold. I was going to make a US One Meter mold that clamped together. With the hull materials in place bolt the mold together and inflate a balloon inside to press the material against the mold. This way there would be no halves that need to be carefully glued and finished.

Another thought that was not mine is access to the inside. Make a round **** that is exactly the same shape as a coffee can. The lid would be easy to find, seal and replace, if neccessary.

I would like to know if you are designing the rigging to be transportable? I have seen many people take out fully rigged boats from their vehicles. Some of use do now have autos that are capable of that. To be able to take the mast off for transport would be very nice.

Later,
Dan

I've got a 4' bed on my pickup with a cap so I definitely need this to be easy to disassemble. This boat will not only be transportable but the hull / keel / radio will have an optional single case available at some later date. We've put a lot of thought into making things assemble quickly and easily while having tight tolerances during production. The keel will be removable with a thumb screw and the stock rig will be detachable by removing four snap clevises.

The keel/bulb/keel fin trunk in the hull is the next major challenge.

These hulls are intended to be laid up in two vacuum-bagged halves and then joined. The majority of the seam will need to be removed after joining but having it there offers some neat advantages that we'll go into detail later.

I should add that this is a completely revised hull shape from the one I showed earlier in this thread. This one is much narrower and should be a rocket upwind.