Model yachting
Building and racing miniature sailing craft on ponds and open water.
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Model yachting involves building and racing miniature sailing vessels, commonly called pond yachts. Historically, shipbuilders created exact scale models of the vessels they were constructing, whether steamships or sailing ships. Many of these detailed models, with every rope, pulley, and engine part faithfully reproduced, are displayed in museums such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and in specialized maritime museums around the world. When these sailing yacht models were raced against each other on small bodies of water, the modern hobby emerged.
It quickly became clear that elaborate fittings and complex rigging slowed handling, and that models needed deeper drafts than full-sized yachts because they sailed in comparatively stronger winds. As a result, modern racing models typically have fin keels with about 15% to 20% deeper draft than full-sized vessels, and their rigging and fittings are kept extremely simple. This description applies to models built for racing, not to detailed replicas of steamers or ships made only for display or toy cruising.
Model yacht clubs
Model yacht clubs have existed in Great Britain, Ireland, and the United States since the 1800s, with most holding several regattas each season. While rules generally do not require owners to build their own boats, designing and constructing the yachts is considered as important and interesting a part of the sport as sailing them.
Construction and rigging
For construction, traditional models are made from light, seasoned wood such as white pine, white cedar, or mahogany, free of knots. The hull can be hollowed from a solid block, cut from layered planks in the bread-and-butter style, or planked over a frame of keel and cross-sections. Hollowing from a solid block is labor-intensive and has fallen out of favor.
In the bread-and-butter method, planks shaped to the model’s horizontal sections, with their centers removed, are glued together and carved to the design lines, using templates to check curves. The planked, or built-up, method—preferred by more expert builders—involves tacking planks to a frame, similar to full-sized vessel construction. Hulls can also be made from modern plastics, either purchased as thermomoldings or fiberglass layups, or fabricated by the modeler by creating a positive model from clay or plaster and then making a negative mold from fiberglass or plaster.
Quick Facts
- Typical keel depth
- 15% or 20% deeper draught than full-sized vessels
- Common rigs
- Schooner and sloop, with sloop favored for racing
- Steering methods
- Weighted rudder
- main-sheet balance gear
- wind vane
- and radio control
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
Model yacht clubs have existed for many years in Great Britain, Ireland and the United States since the 1800s, most of them holding a number of regattas during each season. The rules do not generally require the owner or skipper of a model to build his own craft, but among model yachtsmen the designing and the construction of the boats constitute as important and interesting a part of the sport as the actual sailing. Traditional models are constructed of light, seasoned wood such as pine, white pine, white cedar or mahogany free from knots. The hull may be hollowed from a solid block, cut from layers of planks in bread-and-butter style, or planked over a frame of keel and cross-sections.
Hulls may also be formed from modern plastics, either purchased as thermomoldings or fiberglass layups or fabricated by the modeler using a positive model and a negative mold. Models may be exaggerated cutters in their underbodies or, more often, fitted with fin-keels weighted after the manner of full-sized yachts. They may have any rig, but schooner and sloop rigs are most common, the latter being the favorite for racing on account of its simplicity.
Reader's Guide
For uncontrolled sailing craft some form of steering control is required, since with a fixed rudder position the model will turn into the wind. Three kinds of steering-gear are used: the weighted swinging rudder, the main-sheet balance gear, and the steering vane. The weighted rudder is almost universal in the British Isles; the main-sheet balance gear is the preferred method in the United States.
The wind vane method uses a separate rudder vane made from light wood such as balsa, operated in two principal positions for upwind and downwind sailing. Radio control may be used in many locations, typically providing two controls: a general-purpose small servo for rudder control and a specialized sail winch to draw in the mainsheet and jib. Regattas occur in specialized ponds or rectangular pools, where a pole-person walks each side to push yachts into an opposite tack before collision with the edge. Open water regattas take place on sufficiently large bodies of water to allow a course at least a quarter of a mile in length, sailed twice or three times to windward and backward, or on triangular courses.
Racing rules correspond generally to those controlling regattas of large boats. The yachts are followed in light skiffs and may not be touched more than a certain number of times during a race on penalty of a handicap. Racing measurements differ among clubs but are all based upon length and sail-area.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Model yachting (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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