| Anybody who does much sailing knows how expensive the sport is. Never has so much been spent to go anywhere so slowly. But my friend George has solved the expense problem. Actually, it was his wife Sheila who solved it. For Christmas, she gave George a radio-controlled sailboat (all of 36 inches long).
Sheila found the boat in a thrift shop, where it was one of two on a shelf. She was tempted buy both, but decided to sleep on it overnight. When she went back the next day one of the two had been sold. So instead of fleet, George has just the one boat.
I had never tried radio controlled models before and was happy when George asked if I would take my flats boat out so we could put his new acquisition through sea trials. The thinking was that if the little boat accidentally sailed out of radio range we could easily retrieve it in the flats boat. Most radio-control hobbyists control their craft from shore and I’m not sure what they do if their boat goes astray.
I was very impressed by the way George’s boat performed. We had a modest north wind blowing and were in the lee of a nearby shore, so there weren’t any waves of any significance. The boat moved off smartly and George soon had the hang of trimming the sails and adjusting the rudder to get maximum performance. The only problem was that in the light wind it was nearly impossible to get the little boat going fast enough that it could tack through the wind. Instead George would jibe it, a maneuver fraught with peril on a real boat, but done with aplomb on the model boat.
We became fascinated by the ability to maneuver the sailboat. We had it sail over to some nearby kayakers, then made it chase the flats boat as I maneuvered us along with the electric trolling motor. We were happy when the breeze picked up a bit and the little boat started zipping along fast enough finally to tack. When hard on the wind she was burying her rails, a situation that often elicits concern among novices on a real boat, but which caused us no discomfort at all.
The problem was we were paying so much attention to the little boat that we didn’t notice the rain clouds building. Suddenly the deluge was on us and by the time we returned to the dock we were soaking wet. But it was a successful sea trial and George is already planning to enter some of the Monday afternoon races that the local model builders club holds in a nearby cove. |
