Lester Gilbert's Radio Sailing

Technical & theoretical aspects of RC yacht racing

Updated December 2011

I'm interested in radio-controlled racing yachts, in particular the International One Metre (IOM) class and the International (now "Classic") A class. I campaign an Italiko IOM, a Sword "A", and now a 1997 Ten Rater "Puzzle" (chartered from SAILSetc), designed and built by those super-professional folks at SAILSetc.

My "Bakers Dozen" A Class, built by Graham Bantock in Kevlar to Roger Stollery's design from 1983 and the RA National Champion of that year, has returned to my garage after being cared for and re-painted and faired by Derek Kitchener. She is ready once again to go to a good home, send me an e-mail if you are interested.

This site is aimed at technical and theoretical aspects of RC yacht racing. In particular, it has a number of spreadsheets to download. Although aimed at the IOM, they should be useful for any non-rotating fractional Bermuda sloop rig.

These pages are intended for educational purposes.
My education particularly (smile), but I hope you find them useful too.
If you'd like to reprint, copy, or link to anything, go ahead,
but do please attribute my words, diagrams, photos,
spreadsheets, and software to me so others know who to blame.
If you'd like to use anything for gain or commercial purposes, we must talk.
Creative Commons licence at foot of page.

Site news & other interest

December 2011: Was remembering a little incident earlier this year about my apparently IOM-illegal Leech Fly.

December 2011: Was thinking about where to put the fin, so have this page on Fin Position.

October 2011: For many years now, and until quite recently, I imagined that I took a penalty turn in acknowledgement that I had broken a rule. With sometimes thinly-disguised repulsion I had disrespected any competitors who never took a turn even though they knew they had infringed, would only ever take a turn if protested, and would then blackmail the innocent party by counter-protesting them regardless. A few days ago, it was explained to me by a highly respected International Judge that I had got this completely wrong. Instead, a penalty turn "was an insurance taken by a competitor against a possibly contrary outcome of a possible hearing", and nothing more. Oh. My apologies to all I've disrespected. If indeed this is where the sport is heading, then we can look forward to the end of sportsmanship and the end of sailing as one of the unique sports on the planet which is self-policing by competitors of integrity and Corinthian spirit. Rule 44 says, "A boat may take a Penalty when she may have broken a rule while racing"? Nah, I've mis-read that all these years, I'm told that what this text really means is, "A boat should only take a penalty when she thinks she might end up in a protest hearing". And that is, I think, a very great pity...

Site content

My additions to the site content are now more episodic than regular, so I thought I'd reorganise the site into better sections to recognise that it is now much more static, and to help newcomers access its content.

The material has been classified into the three major headings of Design, Build, and Race. Anything not fitting that scheme goes into Other Topics (except for Links and Reports which have a place on the main navigation bar).

Under Design are pages on How a yacht works, How aerofoils work, Where lift comes from, How fins and sails work, Appendage design, Hull design, Sails and rigging design, and The boat as a whole.

Under Build are pages on Hull, Fin & rudder, Bulb, Sails, Rigs & fittings, R/C, and Finishing off.

Under Race are pages on Preparation (Boat speed, Avoiding errors, Strategy), During the regatta, In the race (Boat speed, Avoiding errors, Tactics), and Performance improvement.

Other Topics include pages on International RC racing, Classes, Sailing venues, Event management, Event scoring, Observing, Ancilliary equipment, Bulb calculator, Plans, References & book list, and Terminology.

Commercial stuff

I've developed sticky-backed gauges that can be purchased from SAILSetc.
I publish Larry Robinson's booklet on making model yacht sails using blocks, also available from SAILSetc.

This Web site content is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
This Web site content is to be Attributed to Lester Gilbert.
You are free to Share (to copy, distribute and transmit the Web site content)
and to Remix (to adapt the Web site content)
for non-Commercial use
under the conditions of this licence as long as you Distribute under the same licence.

2011-12-29

The (fourth!) counter -- Hit Counter -- started in early February 2010.

The second counter took over from around 1 August 2003, and died at around 160,000 in mid-July 2006. The third counter logged over 102,000 hits to mid-August 2008, over 155,000 hits to mid-October 2009, and died with around 170,000 hits in early February 2010. Sometime in December 2003, the site passed 100,000 hits, sometime in August 2005 passed 200,000 hits, at mid-July 2006 the site had clocked up around 246,000 hits, at mid-August 2008 had achieved over 300,000 hits, and by mid-October 2009 had logged over 350,000 hits in just over 10 years. The first counter logged over 35,000 visits from its start in early August 1999 to two and a half years later at the end of January 2002. At the end of January 2003, it had logged over 65,000, and just before the change-over to the new site host in late July 2003, it had logged over 86,000. For some curious reason, you're all finding the site interesting! Many thanks!

...free from those nice folks at NewsNow