RC Sailboat

Throughout the years I’ve had many different RC vehicles - - cars, (motor)boats, a few planes, even a few small helicopters and a hovercraft. One thing I never had was a real sailboat. In most of the places I’ve lived, there was no body of water on which to sail one anyway. But here in Dubai, there is the Gulf as well as a large artificial pond nearby.. Me being me, of course I decided to build my own working sailboat. Above is the finished project. The hull keel and rudder are made from a fleece blanket and fiberglass resin (the resin is available in Dubai, but the fiberglass isn’t --- go figure). I shaped the hull over an inverted paper maché and modeling clay positive. The keel is filled with lead fishing weights to give it heft. Here you can see the top of the keel inside the keel well, being held in place by two bolts. The battery and receiver are stuck to the plastic with Velcro. The two servos for the rudder (right) and the sails (left) are tied into the container with wire. It sails pretty nicely -- my only problem is finding a day here in Dubai when the wind isn’t overwhelmingly strong!