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VUIIT 197U Rule Britannia Deans Marine’s kit of the Royal Yacht £2.20 reviewed wWik«’*s TOr SELLE Ft BUILDING = NEWS = REVIEWS= REPORTS Building Ngan Chau In depth construction of last year’s Free Plan Ret 5 * [ie : ot . “eee ; 7 (Gilech temweard te etccele/Litekcal weechene — ma Ft Shan i erie Loa et he 9 || 44°29105 06 ‘4 ~ 3 NEXUS A <—ie An unusual hazard for clearing of an area that soon became very navigable although some of the early races found the odd yacht doing an ice-breaker One Metres at the Oliver Lee Trophy were the ice floes which hung imitation. Rupert and Ken did such a grand job that the meeting was able to get under way barely twenty minutes later than scheduled. Making a welcome return to the visible radio yacht scene was Ian Cole who had stepped into the Race Officer’s role at short notice - and probably started to wish he hadn’t! For the early races Ian was changing course between heats in an attempt to chase the wind around the lake and give us all a reasonable beat on at least one leg of the pretty generously proportioned contests. The psychological gremlin that persuaded some of us to go the wrong way at last year’s Eastern Ranking race seemed to be present once around for most of the morning. Fortunately they caused no real problems. 19 rides again, the number for so long associated with the prototype Rhythm now again - rumour had it that it was clouding appears on Whisky the view of some of the officials as well, but all was sorted out with little drama. Eventually the wind sort-of settled down and several heats actually used the same set of marks; in the same order. Galore, Mark Dennis’ new One Metre. This example of the single malt, a relative of Red Wine, went well on its Throughout Ian kept things moving along at a very acceptable pace with good first time out in the cold at Chelmsford. warnings of course changes: whether we all took sufficient notice is probably small YACH MIKE KEMP’S season gets under way with first race reports of 1996 and a plea for better behaviour on the water did take the trouble to exhibit, demonstrate and help set up and break down. My information at the time failed to highlight the part played by a small group from the Chelmsford Club on several days throughout the 1995/96 exhibition at Olympia. I apologise for not mentioning them as an exception to those who missed a wonderful opportunity to advertise their own club in particular and help to spread the MYA gospel. The Oliver Lee Postponed from the last weekend of 1995 until the first in February 1996 the latest edition of the Oliver Lee Trophy became a memorable affair for the twenty six skippers who gathered on a fresh Sunday An apology 52 morning. One of a number of lakes in the Channels Golf Club area of Essex, the Chelmsford club’s home water was thought to be largely ice-free. At least that is what the organisers thought on the Saturday evening prior to the event. What greeted early arrivals at the lakeside was at odds with that belief: later ‘comers’ met small groups of skippers standing around questionable. Any feelings of frustration were justifiably vented on the wind conditions which were certainly less than co-operative and could have spoiled what had the potential to be an excellent precursor to the 1996 One Metre season. As is usual at this event there were hot sausage rolls, mince pies and a non-alcoholic punch available at around what would usually be lunch time. Because of the problems of course laying and a slightly delayed start there was no formal lunch break: instead skippers, and officials, had to grab their refreshments in between heats. Local skippers and local yacht designs were shining through the aerial confusion with the inevitable Graham Bantock increasing the re-sale value of Norman Hatfield’s Jazz which had been ‘chartered’ for the day. Phil Playle also borrowed a boat for the day and gave Graham a good race all day: he claimed he only backed off during the afternoon!? Anthony Corbett had a good day with his Bantock designed, Robert Brown moulded Single Malt despite suffering some worrying ‘glitches’ on his brand new PCM radio gear - he should A lot of water has flowed around the lakes since January but I owe a small, a very small, group an apology. In a previous column I tried to throw a small boulder in discussing all sorts of things while one brave soul could be seen scuttling about the lake in a dinghy - breaking up the ice! the lake where interest in displaying nice yachts at the International Model Show seems to be idly floating around. Among the ripples resulting from this little outburst came some from the one MYA club which around the main sailing area while the dinghy was attached to the shore by a line our own internal ‘control gear’. Another moulding from north of ‘the border’ was having its first competitive outing in the hands of Mark Dennis. Carrying the familiar number of 19 normally seen on the in case he had to be dragged back. Shore- prototype ‘Rhythm’ Mark’s new boat proved man was Ken Fishpool and between them to be as competitive as most of us would find acceptable. From what I hear this could Rupert Jefferies did a grand job, working they managed to clear or promote the worry; some of us were having ‘glitches’ in MODEL BOATS JUNE 96 MEN rE There are those who would say that if you can sail competitively on the pond in the middle of the ‘long grass’ you can do well anywhere - Malcolm Harris gave a lot of credence to that idea as his blue number 81 could be seen regularly in the company of more familiar front runners. Ian called a halt barely minutes before the previously announced cut-off time of 3.00pm. As he had told us that the SSI s were modified to make 3.30pm the time at which any heat still in progress would be abandoned and the wind was varying from light to negligible this seemed a very wise choice for we were able to hear, and see, the presentations before the light failed in earnest. during this initial flurry of sailing, Paul Tickner - sailing a borrowed ‘Imictation’ Philip Newman with his ex-Keith Skipper ‘Tango’, and Rob Vice with his ‘Bubbles’. We were then divided into two heats and two, one time familiar, voices that have been absent from ‘the scene’ for some time. The first was that of Mike Weston who promises, like ‘the Terminator’, to return to the radio sailing scene in a year or two during which he is concentrating on the sporting development of his ‘offspring’ - don’t make it too long a time Mike, your voice - and that sweater- are missed by many. The other voice was heard over and over again, it was that of Derek Stevenson whose wife Elsie is remembered by us all whenever we take part in the Swanley club’s ‘Old Dutch Trophy’ Radio Marblehead meeting. Derek is now not able to get out to sailing except during the warmer and sunnier weather so many of us resumed in the usual EORS ‘B’ heat, ‘A’ heat schedule. Those of us who had taken part in the last of the seeding heats and earned ourselves a place in the ‘B’ heat found we were in the unenviable position of being called up for racing whilst still in our number two rigs being joined by a bunch of yachts more suitably equipped with rather more sail area. Meanwhile the wind dropped to ‘very little’ and we struggled to stay in touch with the bulk of the fleet. For the next race the wind resumed a more suitable strength and saw a mixture of rigs being used for the rest of the morning, prior to lunch; unfortunately that was at the end of race three. We were getting some long races, two triangles using most of the Swanley lake followed by a short ‘sausage’; but, unfortunately, not too many of them. As lunch time passed the rain eased to an intermittent drizzle and the wind settled to one of those ‘is-it-or-isn’t-it’ strengths where some decided to use number two suit, others went for number one, and the rest were emphatically undecided! A look at the scores at lunch time New Barn Trophy My second outing of the season took me to join twenty eight others in the rain and normally pleasant surroundings of Swanley Park, the home of the Swanley RYC. Because of the uses to which the park is put by the local Council the Swanley Club can only host Sunday meetings during the winter months so all their open meetings are concentrated into that time between October and April. The result is that the opening season events are frequently blessed with some decent winds, although John Slatter and his team swung into action as we arrived to take note of frequencies, boat numbers and names while we all appeared to be suffering an un- natural reluctance to get boats on the water and try things out. Perhaps it was the prevailing wet stuff or the mystery that surrounded choice of sails for the first race of the day. Most started off with number one suits but there was a rush to change down after watching the first of three seeding heats where the tall suits seemed two of the assembled bunch were starting to show promise. Rob Vice had achieved a first in his seeding heat and in race three but faded during the afternoon with some Near Arctic conditions coupled with very light winds led to some interesting scenes at Chelmsford for the delayed Oliver Lee Trophy. Other lakes in the area were completely frozen so we were lucky to be able to sail at all! sort of suspected equipment failure, Paul Tickner and Philip Newman had won the other two seeding heats while Derek Beer got home first, ahead of Keith Skipper, in Race two. As ever, Anthony Corbett was ‘in there’ with some good places and a second place in race three: he was to go on to win race six while his club-mate Paul Tickner took race five. Philip Newman achieved two second places during the afternoon while David Taylor got his prototype moulded A once familiar face on the radio yachting scene, lan Cole presided over the Oliver Lee Trophy regatta. Ian promises to see us some more this year: welcome back! Sgpcsitl is ood A revealed that the result of the event was also anything but decided although one or no longer have the pleasure of his company - we wish you well Derek. — wore on the weather improved, or at least the rain eventually disappeared until we were heading for home. One of the highlights of the meeting was the sound of westerly wind. There were three winners NRCS Fifth placed skipper was using a Bubbles and hailed from the Lee Valley club and showed that this club is growing in both numbers and the quality of its skippers. just a bit too much for the basically South- Barn Trophy for One Metre yachts was just such an occasion. Fortunately as the day NEE commercial production of moulded hulls. there are also times when they are accompanied by rain as well. The 1996 New MODEL BOATS JUNE 96 a3 Seen etree be one of the last hulls to emerge from Robert Brown’s workshop, rumour has it as I write that Robert is ceasing semi- ee The New BarntTrophy at Swauley, Simgn Russell and his Stiletto (422) lead the fleet away later in the day when the sun made a brief appearance. Mark Dennis (19) and David Taylor (5 Leare pretty well placed also: Derek Beer (25) could go on to control the options of the rest further up the beat. One lad and his yacht. The last time his picture appeared in these pages, Simon Owens was cradled in his Dad’s arms at the Leicestershire Club's lakeside. Now he’s racing his own Firecracker One Metre at Swanley. long battle. When the scores were finally totalled and one ‘worst’ score had been discarded the result was alarmingly close with Gordon coming out on top after what seemed to have been an unimpressive sequence of races, apart from his near win in race 7. Gordon is now in his second full season of One Metre racing and could be moulding his own style of ‘racing’: he did something similar during the recent RM World Championship where, after what he described as a somewhat inauspicious performance he took third place overall behind Graham Bantock and Torvald Klem. I wish I could be that inauspicious! After the comments before and during the Oliver Lee, see above and below, I found it interesting to overhear some of the comments being made about some of the sailing behaviour and rule observance at this meeting. Fortunately there didn’t seem to be any serious breakdown of discipline and ‘good nature’ at this meeting: I suspect that it would not have taken too much to have sparked something off however. Never the less, we spent the whole day sailing more or less - and weren’t held up by a single serious protest! Eastern District One Metre Ranking Race Sunday March 17th saw the One Metre squad return to Chelmsford for the first of the 1996 MYA One Metre ranking races. Some forty five entries had been made which must have given race officer Rupert Jefferies a few sleepless nights leading up to the regatta. One or two dropped out but we still took to the water in four groups for the seeding heats and settled into three heats for the continuation of EORS. Rupert was back in his familiar pose, in the dinghy, when we arrived though this time he had no trouble with the ice that plagued the Oliver Lee. This time he was to experience that Race Officer’s nightmare - having to ‘chase the wind around the lake’. Rupert’s briefing was admirably concise and his choice of course of very basic familiar David Taylor’s new One Metre for 1996, Canada Dry, is a Nigel Gilson Dann-3 that David is offering as a moulding in various elements, triangles and sausages, avoided the course oriented (or was it disoriented?) confusion that has been a feature of some recent events at the Essex golf club lake. For some illogical reason the seeding heats proceeded in A, B, C, and D order and then switched to the more familiar C, B, and then A sequence; not that it really mattered. The transition from four into three heats presented a bit of problem for Rupert and his team, probably not helped by one skipper who managed to get logged as finishing his seeding heat twice the second of which was used to place him in C heat rather than the B heat he had expected. I bet he won’t make that mistake, crossing the finishing line twice, again! It seemed to be Gordon Maguire’s day during the early stages with Graham Bantock finding himself a little further back in the fleet than we have come to expect as normal. But then Graham looked as if he was ‘running-in’ a new yacht and will no doubt return to the top when the crucial moments arrive in Fleetwood at the end of May. Martin Roberts was representing the North West with a ‘Widget’ about which we were hearing anecdotes about some remarkable performances in some recent heavy weather on the Birkenhead Club’s water. Martin appeared to be enjoying himself during his sailing, even finding the time to indulge in a little light-hearted belligerence coupled to some cunning application of the right-of-way rules. Many other skippers who would often expect to climb their way into the higher heats found that, in a fleet of this size and with rather varied and basically light winds, gaining promotion from their respective B or C heats proved to be extremely difficult. Racing was eventually brought to a halt just minutes before the deadline by Rupert invoking a shorten course instruction, about which we had been warned earlier in the day. Considering the number of entries and the sensibly sized courses the day’s racing seemed to be reasonably satisfactory for most even though the number of races was less than have sometimes been achieved during a one day regatta. ‘Dann-3’ tuned to a state where he was second to his own design in race five after an excellent race with Paul Tickner. David went one step further by getting ahead of Gordon Maguire to win the last race of the day, again after a tough and interesting race states of completion... 54 MODEL BOATS JUNE 96 New boats appear As mentioned in the report on the New Barn Trophy David Taylor was showin g off his latest creation, a moulded version of Nigel Gilson’s ‘Dann-3’ design. David used the New Barn Trophy to try the first publicly viewed hull from his mould and see how it performs against some known competition. On a day which would to probably be considered as less than ideal for testing the yacht eventually seemed to be going very well and rounded the day off with two particularly good races, one with Paul Tickner and an ‘Imictation’, the other with Gordon Maguire and his ‘Stiletto’ . | had a go with the ‘Dann-3’ after racing had finished and found it a very pleasan t yacht to sail, similar to the Jack Day produc ed wooden planked version of the same design. It demonstrated an ability to sail very close to the wind, needing very little change of direction to switch tacks. Nigel’s banana shaped hulls with their raised foredeck and rounded topsides have shown their rough weather abilities before now although Swanley was not the place to try these out, the wind and waves were not strong enough. David is offering the ‘Dann- 3’ for sale in various states of prepara tion, starting with a complete hull and deck moulding in glass/epoxy complete with mast-box, fin-box, servo trays and rudder tube for around £200. Other parts are available to complete the yacht, indeed for 50% more you can become the proud owner of enough yacht to only require radio and rigs adding so that you can visit a measurer and go sailing: Watch this for them to appear! The other yacht I mentioned, the one being sailed by Paul Tickner, also came from David but was David’s own design which he has successfully campaigned for the last season or so. Replicas of this design, the ‘Imictation’ are also availabl e from David in various states of complet ion. Generally they are less expensive than the ‘Dann-3’ due mainly to the simpler construction: at the top of the range is the complete yacht including three suits of ‘do it again’. Among the ‘improvements’ that are thought to be within our grasp as a result of this system are that bumping and barging on a start line at favoured ends or at marks would be more risky: “starts would be cleaner, mark rounding more orderly ”. Skippers would have to keep visual contact with their boats at all times: (does anyone really deliberately ‘sail blind’?) there would be even more reason for spreading themselves out on the start line. Not being able to see your boat would be no defence (not being able to see from the same angle as a passive observer would be something of a handicap though!). Observers would have more time to actually observ e and make notes (of course they would not be able to watch and write at the same time): they would not have to keep repeati ng calls until somebody acknowledged the contact. Observers would be able to do a better job. As observers would remain silent throughout the race they would not be able to tell skippers they had not comple ted turns correctly or sailed the correct course etc. It would also stop the call that is being heard more and more in reply to a protest, “If an observer didn’t call it, it didn’t happen.” Passive Observing is also claime d as a step towards a more environmenta lly friendly situation by cutting out a lot of the shouting that goes on at some meetin gs when observers start calling out the contacts before skippers start calling protest. What on earth do the general public think when they hear it? Even more important, what do prospective partici pants think? This claim has some justific ation when one considers the situation at venues such as Portishead in the height of a sunny summer weekend where the public suddenly find themselves in the thick of a mass of radio controlling skipper s who, as we all know, rarely look where they are going - only concentrating on the progress of their yacht. The need to maintain eye contact with a yacht might make such venuesa lot less popular than they deservedly are at the moment. The dropping of Rule 33 is quoted as a further carrot to sweeten (?) the introduction of PO. Just to remind you, this rule says that yachts that come into any contact that is not minor and unavoi dable shall be penalised unless one of them lodges a valid protest or takes some sort of exonerating action. A third party yacht may also carry out the exoneration and take the burden away from the yachts that had the contact. Thus, without this rule, two or more yachts could have a coming together without being forced to shout or rotate: indeed the situation where both agree that neither wants to take any action has been cited as a way of overcoming that fear that a passive observer is going to make a note and report them for it. This is a benefit! ?! It seems an open door for even more underhanded team tactics to be perpetr ated by one or other, or maybe both, of the category of radio racer who have brought this whole process so close to imposit ion those at either extreme end of a ‘rule knowledge’ band which spreads across our sport. Between them, this limited bunch of sailing colleagues have almost reduce d the sport to a point where our ‘leaders ’ feel that time has come to impose ‘big brother’ tactics to try and weed out the regular wrong doers. It would seem almost certain that the majority of voting members of the General Council have been persuaded to go ahead with trials so we are going to be saddled with at least some events where it will operate! What we really need is for everyone to behave like a responsible member of a lawabiding society. The racing rules are there because without them there would be collision after collision and major damage would ensue. Even the off-roa d and carpet car racers realise that racing collision damage is bad for effective perfor mance, so it is with sunken and holed yachts. The current racing rules are not difficult to ...A very simple, and effective, layout which seems to handle lots of wind on off-wind legs very well. Look out for this one in Canadian registration for the European’s at Fleetwood in May. sails, but less radio gear and connec tion between lead and fin, is available for around £450. This too has shown itself to be a competitive yacht. Better behaviour One of the topics discussed at the MYA General Council which preceded the Oliver Lee Trophy centred on ways of improv ing the racing behaviour of skippers at radio yacht race meetings. To be slightly more precise it revolved around another attempt to re-impose ‘Passive Observing’ on such meetings. I have already put my own thoughts on this system in print and make no secret of my extreme distast e for it - I do not intend to repeat that recent outburs t here. Behind this move is a perceived proble m with wasted time, and general hassle, drought about by protracted protest neetings at major events where overall drogress is seen to be delaye d while these der fectly legitimate hearings are sorted out. Che supporters of ‘Passive Observ ing’ seem o think that its imposition is someho w roing to reduce the number of these learings by frightening the perpetr ators nto accepting penalties on the water. The heory goes something like this: a skipper vho feels he/she might have commit ted a 1isdemeanour will be pressured into ‘doing turn’ for fear of being disqualified at the nd of a race - when it is too late to do nything about it. In this way they also lust believe that those who acciden tally ommit a misdeed - for example brush a lark when unsighted, and don’t realise it at le time, will learn by their mistake and not ODEL BOATS JUNE 96 55 grasp at a level sufficient to cope with the majority of situations met at most yacht race meetings. Look at them with common sense engaged and they are almost obvious; even more so if one imagines what it would be like to be balanced on the yacht. Many witnessed, either live or on television, the memorable collisions between We have seen swans on these pages before, but nothing like this magnificent black variety who seems to have made Swanley its current home: it seemed reasonably comfortable with all of us about. Schumacher and Hill in their Formula One racing cars as they tried to negotiate various bends last year. If those two drivers had rigidly observed an overlap rule their comings together would not have happened! If there is one thing that we can all do to try and alleviate this situation it is read the rules by which we all agree to sail when we enter a regatta: then as second string - try to put them into practice! Perhaps the time has Gordon Maguire has emerged as the ‘spiritual leader’ of a new gathering of largely ‘full-sized’ sailors who arrived at the One Metre National Championship last year and who have now formed themselves into a new club, simply known as Hamble. At this end of the season their relatively successful performances coupled with the double scores of their new members have projected them into a prominent position in the league club standings. One or two of them are featuring come to re-explain them in simple terms: in the mean-time try and get hold of one the books that do just that or just sail to keep out the way of any other yachts - keeping out of trouble can be a very quick and effective way to proceed around a race course!. Date changes This is a note for all those six metre skippers who are thinking, or even planning, to take part in either the MYA National Championships on 6th/7th July and/or the 6 metre Owner’s Association Match Racing Championship on 20th/21st July. They have been swapped around, the venues remain the same but the dates have been reversed. The reason for the switch is that there is a Bon well in the individual standing also. This year could be even more interesting than last! 1996 MYA Radio League Championship - latest Jovi concert taking place at the National Bowl in Milton Keynes on the same days as the original planned time of the MYA Nationals. As the Two Islands lake is very clearly within earshot of the Bowl we could have been sailing to some pretty heavy music, although the orientation of the stage precludes us from getting a view as well. Unfortunately, a side effect of the concert is that practically all the available local accommodation is already booked and there is a good chance that most of the surrounding road system will be blocked or severely congested. Thus it seems a good idea to postpone the event for two weeks and bring forward the Match Racing Championship at the Cotswold club to coincide with the Bon Jovi concert: by the way, I hear that all the concert tickets have been sold as I write this in February so you probably won't be able to go there instead. Come and have a Match Race or two instead! Radio League- latest With the completion of the two Swanley meetings, the Old Dutch Trophy and the New Barn Trophy, the radio league has leapt into life with a new ‘bunch of kids on the block’. WES) German WW-II U-Boat Tyrer Vilc Top Ten Radio Clubs Club 1st 2nd Swanley Hamble 4th Guildford 3rd Chelmsford Score 130.4 88 77.4 71.4 5th Three Rivers 39,2 7th 8th Gipping Valley Clapham 25.6 19.6 6th 9th 10th Brentwood Poole Woodspring Bee 16.4 15.4 Top Ten Radio Individuals Ist= lst= 3rd 4th 5th Skipper John Slatter Gordon Maguire Keith Skipper Paul Tickner B Whiting 10th Derek Beer 6th 7th 8th= 8th= Anthony Corbett Gerry Weston-White Philip Newman Craig Nutter Score S13 31.3 24.2 Sef 19.6 18.9 18.7 18.2 18.2 FES Available by direct mail order from AA, or from specialist model shops worldwide. We are distributed in the USA by Squadron/MMD Inc, and in Japan by Yoshio Ohwada/MG Shop metal and etched brass with decals and flags. resin, polyurethane in manufactured U-Boat A superdetailed waterline model of the famous Type-Vllc Designed for both stand alone museum quality display or dioramas in the standard military scale of 1/35, the completed model is 188cm(74”) long and 16.5cm(6.5”) wide. To compliment the model we have a modular dockside system for all scales around 1/35, from this any length of quay can be constructed. Each module is 248mm (9.75” long). A quay end defensive position with turret, bunkers and naval 2cm Flak position is also available. FIN AREA DETAIL END VIEW OF MODEL FIN AND DECK GUN AREA 8.8cm DECK GUN Prices include UK VAT but exclude delivery ACCURATE ARMOUR LTD UNITS 15-16 KINGSTON INDUSTRIAL ESTATE PORT GLASGOW, INVERCLYDE, SCOTLAND, UK, PA14 5DG 56 This model is made to order. Contact AA for details. SO1 Type Vilc U-Boat £335 D12 Dockside set (3-modules) £62 D13 Quay defence position (2-modules) £75 D15 Mooring and gangway set £15 Model shown consists of 1-S01, 2-D12, 1-D13, 1-D15, (vehicles are not included). TELEPHONE (0)1475-743-955, FAX (0)1475-743-746, e-mail: 101363.74 @compuserve.com MODEL BOATS JUNE 96
