Thanks to Jorma Ojama for taking these pictures from the third Finnish IOM ranking event last Saturday.
Olof Ginström was sailing his new FIN-44, the first of three Noux Mk2 designs that will hit the water this summer. The boat worked OK, but the rig still needs some trimming to get up to full speed. I should have my own boat ready in 1-2 weeks.
The 2007 IOM Worlds will be hosted by YCPR in Marseille/France 13-20 October 2007.
Are you going? Please join the discussion and let everyone know! There is a very limited amount of places for this event, so people in the waiting line definitely want to know how many entries there are from each country!
Peter Bright from Colombia in South America sent me this picture of his Noux building progress. He's using clay between plywood shadows to build a plug.
It looks like we will be sailing the first three Noux Mk2 boats early next month. We have a few extra mouldings lying around that are for sale:
This is the glassfiber hull with some wooden planks glued around the edges (for attaching the deck).
Here are the two deck mouldings. The aft deck has a round hole that will fit a Decor lid+rim (the lid Craig Smith uses on his Obsession. One lid+rim is supplied with the kit).
Fin and rudder from carbon fiber.
The kit also contains the fin/mastbox, but it's not attached so you will have to attach it yourself.
These are for sale as a kit. For the hull, the two deck mouldings, fin/mastbox (not attached!), rudder and fin I am asking 400 euros. Buyer pays shipping.
We also have an extra hull, just like the one above, but with no deck or anything additional. If anyone wants it they can have it for 100 euros.
Lead bulbs continue to be available from Olof Ginström for 35euros per bulb. Shipping heavy stuff is expensive, so you could try to meet me at a Nordic Cup event or the Marseille Worlds instead.
Check out the video that Kai Martonen made from this Saturdays IOM event!
Wasa segelförening and iom-nordic should have the results online in a few days.I was sailing a borrowed boat and the lessons are:
(1) water+receiver do not mix!
(2) The mast really needs to stand straight, different-length shrouds are not cool.
28 skippers from three Nordic countries came together at Malmoya/NMS (wikimapia.org rocks! I challenge all my readers to add at least one place!) for 8 races on Friday in no2 rig conditions and light rain and continued on Saturday for 6 more races in a strong wind with no3 rig.
Arriving in Oslo on 17. May meant that the whole of Norway was celebrating the constitution day!
Dancing in the streets. Most people wore traditional Norwegian outfits.
Traffic lights Norwegian style: If one red man is good for you then two must be about 100% better still!
The race was hosted by Norsk Modellseilforening. Above their clubhouse on the Malmoya island just 10 minutes outside the centre of Oslo. The club was founded in 1904, and it shows in the historic yachts and photographs inside the club. Now they have about 30 members with weekly races gathering 10-15 boats I understand.
As my new Noux is not ready yet, I sailed FIN-26, the Italiko I had at the Vancouver Worlds (thanks to Lasse K for lending me his boat!). I was struggling to find balance on the beat with the no1 and no2 rigs on the first racing day, and a good start with placings of 3-5-4-4 dwindled into 7-7-7-8 (including my two throw-outs) by the end of the day as the mind tries to compensate for lack in boatspeed with increasingly radical tactical decisions...
Speed on the second day with the no3 rig was much better and I was able to keep up with the usual suspects that have dominated these races over the past years (that's Torvald K from Norway and Sören A from Denmark). I might be imagining things, but I felt that the Italiko was very easy to manoeuvre and keep still on the starting line, perhaps due to its large area keel. A solid start and a good first rounding is vital in radio-sailing, and as these two bits of the puzzle came together I managed 2-3-2-4-3-4 on the second day (just like the first day should have been!). Still there were a boat or two passing me on the long beat because the trim of the boat was not exactly right, but tactically I'm very satisfied with the 2nd day's racing.
Race officer Ole-Peder Björsom used this countdown system by Main Link Systems together with a speaker (below). It worked very well and provided enough volume even in the no3-rig conditions.
The first day of racing was concluded with a shrimp-based dinner for all participants in the clubhouse.
These two pictures were taken just after racing finished on the second day and show the steady 13-15 m/s winds with gusts higher still. A brave wind-surfer was seen resting for about 10min on the jetty before continuing his blast across the fjord.
Now it's clear why the Swedes weren't present: they're busy cnc-milling plugs and testing their latest design in the bath-tub!
The results and a race report are available at iom-nordic.org.
I don't have any sailing pictures, but I'd like to publish some here especially from the 2nd day. So if anyone has some good action photos let me know.
The remaining two races in this series are:
Update 2007May23: Olle Martonen sent me two sailing pictures (click the pics for hi-res versions):
If you look real hard behind the bow/jib of NOR-59 you can see a bit of blue - that's me!
This is probably not the same start as the one above. Note however how the (consistent?) skippers prefer a similar position on the line. The yellow (47) and black (09) boats are close to the starboard flag, the red (59) and blue (26) are in the middle of the line.
28 skippers from three Nordic countries came together at Malmoya/NMS (wikimapia.org rocks! I challenge all my readers to add at least one place!) for 8 races on Friday in no2 rig conditions and light rain and continued on Saturday for 6 more races in a strong wind with no3 rig.
Arriving in Oslo on 17. May meant that the whole of Norway was celebrating the constitution day!
Dancing in the streets. Most people wore traditional Norwegian outfits.
Traffic lights Norwegian style: If one red man is good for you then two must be about 100% better still!
The race was hosted by Norsk Modellseilforening. Above their clubhouse on the Malmoya island just 10 minutes outside the centre of Oslo. The club was founded in 1904, and it shows in the historic yachts and photographs inside the club. Now they have about 30 members with weekly races gathering 10-15 boats I understand.
As my new Noux is not ready yet, I sailed FIN-26, the Italiko I had at the Vancouver Worlds (thanks to Lasse K for lending me his boat!). I was struggling to find balance on the beat with the no1 and no2 rigs on the first racing day, and a good start with placings of 3-5-4-4 dwindled into 7-7-7-8 (including my two throw-outs) by the end of the day as the mind tries to compensate for lack in boatspeed with increasingly radical tactical decisions...
Speed on the second day with the no3 rig was much better and I was able to keep up with the usual suspects that have dominated these races over the past years (that's Torvald K from Norway and Sören A from Denmark). I might be imagining things, but I felt that the Italiko was very easy to manoeuvre and keep still on the starting line, perhaps due to its large area keel. A solid start and a good first rounding is vital in radio-sailing, and as these two bits of the puzzle came together I managed 2-3-2-4-3-4 on the second day (just like the first day should have been!). Still there were a boat or two passing me on the long beat because the trim of the boat was not exactly right, but tactically I'm very satisfied with the 2nd day's racing.
Race officer Ole-Peder Björsom used this countdown system by Main Link Systems together with a speaker (below). It worked very well and provided enough volume even in the no3-rig conditions.
The first day of racing was concluded with a shrimp-based dinner for all participants in the clubhouse.
These two pictures were taken just after racing finished on the second day and show the steady 13-15 m/s winds with gusts higher still. A brave wind-surfer was seen resting for about 10min on the jetty before continuing his blast across the fjord.
Now it's clear why the Swedes weren't present: they're busy cnc-milling plugs and testing their latest design in the bath-tub!
The results and a race report are available at iom-nordic.org.
I don't have any sailing pictures, but I'd like to publish some here especially from the 2nd day. So if anyone has some good action photos let me know.
The remaining two races in this series are:
Update 2007May23: Olle Martonen sent me two sailing pictures (click the pics for hi-res versions):
If you look real hard behind the bow/jib of NOR-59 you can see a bit of blue - that's me!
This is probably not the same start as the one above. Note however how the (consistent?) skippers prefer a similar position on the line. The yellow (47) and black (09) boats are close to the starboard flag, the red (59) and blue (26) are in the middle of the line.
Last day at model-expo, my first try at using google video!
First the new Futaba 2.4GHz radios. There are two wheel-model radios already on the market, and I was told two stick-radios (a 3-channel and a 6-channel model) will be in stores very shortly. Priced close to the Spektrum offerings at around 200 eur. Then to the pool for some scale-models. A fast electric racing boat after that, followed by some aerobatics, and some car-racing at the end.
(the noise from the fans was not as bad as it sounds in this video...)Then MicroMagic sailing! We had a lot of fun and a fair bit of spectators for each of our sailing shows, about 15-20 minutes every hour. You can see that the two fans we brought with us don't cover all of the pool, and that the wind speed is quite fast near the fans and lighter downwind. More boats and more fans for next year!
When someone interested came to talk to us it was so easy just to point to the many MicroMagic vendors and say 'there, that's where you get it and it costs around 250eur with everything (boat, radio) included.' This relates to what I wrote earlier, I believe the success of the micromagic largely depends on it being cheap and easily available.
So, for the IOM class to experience continued growth I think it would be a great help if a competitive boat would be mass-produced (in ABS or similar). I know Graham B in the UK and John E in the USA have had some plans... but nothing seems to have materialized yet. Newcomers to our sport don't want to send 1000 or more euros overseas and then wait 3-6 months for a (hand made) boat, they want their new boat now, cheaply, and from the local hobby store.
Thanks to Jari for lending me his MiniDV camera.
A long day at Model Expo today...
Our main new attraction for this year was Micro Magic sailing in the pool - and it worked great!
This picture shows a general view of the pool, the marks, and the blowers(the yellow and blue fans at the top of the picture) that created wind for us. The size of the pool was 14x17m and we sailed a windward-leeward course along the diagonal of the pool.
Here the boats are rounding the leeward marks.
Rounding the top mark, with one of the fans in the foreground.
Looking for the stream of quickly moving air on the run.
What can be done better next year? Now we have three boats, but there's certainly room for more. Perhaps up to 6-8 MicroMagics could be sailing at the same time. I'm sure that would please the crowd as there will then always be something to watch and incidents all the time. One or two more fans would not hurt either. The power of the fans was fairly OK with a nice gust towards the top of the course and steady decreasing wind towards the leeward marks. Finally, frequency allocation between us, the motor boats, the car track, and robo-war was a bit of a hassle - bring only 2.4 GHz radios next time!
A general trend across all disciplines in model hobby(cars, boats, airplanes, etc.) seems to be towards smaller, lighter, and cheaper models. New tiny electronics makes it possible to build these models. Here's a plane with a small LiPo cell in the front (I'm told these cells can come from bluetooth headsets or similar), a combined receiver/motor controller in the middle, and two motors in each wing for propulsion/control (people use motors from CD-players, cell-phone vibration alarms etc)
Even the smallest mini servos are too heavy for the lightest models, so people use these more or less home-made coil/magnet actuators. There are two magnets, one on the moving control surface, and one on the stationary part. The stationary magnet attracts the moving magnet and thus centers the control surface. When a current is applied to the coil the control surface can be deflected each way. Weight 0.3g . Brilliant!
More and more devices are showing up on 2.4 GHz. This is a ready-to-fly plane and transmitter from the Kyosho stand. With the electronics becoming cheaper and cheaper all the time I'm sure these things will show up in supermarkets for about 50 eur or so.
There were many heli/airplane simulators hooked up to a computer and a wall-projector. Great fun, and no expensive re-building after each crash. I might actually get one...
Another futuristic looking transmitter from the Kyosho stand. (is it for a simulator?)
One company was showing tiny cnc-lathes and mills. These were from some uknown Asian company. Looks like they are entry-level hobby-cnc stuff: small stepper motors connected to normal threaded screws.
These machines are kind of cute, and may be suitable for making a small number of very small parts in soft materials. I'm afraid that Jari's and my own cnc-hobby (or is it an addiction? 🙂 ) will require something substantially bigger and more expensive for our next machine (think Haas Minimill or similar...)
A nice long-exposure shot of one of many slotcar tracks.
I'm hoping to shoot some sailing videos tomorrow.
I spent most of the afternoon and evening preparing the Finnish RadioSailors stand at the Helsinki Model Expo which will be open Friday - Sunday. The plan is to have 2 IOMs, one 5.5mrc, and about three MicroMagics on display. A 32" LCD screen displays sailing videos while people interested in the sport can pick up an information leaflet or ask questions from our club members who will be manning the stand. New for this year is MicroMagic sailing in the pool (which is 22cm deep I am told) on Saturday and Sunday. Timo and his team from Tampere are bringing three MicroMagics while I fixed the wind: two powerful blowers leased from cramo (the two black dots in the far corner of the pool below). A quick test run showed that two blowers of this size were quite well suited for the 14x17 m pool. When blowing diagonally across the water all but the extreme corners were covered with wind, and even at the far end we had at least 2 m/s. Ofcourse the wind speed distribution is a bit uneven with the speed going significantly up close to the fans, but you can't have it all...
