Hi everyone,  You might have noticed that I haven't been blogging for quite some time. Two reasons: 1. I've been involved in a secret IOM project out of Australia and have not been able to blog about it. However, information should be coming out shortly. When I am okayed to talk about it, I'll let you know what has developed. It's exciting! Stay tuned. 2. I'm out of RC Sailing, 3D design, and laser cutting file drawing for the time being. This summer my wife and I were sitting on our deck in Seattle. We had been through a semester of teaching remotely, our city was having riots, the world was on fire both literally and with Covid, the housing market in Seattle was also on fire (in a good way), and I turned old enough to be eligible for (very) early retirement.  We were chatting and pondering as we often do, and we finally turned to each other and said, "Screw it, let's go!". Within a month we had sold the house, moved ourselves and the cat in with the

Ian Vickers has decided to sell the file to create laser cut frames for his well-liked V8 IOM RC sailboat so that you can build one at home! He's selling the plans for the V8 along with the file that you would send to a laser cutter. He is NOT selling the actual laser cut frames. And you are only allowed to make ONE boat from the plans and the frame file. It's a fair deal. If interested, go to his website and check it out. Once you pay for the plans and file, he will send you an email confirming that you agree to only build one boat, and then he will send you the file. You then research a laser cutter in your country and have them cut it. Here is a purposely blurred image of the DWG file that you will receive and send to your laser cutter. (It's blurred and low-resolution to protect Ian's intellectual property.)  The file is ten sheets of plywood, all 12" x 24". If you're not in the States or Canada, then you'll probably display that in mill

This is months away, if it ever actually gets completed, but I thought I'd try to get some input on what should be included in " The Wooden International One Metre Construction Manual " for building... get this... a wooden IOM. I'm over 60 pages so far, but it's good to get other ideas and input. This is the third RC sailboat construction manual I've written, and it's the most accurate. But it's also the one that I have the most anxiety about because I'm still a rookie in the IOM world and others are building such gorgeous boats. Unlike Star 45's and Vintage Marbleheads, which are great but not raced as much, IOM's are still very popular. And everyone has their idea of what's best. My goals though are to: 1) Help grow the class and help people get into what is a very competitive and rules-based class. It's a very tough class to fully understand and to compete in. I'm still learning the racing side of IOM's myself, but

For whatever reasons, I've been too unmotivated to do much blogging about this Alternative IOM RC sailboat build. But I'm making progress regardless. It started off quickly after planking it in only eight days. But now I've slowed down. I've installed the interior bits now. The true IOM jockeys that are shooting for top in the world will never want this boat because a woody is too heavy for them. They'd look at my inside bits and say that it all weighs too much. For them, that's true. But for most people this boat will work well. It's too early to gauge the weight, but I'm hoping for as close to 100 grams of corrector weights as I can get. It's a heavier boat than the V8 though, for sure. All that said, this will be a strong boat. Here's how it looks so far... This is how it looks as of today after I installed the scoop deck.  But if you go back a week or so, I've done this... Made my own fin box. And I installed th

Being forced to stay home due to the Coronavirus quarantine has had a positive impact on my boat building. I still haven't been able to sail my newly completed Vickers V8 IOM, yet have just planked and glassed a wooden Alternative IOM . It only took me eight days. It usually takes a couple weeks. I haven't been motivated to blog about it, but I started planking on 5 April and finished planking last night. Today I sanded and have fiberglassed the outside. The Alternative by Brad Gibson was a challenge to plank due to its up-swept bow and flared sheer near the bow. It turned out okay, but as any builder will tell you, there are goofs all over. One that I only discovered after sanding is a lighter colored plank on the starboard side. It really showed up after fiberglassing as the epoxy brought it out... GAAAAH! How did that get there? The other goofs I'll let you find, but that one is pretty obvious. Here's how it looks so far: Here you can see that mu

Ta Da!   The Vickers V8 wooden IOM RC sailboat in cedar is done. Phew. I think it looks good given all of the unknowns that I'm still struggling with. Class: International One Meter (IOM) Designer: Ian Vickers, Australia. Please contact him for plans.   LOA: 1000mm Final weight: 3841 grams. She'll carry 159 grams of corrector weights. From the start of the first plank laid it has taken 70 days to build. That doesn't include the hundred or more hours I spent beforehand working on the 3D model and the laser cut frame file. Now, once the governors "stay at home" order is lifted (I'm writing this from Seattle during the corona virus outbreak of 2020), she'll get her maiden sail. Can't wait to get her in the water. I'm not that into the whole IOM look yet, but a wood IOM is starting to grow on me. So... how do I spend the rest of my stay-at-home-order time? Lots of options, but an Alternative might be a thought!