I made an IOM boat stand! The plans are from David Jensen in Bellevue, WA, USA. I found the plans through someone else's blog here , and a model sailboat club from Australia here . It was pretty straightforward to build. My only contribution to the design is that I laser cut the cradle out of 1/8" Lite Ply. I made eight copies, and then epoxy laminated two sets of four each. Turned out really well. If you wish to laser cut your own set, here is my DWG file . You'll have to have your own laser cutter, or send the job to a laser cutting company like National Balsa . Here are the original plans , and here are the original plans for just the cradle . Thanks to David Jensen!! Note that in the picture below, my boat is not finished! Yikes. You can't see it in this image, but there's a small chuck of self-stick foam behind the bulb to protect the bulb. I'll eventually incorporate some Velcro or a strap of some sort to hold the bulb in place so...

The past two days have been spent working on two things: Fairing the lead bulbs into the fin, and making a custom cedar stand to hold the hull. I said this in an earlier post, but the boat with fin AND servo tray, including batteries, weighs 14 lbs. 7 oz. The deck, finishing, and rig will add a few more pounds, but the whole thing should be under 20. From my understanding, that is respectable. Thoughts?! Fairing the bulb halves onto the fin: Two days ago, I pinned and epoxied the bulb halves onto the inner 1/8" plywood core of the laser cut fin. Then yesterday I started to fair it out by sanding the entire bulb with a random orbital sander. MAKE sure you wear a decent mask while doing this!! Lead is very dangerous, especially when sanding!! I shaped the two bulbs so that they matched each other and looked good with the fin. Then I added additional thickened epoxy at the seams, and at the transition from fin to bulb, and let that cure overnight. Last night, added more ...