Model Boat Mayhem

The Shipyard ( Dry Dock ): Builds & Questions => Yachts and Sail => Topic started by: Vaas on February 25, 2013, 05:22:41 pm

Title: Yard attachment
Post by: Vaas on February 25, 2013, 05:22:41 pm

I am in the process of converting a revell  constitution into rc and have ran into the problem of attaching the yards to keep them parallel yet able to rotate. Is there a special hinge or has anyone any tricks?

Title: Re: Yard attachment
Post by: tigertiger on February 25, 2013, 07:15:59 pm

One trick is to fix the yards relative to the mast. The masts then rotate on a servo.


There are a number complex but not difficult way of doing this if you want the yards to swing. The methods vary depending on whether you are using sail arm or sail drum winch servos. No hindges but lots of pulleys.


I can highly recommend the book An introduction to Radio Controlled Scale Sailing Models buy Philip Vaighan Williams. The rigging of square riggers is covered in Ch8.


Maybe you can borrow a copy from someone, or the library, or even buy one from Traplet. I think they are about 13 quid.

Title: Re: Yard attachment
Post by: Brooks22 on February 27, 2013, 07:28:02 pm

I don't like the yards attached/mast rotate method. Standing rigging must be heavily modified to accommodate the rotating mast. Plus, it's not at all realistic, if that is an interest of yours.

 It's relatively easy to RC a kit using dowels for masts and yards, and simple screweyes for the yard hangers. The yards are then swung with braces, either using standard aircraft servos (the Parallelogram method), or with winches. Winches are more complicated and expensive, but provide realistic running rigging. The simpler parallelogram method uses cheaper servos, and is easy to debug, at the expense of some realism. At 50' offshore, both methods look about the same.

eg of my screweye method, post#27
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1071509&page=2 (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1071509&page=2)

eg. of a successful 1:96 scale plastic USS Constitution conversion for square-rigged RC sailing:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1417997 (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1417997)

Any of Meatbomber's threads would give you good advice, also.
Here he converts a wood scale model Brigantine to RC:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1174628 (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1174628)

My 1st squarerigger was Pamir (she started as a free-sailer, then was converted to RC). You might find helpful information on this thread:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=743611
Welcome to the world of RC squareriggers, they are lots of fun :-)