Good Day All,
I was able to get my hands on a Kyosho "Carbon Fiber" Addition 1M Seawind RC Sailboat about a week ago. The boat is extremely light, so much so that I wondered how the boat would handle heavy wind conditions. I made a number of modifications to clean up the "rats nest" sail control rigging arrangement the Kyosho folks designed. I replaced the "string" and bowsies provided by the factory for 1 X 7 Strand Stainless Steel nylon coated 30 lb. test leader, and added Stainless Steel turnbuckles to the shrouds and backstay to enhance sail tuning and disassembly. I used a Futaba S5301 High Torque servo for the sails and a Hi Tec HS 425BB servo for the rudder. A friend made me a custom sail servo arm to increase the leverage on the servo in heavy winds. (Gyro Hobbies Lake Forest, Ca.) I purchased a new up graded hatch made specifically for Seawinds by "RJ" Timmermann, to resolve their well known leaky factory hatch arrangement. I installed one of my Airtronics RD 8000 (2.4Ghz) receivers and she was ready to "rock n roll".
Our testing took place in the high desert here in Southern California, where I have a vacation retreat, which is surrounded by a golf course that has 25 lakes of which 5 are great for sailing on. (And we don't get hit by golf balls.) The weather this last weekend there was spectacular, but very windy, with gusts to 35 MPH+. We had to wait for two days before we got a break in the weather. The winds dropped down to 8 to 18 mph (16 knots). I felt these conditions would tell us very quickly if we had a good boat or not! We actually had some difficulty in getting the boat launched due to the wind gusts. We were able to get over to a more sheltered area of the lake to put her in the water. Once in the water the fun began!
The pictures I have included tell the story better than I can. The boat handled the heavy weather far better than I expected. The series of pictures show the boat holding a true course across the lake in 18 mph winds. I was very surprised that we experienced
no "bow diving". The boat was very fast and nimble in these conditions. We had no "knock downs". As you look at the pictures, take note of the wake coming off of the boom. The stop action photo shows the rail deep in the water up to the starboard helm. The new hatch worked perfectly, and after 30 minutes of sailing, there was no water inside the boat. All hands felt the boat's performance was excellent over all, and a lot of fun to sail. The next day the wind had stopped and we thought it would be interesting to try the boat in the other extreme. As we thought, the carbon fiber boat did very well in a light breeze, and while not as entertaining as she was in the heavy wind, we left the lake pleased with the tests and with the modifications we had made. Another great day on the water was had by all.
There is a picture of her wing on wing and I added a picture of my Yamaha Round the World and the Seawind which shows an interesting comparison in the two boats hull designs. The Yamaha handles heavy winds better than the Seawind as you might guess. They are very close in speed. They are very close in speed in normal wind conditions with the Seawind having a slight edge in very light winds. Both very nice boats and fun to sail.
Hope you enjoy the pictures (You should be able to double click on the images to enlarge them)
Windchaser
Author
Topic: Maiden Voyage/Sea Trail in heavy winds - 1M Seawind (Carbon Fiber Addition) (Read 3862 times)