Part 1 and Part 2 of this series cover building the boat. Some months ago, I took the footy out on its maiden voyage. The maiden was on a fairly large lake (photo above), and while it looked like great conditions, I, the skipper did not have a clue! The boat sailed out beautifully, but then stopped. After a while, it began to dawn on me that the wind in this area was very inconsistent in both speed and direction. I could see that by watching ripples and the mylar streamer on the mast. It was puzzling, but it may be due to the island ahead, and the vegetation and orography around where I was standing. In fact, I could see that there were wind ripples further out, but it was super calm closer to area where I was standing. Sometimes ripples would come from one side of the island, other times from the other side. So this position was really at the confluence of two air flows and near a shore with vegetation and a hill behind. I was able to sail about a little here and there, but motion was intermittent.
As time passed, I became nervous about battery life. With a complete loss of control, it could easily be blown across the lake and get stuck in the vegetation. Thankfully, the wind picked up, blowing out to the middle of the lake, and I managed to orient the boat in a tack towards shore. That was exciting and with huge relief, I lifted it out of the water.
I fitted another battery and decided to move off to a nearby pond, because retrieval would be easier there. This time, the sailing was much better. Here is a short video of what I think is a broad reach, gybe, and then a reach in the other direction.
Again, I found that the wind would sometimes just stop, but that's just life, I guess. I was slowly learning what was going on and the rudiments of control. Unlike planes, mistakes do not end up in a crash that turns the model into a bundle of sticks! The video below is sailing downwind, turning and then fumbling attempts at tacking upwind (apologies for the wobbly camera):
The boat seems to like a wind speed of about 9-12mph. Obviously, it would be great if the wind was consistent, but that's not how nature works! In contrast, love flying my planes in winds of 3-8mph.
Brilliant fun! Happily, there were no leaks and the boat handling was predictable and responsive as far as I can tell anyway, as a novice. It seemed well balanced as well. I have yet to try other sails.
This experience made me buy a DragonForce 65 kit (which was temporarily on special offer), but I won't unbox that until I get a decent chunk of time and garner some help from sailing boat modellers who know what they are doing with the DF65.
Should I name this model DragonFoot? As it's based on the Papaya design, I think a better name may be DragonFruit!
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