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Joined: 6/4/2003 From: Schertz,
TX, USA Status: offline
I bought a sailboat from Hobby Lobby when they were closing them out of their inventory. I picked up the Tomasek Fully Built: "Exclusive" 1 Meter Competition Sailboat, which was on sale. Even though I have been primarily a plane guy, I wanted to try sailing, and I have been looking at this boat for some time now. At the sale price, it was a deal too good to pass up. Has anyone here had experience with this boat?
quote:
Length: 39-3/8” Width (beam): (7-7/8”) Overall Height: (82”), (distance from bottom of keel to top of deck:19”, mast height: 63”) Maximum Sail Surface: (620 sq. inches) Minimum weight: (3.38 lb.) Gross weight: (8.78 lb.)
Hull and deck construction: Fiberglass laminate Use: Recreational, and Competition class F5-E for RC Sailing boats.
Exclusive 1 Meter Competition Sailboat is one of the best made products of ANY type that we’ve seen in years! “Exclusive” is fully built, and fully finished, with a one piece tempered mast, Kevral rigging ropes and sail sheets. The fiberglass hull is completely finished —flawlessly! The keel weight is moveable for trimming the boat’s draft for competition, and is held in fore/aft position with a single M5 setscrew. The deck hatch latches at the forward end and the manufacturer suggests that you attach the receiver and sail winch servo to this hatch.
The only time that you will have to spend in preparing Exclusive for sailing is the installation of your two or three channel radio with one or two sailwinch servos, and a rudder servo. ALL other construction is completed!
We have no doubts that this will be very fast in any winds. The very high aspect ratio main sail and jib, and the engineered hull shape obviously will be responsible for winning performance.
I rigged mine up, just to make sure everything fit correctly. It looks nice, and everything went together well, although I will be switching some of the running lines for Spiderwire. The only downside was the ballast weight on mine was a little loose, which is easily remedied. A little more bothersome is that the keel didn't come with the three holes for position adjustment as indicated in the instructions, although I should be able to drill some out if needed.
Other than that, one part of the translated instructions, indicating where to mount the winch servo, was wrong. The original instructions say to mount the winch servo under the hull cover, but the translated instructions seem to indicate that the servo should be mounted to the underside of the cover, which is completely different. The plate does not strong enough to act as a mounting point for a winch servo. Anyway, despite that small translation error, the instructions are a bit sparse, but seem adequate.
In the picture, the keel appears red(ish), but it is brass. I haven’t decided on a paint scheme yet, but her un-Christened name, as of now, is “My Belle”, in honor of my wife. I know that's not very original, but I don't care. My wife has always love the Beatles tune, and her name is Michelle, so it fits.
I recently out (after living here for nearby years) that there is a sailing club in San Antonio (Texas), about 15 to 20 minutes from where I live.
My boat it's close to the OD-39 1-meter sailboats that are being sailed at the club. (The OD-39 is not an offical American Model Yachting Association (AMYA) class. http://www.amya.org)
I plan to finish up a review as soon as I put in the radio gear.
Posts: 109
Joined: 6/4/2003 From: Schertz,
TX, USA Status: offline
I finally sent off for the servos and a new radio, and they should be here just in time for this weekend. I hope to be sailing by Sunday.
I was going to buy the 75mHz Spectra for my Hitec Prism, but since it only has three model memory, I opted for the new Laser 6, 75mHZ version of course.
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Joined: 6/17/2002 From: Plainville,
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A caveat on spyderwire - it tends to wear at turning points after a while. It's obvious when you look at it, though, so it's not a biggy. I've been using kite line - 100 lb. (I think) spectra. It's slippery as hell and a little easier to work since it's a bigger diameter.
You *can* run separate main- and jib-sail servos, but it's not all that common.
That thing has a brass keel? Sheesh!
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There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Kenneth Graeme - Wind in
Posts: 109
Joined: 6/4/2003 From: Schertz,
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My class of boat is usually set up with a one servo for both sails. I considered using two, but decided to use one large Hitec HS-815BB for both. It sucks down the juice, but it is a strong (high torque) arm servo and provides 140 degrees of throw.
quote:
Quote from Hitec servo manual: It is suggested that...with large power consumption servos like the HS-805BB, HS-815BB or the high end, premium coreless motor servos and digital servos, a "Y" harness be used to connect the receiver battery / switch harness and servo to the receiver. Typically this is done by connecting one of the upper "Y" connectors to the servo, the other upper connector to the switch harness and the lower "Y" connector into receiver port 1,2 or 3, depending on what channel you wish the servo to operate.
I really wanted the extra throw, but if I find that the HS-815BB is over-kill, I may go with the HS-715, which only provides 90 degrees of throw.
I know there is modification that will allow the Futaba sail arm servo to go from 90 to 180 degrees, but I didn't feel like messing with the guts of an expensive servo.
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Joined: 6/17/2002 From: Plainville,
CT, USA Status: offline
Heh - you should see my Robbe Atlantis with both a Futaba S5801 and a HiTec drum winch. I've 4000mah NiMH's in it.....not to mention the 6-cell pack for the motor and lights.......
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There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Kenneth Graeme - Wind in
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Any reason you're using an arm servo instead of a winch servo? I had an arm servo (Futaba) on my Soling and sometimes it would stall and I would have to waggle the boat to get the sails to close.
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Joined: 6/4/2003 From: Schertz,
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Dang! That's a nice looking boat. How well does she sail? Did you get all the extras? (scale fittings, wooden fittings, ballast keel, genoa sail)
Someday I plan to buy or build a model of an old multi-sail ship.
I really like this [URL=http://www.modelsailingships.com/ships/prince.html]American Schooner[/URL], but I just don't have that much of money laying around.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by RobStagis Heh - you should see my Robbe Atlantis with both a Futaba S5801 and a HiTec drum winch. I've 4000mah NiMH's in it.....not to mention the 6-cell pack for the motor and lights....... [/QUOTE]
Posts: 109
Joined: 6/4/2003 From: Schertz,
TX, USA Status: offline
The Exclusive is already set up with exit ports and deck fittings for a sail arm servo. I just couldn't get up the courage to make the holes and modifications needed for the return pulley. I thought about using a non-continuous drum setup, but I had no idea of how I should even tackle the elastic setup.
Posts: 109
Joined: 6/4/2003 From: Schertz,
TX, USA Status: offline
I finally bought the servos, but now I am faced with a problem. The deck opening is not very large, so a tray won't be easy to install. The translated instructions say to mount the servos with servo tape. Is this correct? Can servo tape hold a servo capable of 300+ oz of torque to a fiberglass hull? Would it be better to run stringers inside the hull and mount the servos to those, instead of using a tray? As for the battery, should I mount it to a ply plate on the bottom of the hull, or should it be placed higher up on the stringers.
I also worry that the ply plate, stringers, whatever, will expand if they get wet and spread the hull apart. Should I use something on the ends, such as a rubber gasket or a soft balsa cap, to allow for expansion? Am I worrying too much???
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Joined: 6/17/2002 From: Plainville,
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Worrywart.
It sounds like building my old Victoria. You built a plywood box, then screwed the servos into it, then glued the whole thing into the bilge. The box fit through the hatch with nothing to spare.
Huh - servo tape. Huh. I dunno! That stuff is pretty strong, but I've never seen a winch setup like that. (For what it's worth, my Hitec drum just destroyed its rather light plastic mount when a sheet hung up...danged genoa anyway!)
Oh...wait..... I take you're screw-mounting the servos into the tray, then taping the tray into the hull? If you've got enough contact area between the hull/stringers and the tray, I think that would work.
My EC12 - beasty servos. Gigantic custom arm winch, quarter-scale servo for the rudder and another quarter-scale servo for the jib trim - is mounted like this:
Radio board has all the servos screwed into it. Thwarts (side-to-side) pieces made from spruce are held to the hull with what looked like strapping tape (that clear tape with the strings in it?) or fiberglass cloth and CA. The board was then screwed to the thwarts. That lasted only about 20 years or so I say tape or 'glas cloth only cuz it's unidentifiable - the boat's 20 years old and the material, whatever it was, just gave up.
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There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Kenneth Graeme - Wind in
Posts: 362
Joined: 6/17/2002 From: Plainville,
CT, USA Status: offline
Oh, yeah - for batteries low is good. WAY low is better. As far as expansion goes, cut and trim your wood pieces to fit, then pull 'em out. Epoxy the living h*ll out of 'em to waterproof 'em. That's it. Don't bother with 5-minute (or 6-minute) epoxy for any reason. Use minimum 12 minutes, and I use only 30 minute or JB Weld (12 hour or more).
Question: There's no tray or board in the kit? They just tape the servos in independently? Yeesh!!!!!
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There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Kenneth Graeme - Wind in
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