The Australian R/C Laser Story.
Well you
could hardly say that the R/C Laser is in the category of
anything historical, for the class hasn’t been around for that
long. That’s true, but these day’s things have got a bad habit
of just sneaking up on one if we‘re not looking.
R/C
Lasers as there skippers like to call em’ first started in the
1992-93 when Bruce Kirby and Jon Elmaleh had a conversation
about the boat, so my information goes. I can tell you I had
allsorts of trouble getting historic information about this
class and it is only a few short years it has been around.
Imagine trying to look for information about it after 50 years
or so?
Anyway
the boat was first reviewed in the winter 1996 issue #102 of
Model Yachting, the quarterly AMYA newsletter, where it states
that the first test was with pre-production prototypes in the
1995 Special Olympics and the first boats were sold in 1995.
Derick
Warne of Melbourne has been said to have had one of the first
ones in this country to own a R/C Laser. Derick was an expat
from South Africa and has been out here about fifteen year He
said he bought 3 of these R/C Lasers when he was in the USA in
1995. Derick is a member of the Waterways Club in Victoria.
Sail Boat
racing has no greater ally than the one design boat. Full-size
racing has long recognized this and built and bought hundreds of
the different one design classes for many years. In fact R/C
laser the model has its birth from the fullsize boat also called
the Laser. I think in actual fact there numbers in the World
would be around 18,000 full-sized boats have so far been sold in
this one design class, alone. Most sailing nations have big
fleets of this exciting racing dinghy, darting around their
harbours.
The
story goes that the designer of the Laser, one Bruce Kirby and a
well known R/C yachtsman, Jon Elmaleh of Brooklyn in New York
in America got together to design a radio control version of
this famous racing dinghy. Elmaleh was a really prominent model
yacht designer and racing skipper in the USA. Bruce Kirby said
he wanted the boat to be of a numerical scale of the fullsize
version rather that (what we call) in models a standoff scale or
look-a-likes. In other words Bruce wanted the boat to sail like
the real boat in ¼ scale mode. Stand –off scale boats tends to
look somewhere near the fullsize boats and this was not good
enough. They wanted the boat to be easily put together at the
pond side by ordinary people in the shortest amount of time, so
all their time was not in putting it together but sailing it by
all members of the family.
These
boats, I believe are made in China (isn’t everything?) out of
the substance called Polythylene which is one-piece blow moulded.
I was told the manufacturers can produce these boat at 1000 an
hour and to date all have been made like this. While it is not
as prolific as it’s fullsize sister, it has the potential to get
there some time into the future.
This boat
has the reputation of being almost indestructible. I don’t want
to do a sales pitch on this boat, for it is hard not to get
enthused with its good features. The second hand market is
almost non -existable in this class, for once you have bought
one it seems it is yours for life. It is stored in its own blue
bag, for it packs away to a flat bag shape. All fullsize lasers
come with the same flat blue bag but they have their rudder and
hull blade in them where as the R/C version has the whole boat
in them, including its boat stand. There is some debate in the
class about how to obtain second-hand boats and I reckon this
will be an ongoing question for them in the years to come? In
the cost department the boat is on the lower end of the market.
The boat
differs from the fullsized boat with a keel attached to the
bottom of the hull to give it some stability. The boat is
extremely flat sectioned that requires it to heal somewhat to
get the best of performance out of it. I have noticed that as
the wind increases that these boats starts to really perform and
I reckon it could sail in around 30 odd knots of wind. There has
been active World wide racing of this boat since 2000 in an
organized way. In this country the boats are sold are tied
together in a way of selling through a National Distributor and
as far as I can see this has set the class on a steady course. I
think this class will come to the fore in R/C yachting in the
future for I can see that the present organizers in this country
and many other countries are pretty conservative in their
outlooks in pushing this class. I don’t mean this as anything
derogatory either. It just means they are doing it slowly but
thoroughly.
They have
such things as no paint on the hulls and strict rules on
colouring one’s boat. Though colouring is allowed, they must be
done with coloured tapes and ink pens, which is unusual these
days. Still, it keeps the weight at a minimum. This boat is 2
channel controlled is definitely a fleet racer of top order and
virtually indestructible, every boat is exactly alike as its
neighbor in every way and it does get down to the skills of the
skipper to win or loose an event. In the looks department, their
owners show their individualism in the way they finish off their
boats.
These
types of boats were popular years ago as working boats on the
east coast of America. They were called CAT boats and when I was
in the States I often watched them sailing around the eastern
seaports and they have a good turn of speed with that big main
sail. The one shown is a Herroshoff design.
As this
article is being written, the national British R/C Laser
championships are being decided in Gosport in England right now
(june 09). Australia has two entries in it. The class is slowly
catching on and now appears in UK, America, Holland, Germany,
Canada, South Africa, Australia, Ireland and just recently was
started in New Zealand.
Of the
boats and clubs in Australia they are in Nsw, Victoria,
Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia. Where each of these
States are holding state championships for this class in 09.
Their National championship is to be held in Sydney this year in
August at the Dobroyd Aquatic Centre, Henley Marine Drive,
Fivedock. This is looking very healthy for the class and another
class for the ARYA to think about.
Stephen
Crewes, National Historian ARYA 09.
shcrewes@bigpond.net.au
Historian Stephen Crewes. 2008