The Philosophy
“If a person can lead someone to a pond and teach them to fish, then they can fish for themselves and teach others for the rest of their life”
The Goal
To lead as many RC yacht enthusiasts to this new technology as possible, so they can have a greater freedom to design, make things and pursue ideas they never thought would have been possible before. Digital technology is among us, I feel it can change the whole way we do things in our beautiful sport.
So How Did It Start?
“Have a look at this”, said Brian.
He handed me this funny little black thing about the size of your thumb that kind of looked like a mast crane swivel. Then he pulled out another one that looked like a spreader and then a rough ram looking thing.
“OK, where did you get these from Brian?”
“I made them on my 3d printer”.
“On a what?”
“A 3d printer I’ve been playing with”, he said with a smile.
Now over the next few weeks he kept coming to “the pond” with more and more sophisticated things to be used on his boats…. including a neat looking battery shelf and keel box. Light, strong and thin.
The next question changed my life.
“Brian, can you make hulls with this 3d thing?”
“No idea. but we can try”. Within a week Craig Smith had helped me shrink one of his IOM designs and Brian printed it in 5 sections with sleeves to hold it all together… what a blow out!
A stunning result, I was hooked.
The rest of the story has been some of the best fun I have had in all my life, breaking new territory and learning a completely new and what is turning out to be a VERY positive way to produce boats and parts for our beautiful sport.
Acknowledgements: I would like to recognise the help and assistance of a number of people who contributed to this process of investigation starting and continuing.
Brian Dill for getting me “hooked” on 3-D printing, a long term sailor and very productive builder in our club.
Warren Norrie for inspiring me to move forward with making things because of his insatiable desire to build and discover new ways of doing things.
Steve Sedgemen for sharing important information he had discovered with his investigations into making 10R parts for his Aero designs.
Bill Hagerup for his excellent designs and ideas, sharing the vision of 3D printing and hanging in there with me in this project.
Craig Smith for his long term friendship, encouragement and expertise in design and software.
You will all benefit over time because all these people were available at a crucial time and gave freely as this project moved forward.