If you had the opportunity to watch a small radio controlled sailboat sailing in a pond or in a lake, as it was a real size boat, you can understand the fascination it raises on people. Every time I go to the lake with my boats a lot of curious people come to watch and ask some questions. One of the most frequent questions is “where is the engine?”. Radio controlled sailboats don’t have engine. Only the position of the sails and rudder can be adjusted by the radio. The boat behaves like a real size boat and just needs wind to keep going. Another usual mistake is to think that these little boats are kids stuff. Actually, they are not toys and any eager child would be able to destroy one of them in just few minutes. We can classify the radio control sailing as a Hobby/Sport. Hobby because it is an excellent way to relax and to forget the weekly stress. Sport because there are some rc-sailboat classes recognized by national sailing federations and other classes recognized by the International Sailing Federation. It means that there are regional, national and international level competitions, which follow rigid rules and require the same technical and tactical knowledge necessary to face a full size sailboat competition. Now that you know a little bit more about radio control sailing, I will invite you to get in this fantastic world. I’m going to show you the different kinds of boats, the radio equipment, some sailboat plans for scratch building and a lot of pictures and links.

Ps. Although I lived in USA for five months (not anymore), English is not my native language, so I apologize for possible mistakes.