model yacht a class

IRSA A Class

The class was given Classic Class status in 2004. For full information concerning what this means please see the IRSA Regulations.

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Model Boat Builders Plans: A Class Yacht Plans

A Class Boats in this ISAF RSD international ‘open’ class are not limited in length, but are controlled by a formula which demands a balance between waterline length, displacement and sail area. Sails get smaller as displacement reduces and as waterline length increases. A class boats are typically 2 metres long, weigh between 14 and 25kg, carry about one square metre of sail and enjoy a long competitive life. Please Note: These plans are printed to order and take approximately 7 days for us to obtain.

Orca II - A Class Yacht Model Boat Plan

Vapour Trail - A Class Yacht Model Boat Plan

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CR-914 Class Page

Cr-914 rc model sailboat, header content region, insert text, image or banner ads here, or just delete this text and leave this area blank.

1/25 (36") Scale America's Cup high performance model sailboat

5ft Replica of the 1962 Americas Cup 12 Meter

45" Scale Model of the Olympic Star Boat

J Class Boat-Shamrock V

1/16 (8'-10')Scale Replica of the 1930's America's Cup Class Yacht

RMG Sail Winches

High Performance sail control winches

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CR-914 RADIO CONTROL MODEL SAILBOAT Easy to Build, Fun to Sail. No Better way to get Started

One of the hottest classes in the American Model Yachting Association (AMYA)

The CR-914 is a strict one design AMYA sanctioned 1:25 scale model based on the Americas Cup class yacht.

The kit comes with everything you need to build your boat. All you need are some simple tools, sandpaper, paint and batteries. Excellent sailing performance in a wide wind range. With quick acceleration and turning this boat will thrill and excite the expert as well as the novice.

CR-914 CLASS WEB SITE

Cedar Point Marina August 19-20

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radio sailing on Lake Victoria Christchurch New Zealand

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• MYA Districts
• MYA Ranking Lists

Centenary of the A Class Championship

5 World Champions, countless National Champions, a Cadet World Champion (age 12), 8 previous winners (some multiple times!!) and many multi generational teams are all heading to Gosport Model Yacht Club for the centenary of the Scrutton Cup (The A class Championship trophy) and the Yachting Monthly Cup (originally for International competition and was the model yachting equivalent of the Americas Cup.

Given in 1923 The YM cup was raced for by a challenger & defender, and was intended to use Model Yachts to test design ideas which could be used in full size yachts of the day. Such was the interest within the MYA that Herbert Scrutton presented a separate trophy for the MYA championship for A class yachts. Initially this championship was the British Empire Championship and was therefore only open to British passport holders but after the racing resumed following a wartime break the event became the MYA British Open A class Championship for competition by all Nations.

Raced for over 5 days, with the YM cup now a separate stand alone knock out event, the event will be hotly contested with Walsh, Stollery, Roberts, Harris, and Bantock , all names you’d expect to find in the top of the leader board at the IOM Nationals, joined by some past winners Alex Austin, Dave Geldard, Graham Butler, and Shaun Wyeth. Also we have new boy on the block MYA Racing Officer Nigel Barrow’s first event Vane sailing but with his analytical mind, he’ll so get the hang of it!! Another notable fact is the Wyeth family’s contribution to the event, with Graham assisting with the starting, and Shaun & his 3 sons all racing boats. This must surely be a record of 4 boats all from the same family!!! Also watch out for Lewis Wyeth, Shaun’s eldest son, who won the Northern District Championship at Fleetwood yesterday with 11 boats racing.

We expect about 20 boats (40 sailors) will be taking part in the weeklong event (30th July to 4th August) which is preceded, on sat 29th July, by a separate day racing for classic & vintage A class boats with boats from 1970’s and before right back to the 1930’s.

Interesting note………….. Of the GBR winners of the MYA IOM Nationals only one has never raced a free sailing (vane) A class boat!!

Lots happening, come and see it!!

https://www.gosportmybc.club/

Derek Priestley MYA President

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Milton Thrasher : 73" A Class "Vanja" from Popular Mechanics plans of circa 1936

The Vanja designed by George Barons won the US A Class Championship in 1936. Plans were published by Popular Mechanics then and many models have been build from those plans. A fiberglass mold was made from one of the earliest models from which 4 hulls have been pulled. A Vanja fiberglass hull is available from Milton Thrasher. There is a link to more Vanja information including the articles on his web pages at http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/mft that gives full details. Posted by: Milton Thrasher - website: http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/mft

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Frank Russell Design

R/c and model yacht design, plans, boats, sails..

UFO Mk2 – A 2020 development of the successful UFO with a heavier displacement and larger sail plan. Improved aft sections with the chine removed.

LOA: 1838mmLWL: 1250mm Disp: 15kg SA: 0.978763 m2

PDF Plan emailed or Printed and posted on 12 A3 sheets

If you require another format: DXF, or DWG, 2D or 3D or printed paper plan, postage extra.

UFO – A Class LWL: 1250mm Disp: 13.6kg SA: 0.892245 m2

PDF Plan emailed or printed and posted on 8 A3 and 1 A4 sheets, postage extra.

Sidewinder MK2  A Class   Australian style lightweight clean hull shape A Class.

1250 mm LWL 13.1kg

PDF emailed or printed and posted on 9 A3 sheets, postage extra.

A Class Model Yachting News

• Latest News
• Centenary 2023 – Pracc Events & Results
• Class Rules
• Interesting Articles
• Other sites with A interest

Centenary Pracc Table updated after the Nationals at Gosport The last round of the PRACC series will be the Veteran at Poole on the weekend of 21st & 22nd October.

This site has has been set up to give news and views on A Class Model Yachting in the UK.

The A Class is the most majestic of the Radio Sailing Classes, with an overall length of up to 2.00m a fleet of these on the water is a beautiful sight.

Although only sailed regularly at a few clubs nowadays, there is still a strong following for the PRACC series at multiple venues across the UK.

Click on the latest news tab at the top to see the latest posts and information.

Thanks for reading.

Latest Posts (find in latest news)

• Centenary RA Nationals At Gosport
• Woodspring – Pracc 1
• Poole – 2022 Nationals
• Gosport Rounds 9 & 10
• PRACC Rounds 2 & 3 – Woodspring
• Hampton Court Rounds 1 & 2
• Hampton Court – PRACC Rounds 1 & 2

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Model Yachting in the United States

The early days.

Fig. 1. 1870s Cutter

The earliest records we have of organized model yachting date from the middle 1800s in Great Britain. The boats were small, such as the 22-in hull illustrated in Fig. 1. We imagine that the early boats sailed in the United States were similar. By the 1860s there were occasional international contests between model yachtsmen in Great Britain and those in the United States. The only documentation we have is from British periodicals, which naturally covered the events there.

Fig. 2. Sail Plan of Cutter

The sail plans for these little boats were quite complicated; in fact, the boats could be thought of as working scale models rather than the specialized competition machines they were to become later. Fig. 2 illustrates the sail plan for the hull given in Fig. 1. It is an example of the “cutter rig” that was popular in full-sized yachts of the time. Owing to the shallow keel and small size of the model, the full rig would be practical only in the kindest of breezes; the lower picture represents what the boat would look like on most days.

These two plans are from a British book by Tyrone Biddle, published in 1879. They are the earliest published plans we have been able to locate. Like many vintage model yacht authors, Biddle documents the practices of a decade or so before his book was published.

Fig. 3. This engraving is from approximately the same period and is one of the most accurate depictions of boats of that time that we have. Note the details of rig and hull shape: in particular the extreme range of sizes and classes of rigs.

The Turn of The Century

Fig. 4. Racing from skiffs. Although this picture dates from the early 1920s, the scene could be from 40 or more years earlier.

Fig. 5. Turn of the Century Boat Emma .

Fig. 6. The two views above are of the Central Park pond before World War I.

By the late 1880s the sport was in full swing, principally in the New York City area. There were three clubs there, and they formed the first sanctioning body for interclub races in the United States: the Model Yacht Racing Union of North America. This organization died out, and a national group was not formed again until the early 1920s. The boats of this period were sailed from small, one-man skiffs on large bodies of water. The predominant classes were quite large and heavily canvassed; a typical boat could be 6 feet in overall length and carry 2200 square inches of sail on a 20-pound displacement hull. Although the boats raced at the same time, the race was actually against the clock; the skippers pursued their models in the skiffs, and a penalty was assessed for each time you touched your boat to adjust its trim or course. Collisions, fouls, and protests were common. The plan shown in Fig. 5 is of Emma , a typical boat of the late 1880s. It is an early boat by the celebrated “Admiral” Walter Many.

Around this time the first specialized ponds for model yachting were beginning to appear in public parks. Two of the earliest were in Central Park, in New York (Fig. 6), and Spreckles Lake, in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco (Figs. 7 & 8).

Fig. 7. Here’s an early picture of sailing in San Francisco. A bit of a mystery surrounds this, as the postcard was postmarked 1911 and Spreckles Lake was not supposed tohave been built until 1916; but the path and “rip rap” banks tend to place the photo at Spreckles. Note the length of pole needed to get the boats clear of the rough bank.

Fig. 8. On Spreckles, starting a beat from the East end of the lake.

The Roaring 20s

Fig. 9. The two boats that sailed for the first International Championship in 1922. On the left, E.A. Bull of the United States and Polka Dot . On the right, W.J. Daniels of Great Britain and Endeavour .

Fig. 10. Bostonia II

The 1920s and 1930s were marked by the epic international battles of A class boats. The series, though open to all countries, was mainly between Great Britain and the United States. The first race was won by the United States, largely because of the British unfamiliarity with sailing from skiffs. The subsequent races were from side to side of ponds, at which the British designers and skippers excelled; the United States did not win again until 1948, when Bill Bithell’s Ranger was triumphant . In 1927, John Black’s Bostonia II lost the series by a single point. In his report on the race (published in Yachting magazine), he accused the German skipper of throwing a race in order to increase the point score of the British boat. A heated exchange of correspondence resulted. John Black was later famous for the Cheerio series of M class boats.

The Depression Years and the Marblehead Class

Fig. 11. Sailing at the Berkeley, CA, Aquatic Park in the middle 1930s.

Fig. 12. Spreckles Lake at roughly the same time. This shot is taken from the Southwest corner where the powerboats now operate. At this time it was evidently still possible to sail side to side at Spreckles.

Model Yachting reached a peak of activity in the 1930s. It was a relaxing and relatively inexpensive hobby. Many shop and manual arts classes built boats as class projects, because a model yacht involves woodwork, metal forming and casting, and working with fabrics. In addition, the Works Project Administration of Roosevelt’s New Deal built many ponds in urban areas throughout the United States. One of the finest was at Berkeley, California, where the WPA constructed both a yacht harbor and an Aquatic Park with areas for paddle boats, model speedboats, and model yachts. The model yacht pond was active well into the 1950s, but has now been abandoned.

The Marblehead class was created in the 1930s .

Fig. 12. A Marblehead boat running under spinnaker at Berkeley.

Model yachting enjoyed a resurgence after World War II but never regained its pre-war popularity. The principal classes were the M or Marbleheads, the traditional A boats, and the X class. This latter class was established just before the War, and had the simplest rules of all: 1000 square inches of sail and virtually no restriction on hull design. X boats tend to be long, lean and handsome, and the class was very popular on the West Coast. During the late 1940s the Model Yacht Racing Association of America fell prey to internal strife and the last publication devoted exclusively to the hobby went under. Ironically, one of the last issues announced the most significant event of the era: the winning of the International A Class Championship by Bill Bithell’s Ranger .

The 1950s and 60s

Here is the deck layout of a typical X Class boat of the late 1940s and 1950s. The sliding rig enables the relationship between the center of effort of the sails and the center of resistance of the hull to be adjusted to wind conditions.

X boat rigging in the 1950s

Throughout the 1960s the sport went through a gradual decline in popularity that was not reversed until practical radio control, and the American Model Yachting Association, came on the scene in the early 1970s. The emphasis then moved to advanced materials and designs, and the Vintage Era slowly ended.

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