Something's a foot!

(Pic from internet I hope the owner doesn't mind me posting it)

Last year I got involved with leading our church's older teenage youth group which my son Jake is a member of ,it's only a small group, there are far more in the younger group (Yo-yos) but it's just the way it is and soon they will be joining us. Apart from bible study we try to mix in other interests but even though endless volley ball is fine in the summer we wanted something for the winter months so I suggested the idea of building some kind of craft project, the kind of thing I enjoyed doing at their age long before kids spent hours on computer screens, we could complete a small step week by week. A rocket was suggested but we couldn't see that would be involving enough and I wanted something more traditional using wood so something radio control seemed to fit the bill. Aircraft are a little delicate and a crash could end up with a bin liner full of scrap balsa wood so boats it was. I did a little research on the web and discovered Footys!

The Footy is...

... a very small radio-control sailboat whose length is a mere 12 inches (30.5 cm). The hull can be made from a fiberglass mold or simply with thin sheets of plywood fitted together. Two servos are used, one to control the sail and one for the rudder.To keep competition keen, the Footy designers have proposed a set of rules to keep all the boats similar to a certain degree.There is an active and growing community of Footy sailors in New Zealand, the U.K. and the USA, where it has just been added as the newest official AMYA class


http://footy.rcsailing.net/index.php

I settled on the Papaya 3 design because the plans were free and the easy to follow step by step instructions.
http://footy.rcsailing.net/Misc/footyPAPAYA3_A0plan.pdf
We must stick to the design but I'm going to encourage them to customise their individual boats with creative colour schemes and find they're own sail material.
We do need to raise some funds for the radio control systems but we don't need them for a while and that's part of the fun

Also we have invited church members to come and talk to us about their hobbies, we have a radio control aircraft maker/flyer and a wood carver so far.

I reveled the idea last night to huge enthusiasm but I'm hoping from what they said that not EVERY yacht will be made to look like a pirate ship! (and cannons and such weapons are unsports man like!) We have six youths signed up and three adults! well we can't miss out on the fun!
Hopefully next spring we'll learn how to sail them and can invite the church and villages to a race day on a local lake and kind of miniature yacht regatta.

Anyhow I'll keep you updated with reports and photos of our progress.