Today, as promised, the Mesa Model Yacht Club held its big R/C Boat Show. Personally, I was pleased with the turnout and the weather. It was a gorgeous, sunny day with practically no wind early in the morning. Perfect for fragile scale boats!
Things started slowly as everyone filed into the park, but by 10:00, things were in full swing.
This morning featured the very first voyage of the R.C.S. (Radio Controlled Ship) Raffaello, as well as George's beautiful new schooner. The "Raff" was in the water by 10:00am and she glided majestically up and down the lake. I was really pleased with every aspect of her. She is indeed my perfect single-channel boat! Fortunately, her maiden voyage went much better than the Zuiderdam (at least she didn't need a tow from Jerry's sailboat)!
Then I alternated between sailing the Zuiderdam and the Ecstasy. Unfortunately, there was a crack in the Ecstasy's fiberglass that I didn't notice until a fist-sized section of her hull became soggy. Nevertheless, she will be back in service easily. The CD player on the Ecstasy and Zuiderdam made a good impression with the people who had never seen those 2 before.
As I said, George took his show-stealing new wooden schooner out for I believe the first time today. It is a beautiful piece of work and I was really impressed. I love George's boats! I hope you can see in the pictures how beautiful it really is! I consider myself lucky that I was able to have the Zuiderdam in the water with it for many pictures. I have never seen such a beautiful r/c sailboat. It makes me really want to do a sailboat.
Unfortunately, the schooner met with disaster as she took on too much water and SANK on the other side of the lake! I think my heart sank with her as I saw her sails disappear under the surface. FORTUNATELY, George had equipped her with a floating hatch attatched to the hull with wire. This way, he was able to recover her and bring her back!
While I'm on the subject of sunken boats, it was a remarkable day for salvage! Do you all remember the little Moran tug that sank in the post of October 15? Well, there we were today, standing at the edge of the water, when we find this ghostly boat-like image about 3 feet beneath the surface!! There was debate and disbelief, but as the little boat was recovered (to the music of "Raise the Titanic" on my CD-player and speaker), it was indeed the Moran tug that sank nearly 2 months ago! It was a day of bringing boats up from the bottom of Dobson Lake!
It was nice to see three types of r/c boats in the water today! This was the first time I had seen the MMYC electric race boats in action.
I had a great time today, as I hope these pictures will show. Many many people came and looked at my boats and asked questions, and it was a great feeling. I hope we can do it again soon!
