Mike Ewart

A rea!ly cracking days racing, thank you Geoff Earle and your team from Harwich and Dovercourt all day sunshine a steady wind all day with all ending up in skinny mains some very contented skippers went home on Saturday afternoon

Hi all, Thanks to the good offices of Shaun Holbeche, our current National Champion, and an all round good egg, we have a webmaster, I would say new webmaster but, I was never able to comprehend what I was doing. So all your race reports and photos etc. now can go on the website, I can get round to chivving you along and hopefully extending the reach of the class into new clubs and new race meetings Mike

I am sailing an Alternative, v pleased excellent downwind in marginal conditions, good luck

Hi Dave I know that Southwater Dabblers had a few Dolphins they might have an idea of the mould

Hi Dave I believe there is someone moulding Dolphins in Scotland

Great Melissa good sailing

The generally preferred options are exactly as you said the availability of end point adjustment, dual rate, exponential and mix facilities is all very well but most people will only use the end point adjustment. As John says the use of larger batteries in the tranny is very useful but not essential many again on a Spektrum DX6i still use dry cells and get a few days racing out of them

We have for many years used a simple slider system in that the anchor line goes into a loop on the bouy and is then attached to a piece of pipe which has the anchor line running through it so that the pipe goes up and down the anchor line as the water rises and falls keeping a constant tension on the bouy

Hi Melissa, put the sail on a nice flat surface, warm up gently with a hair dryer (not on hot setting ) and whilst holding the sail cloth with one hand gently peel off the numbers, they will probably tear but warming up the numbers normally softens the adhesive, this normally works for me if they are particularly stubborn then warm from the reverse side to attempt to soften the adhesive.

Hi All hopefully you have all read and digested the Class Owners Group proposals, it affects the whole class, please send feedback to the MYA council positive or negative it is important that if this goes ahead it is what you as the main constituents of the class want and are prepared to support.

In the case of a bent boom on a 6 metre it is to get the maximum sail area and get the jib as low to the deck as possible, with a jib very low down a straight boom would catch on the deck when goosewinged.

As someone who doesn't use the system very much I still feel if it aint broke don't fix it lets stick with HMS

Hi All please note the webmaster for the Six Metre website sixmetresailing.weebly.com is now Mike Ewart. email address mikeewart@btinternet.com please bear with me while I learn a little bit about the arcane art of putting stuff on a website, many thanks to Peter our previous webmaster for all his work on the site . Also for those who haven't heard the six metre rule has been updated and has been passed by council the information is all in the knowledge base on the MYA site

This is to introduce registered Six Metre Owners to the proposed amendments to the 2008 Class Rules for the Model Six Metre Yacht. Our Class has a set of rules for the construction and measurement of the yachts, the class is administered by the Model Yachting Association on behalf of the owners of the yachts. The rules were developed in the 1920's and a summary of the progress is available on the website sixmetresailing.weebly.com the last amendments to the rule were made in 2007/8 and we now intend to update the rule to bring it into line with the current technology and terminology and to clarify some anomalies within the rule which have come to light with the resurgence of the class in recent years. The actual details of all the changes are listed on the MYA website and the six metre website the rule has all the changes in red typeface. My intention as Class Captain is to have these new rules in place during 2017, they have been amended with much discussion and thought by the MYA Technical committee together with the Six Metre Registrar and myself and we are all in general agreement that this is the way forward for the class, the developed rules will maintain the elegant seaworthy model yachts as it was originally intended to be and will, we are sure, allow new designs to go forward whilst still allowing older designs to remain competitive. One advantage of the proposed amendments is that we now intend to measure a yacht without sails and use a standard 100gm weight to compensate for their weight, thus you can order a new set of sails for your yacht which will be accordance with the certified measurement. Mike Ewart - Class Captain

great to hear you are getting her back on the water, keep an eye on the 6 metre website for details of open events, one of the advantages of the six is that older designs still remain competitive if well set up and well sailed

There are very many ways of doing this you could have a look at the video on the Abington Park website where the two Peters are glass skinning a Wee Nip. There is a water based resin you can use with something like a finishing cloth it will be strong enough and it is very easy to apply and clean up afterwards it is called Eze Cote and certainly available on line. If you use this after sanding hull to the finish you want then 2 coats applied and allowed to dry sanded with wet and dry between each one, then the cloth is applied to the 3rd cote and stretched out to remove the wrinkles and eliminate all the air bubbles then a light sanding and a further finishing coat. If you have done a good job on the hull plain varnish would look good, it is worth noting that a clear coat shows imperfections in finish a lot less than a gloss painted finish. No doubt you will get lots of replies from much more skilled modellers than myself but this worked for me with my meagre abilities

Don't try it on the starting line though no rights to water there

Well done Graham, that is the best way of being proved wrong, I am sure you will do well just keep an eye on the future and keep bringing in new people when needed and possible

The recent comments on the subject of Class Associations are very interesting but surely the point is being missed we cannot it seems get people to sit on one organisation, the MYA council, and the answer is not to get a load more organisations and thus have more unfilled seats on them.

Hi Ian definitely a jib twitcher they are useful I always used to have one fitted on my older boats, but do not at present, as Val says useful in the light airs but not essential more controls often means more fiddling and less speed, she is a pretty boat and as you surmise probably not measured but not a problem there , the more we can get on the water the better it is

Hi from the pics it is difficult to ID the design, I would suspect them to be from GB's board from the stern and the lead but obviously never measured as the jibs are a little wrong but look pretty, would have a better guess if I saw them in the flesh. The other one to ask would be Alan Bright he seems to spot all the John Lewis designs from miles off

I was talking to a man down in Chichester builds model hovercraft he said that his club members have bought yachts from Southwater Dabblers not sure if it was sixes or 8 metres

Also have a look at Grove pond Yachts Cliff Grove he has done some research into classic sixes and builds beautiful ones go through the suppliers page on the six metre website

Hi a collection of quite complicated ways of moving the rudder, I presume you are building a classic style six metre, with a rudder pivoted along the aft edge of the fin keel at an angle of around 45 degree to the vertical. I would recommend 2 solutions depending on how much under deck space you have 1) make a small platform and mount the rudder servo at 90 degrees to the rudder shaft and a simple rod connection to the arm 2) mount the servo with the axis of the shaft vertical and use double sided servo arm and rudder arm and connect the two with cordage, difficult to get tight on initial set up but works well hope this helps

It is a lot cheaper to buy a check weight most scale sales outlets will have details of where to buy check weights I have a certified 2 kg and 4 kg check weight and this allows me to set the weight on my scales accurate at the points we are measuring the yacht in question, costs a few years ago was less than £50. Also if you want to check the weights talk to your local weights and measures department for a couple of weights I am sure they would be very reasonable