Model yachting
It has always been customary for ship-builders to make a miniature model of the vessel under construction, which is in every respect a copy of the original on a small scale, whether steamship or sailing ship.
It was soon seen that elaborate fittings and complicated rigging were a detriment to rapid handling, and that, on account of the comparatively stronger winds in which models were sailed, they needed a greater draught.
For these reasons modern model yachts, which usually have fin keels, are of about 15% or 20% deeper draught than full-sized vessels, while rigging and fittings have been reduced to absolute simplicity.
Model yacht clubs have existed for many years in Great Britain, Ireland and the United States, most of them holding a number of regattas during each season.
In the bread-and-butter style a number of planks, which have been shaped to the horizontal sections of the model and from which the middle has been sawn out, are glued together and then cut down to the exact lines of the design, templates being used to test the precision of the curves.
Three kinds of steering-gear are used, the weighted swinging rudder, the main-sheet balance gear, and the steering vane, the object of each being to keep the model on a true course, either before or against the wind.
The preferred method in the United States uses the main-sheet balance gear, in which the boom is connected with the tiller in such a manner that, when it swings out with a pressure of wind, the rudder is automatically pulled round sufficiently to keep the yacht in its course.
Other radio controlled watercraft hobbies include the operation and battle engagement of scale model warships (with gas-operated guns intended to sink opponents), and various high speed racing craft driven by powerful engines.
These occur within a specialized pond or rectangular pool, in which a pole–person will walk down each side of the basin carrying a pole, prepared to push the yachts into an opposite tack before collision with the edge.
They take place upon sufficiently large bodies of water to allow a course at least a quarter of a mile in length, which is generally sailed twice or three times over to windward and backward.
Specialized regattas for radio-controlled motorized craft are held that include rubber duck herding and the simulated rescue of ships in distress by a team of operators controlling a pair of tugboats.
