Building an Autonomous R/C Sailboat

Shop now for the best value dual motor standing desk, the FlexiSpot E7, and enjoy the lowest price ever! Use the exclusive discount code "RCT50" to get an extra 15% OFF over $500.
US：7qy0.short.gy/ELqcwm
CA：7qy0.short.gy/hdUGE9
Follow rctestflight on IG: / rctestflight_
Get Onshape for free: Onshape.pro/RCTestFlight
Sailboat Model: tinyurl.com/56tdzzpd
Flashforge Guider 3 Plus 3D Printer: www.flashforge.com/product-de...
Support rctestflight: / danielriley
Join my discord server to talk about building stuff: / discord

[@omerbc]

That boat hull, hmmm.

[@revertfpv2928]

Sketchy boat hulls

[@Wack2theHead]

That boat hole.

[@benedictroberts678]

Boat hullussy

[@EKUL34]

Very sus

[@michaelchen695]

What are you doing, stepcraft?

[@pyropunk2491]

Nobody in the comments caught what you did at the beginning. You drew me in with that 3D model.

[@skysho7867]

Lmao, that was sus af

[@baptiste2385]

Damn i didn't even realize, so I rewatched the beginning and you're right this is really sus

[@AntiVaganza]

Eh, just because people don't comment, doesn't mean they didn't catch it. It was very obvious, as obvious as when SuperFastMatt makes penises in his CAD drawings for his car mods and in his laser cut oil tanks, etc.

[@scotthorvath6779]

Why isn't it the thumbnail??

[@AntiVaganza]

@@scotthorvath6779 Possibly because it's 2023...? And while I suspect he has +90% male viewership maybe he is also grown up enough to know that if he wants more females, perhaps thumbnailing vaginas isn't the way to go? But what do I know, I am just a guy who tends to check in with his female friends about what they actually find funny.

[@Seekay_]

It needs a wind vane at the top of the sail to track the direction of the wind, as well as a sensor to track the angle of the sail, so it can automatically set the sail at the right angle for optimal lift/drag.

[@eanayayo]

Angle of the wind is determined by angle of the sail. To make a boat going forward automaticly onboard computer need to know aprox current angle of the sail so it will turn the sail's rudder more or less in wanted direction. The more the sail pointed sideways the more sail's rudder should be deflected to opposite direction. It'a simplicity way.

[@AntiVaganza]

@@eanayayo Not sure if it's a language thing or an understanding of how sailboats work, but I have to disagree. No matter what the angle of the sail is, the rudder should more or less me centered. Lift comes from the keel. And the angle of attack that makes the keel work comes from leeway. Now, I say centered for the rudder, but a few degrees of weather helm might be OK, too and will add a tad of lift as well as make the boat luff in gusts which is probably a desirable feauture as long as it is within reason.

[@BadWuff]

@@AntiVaganza You are quite right, if the sail(s) are properly balanced, and you are not overpowering the sail it should sail fairly true. It is much easier to balance with a Main and a Foresail but it can be done with one such as Laser's, Topper's, Optimist's etc. General rule of thumb is that if your boat is constantly turning into the wind then usually you are overpowered and need to lessen (let off) the sail angle to the wind. This balance is most critical when trying to sail upwind so it's no surprise this is where he is having the most trouble.

[@AntiVaganza]

I think hull shape can help a lot in this matter. Most dinghies and modern hulls are designed to be sailed fairly flat and you will get a whole lot of weather helm if they are not - that then needs to be trimmed out - which would indeed be an issue in this RC boat. But if he gets the mast placement correct and the hull doesn't move its center of effort when heeled, I think he will be fine with a wing mast. I alluded to that in a longer post - that his hull design may be pretty good in that sense as it's more of a canoe type, double ender hull. BTW, Topper? Are you Scandinavian? I don't think that class was popular outside of there but I could be mistaken.

[@Okamika44]

@@AntiVaganza IDK if it's a language thing or what, but I have to disagree with you. The rudder is used to counter the weather veining effect, so there is a-symmetrical air flow over the wing. Lift comes from the sail, not the keel; that's a fact of physics; the keel counters heel force. Go sailing, and you will see.

[@revertfpv2928]

Your boat production skills are getting better and better, nowadays your boats look very decent, and smooth

[@nemesisfpv440]

Especially the " hull"

[@austinclark3495]

Very smooth. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[@ezearo]

It looks like that cup/funnel women can use to pee standing up

[@xharjhonsuarez7585]

3D print can make your project alot better 😉😉

[@1islam1]

@@nemesisfpv440 🔴 ¿Qué es el Islam? 🔴 El Islam no es solo otra religión, es el mismo mensaje predicado por Moisés, Jesús y Abraham. 🔵 Islam literalmente significa "sumisión a Dios" y nos enseña a tener una relación directa con Dios. 🔴 Nos recuerda que, ya que Dios nos creó, nadie debe ser adorado excepto Dios, también nos enseña que Dios no es como un ser humano o como nada que podamos imaginar. 🔵 El concepto de Dios está resumido en el Corán como: { Di: "Él es Al-lah, Uno. (112:1) Al-lah es el Absoluto. (112:2) No engendró ni fue engendrado.(112:3) Y no hay nada ni nadie que sea semejante a Él". (112:4)} 🔴 Convertirse en musulmán no es darle la espalda a Jesús. 🔵 Por el contrario, es regresar a las enseñanzas originales de Jesús y obedecerlo.

[@thenarrator9561]

You should make a recovery boat for when test boats fail

[@deforged]

and a recovery boat for a recovery boat for when the recovery boat fails.

[@TerraMagnus]

@@deforged yo dawg, I heard you like recovery boats, so check out what I made for you…

[@AWmaster10]

Yes a recovery boat with fans and two motors in the water for redundancy would be great.

[@jasminl9718]

He already does have a recovery boat. Its his kayak ✌

[@aarondavis8943]

@@jasminl9718 Everything MUST be RC. Even his pet.

[@Danndamannn]

FINALLY the crossover I've been waiting for! I'm a professional rigger so if you have any questions about rig design or anything sailing related let me know!

[@CorvetteCarCraft]

Hello Danny. I'm designing a cat. Could you share some info on how to reach you? I might need your services later on the design process

[@matthewsnyder4211]

I've been waiting for the same crossover! I've sailed my whole life and I fly rc planes. After he did the hydrofoil video, I knew it was only a matter of time before he tried sailing! I hope he pursues this down the tech tree and makes a hydrofoiling autonomous sailboat! Side note, it's really funny reading the comments and seeing how many people misunderstand how sailing works.

[@Danndamannn]

@@matthewsnyder4211 i must say the wind vane mainsheet method was impressively creative, although seemingly not very effective

[@sky173]

0:27 - best hull I've ever seen lol

[@stlmusic]

I see what you were going for with that boat hull at :28. Nice😂

[@tuha1602]

😂😂

[@vincei4252]

0:28 This is definitely the hull of my boat and absolutely nothing else. Yeah, we believe you.

[@fevesvfr]

Couple of points about going upwind efficiently: 1) it is all about apparent wind angle. Unless you have super human capabilities, you'll have to measure it on the boat. The top of the mast is the best place probably (less disturbance from the boat structure). Wether you then feed that back to your rudder mechanically or digitally, I'll let you decide 2) a front sail will increase your pointing capability a lot. I think you do not have to control it: an auto-tacking jib on a fixed rope would already do your per a lot of good Speaking of sail: high aspect ratio mainsails point better. Yours has a fairly low aspect ratio and that will hurt your perf 3) OTOH any wind drag from the structure wil destroy your pointing capability. In that respect, I am not sure what impact your elevator has. Trimarans nototriously have bad pointing capabilities because the hulls create so much wind drag. Your propeller will also have a lot of drag going upwind: it is very detrimental to your pointing capabilities 4) From a pointing PoV, a deeper keel would be a much better design choice. The more righting momentum, the better your boat will be at going upwind (pointing) OTH, looking forward to the next one

[@joaopedro-ue3xx]

I agree with everything, but I think the most important upgrade is more significant sail control to be able to actually capture more energy from the wind, the elevator simply doesnt have the control authority to make any significant angle change against the wind. Even with only the mainsail this thing got a decent cruise for what it is downwind with the sail locked at the highest relative angle.

[@matthewsnyder4211]

I agree with most of your points, although adding a front sail (jib) in my experience has lead to the boat pointing lower than if the boat had just a main. It definitely increases the boats power, but reduces the boats ability to point. I also agree that higher aspect ratio sails are more efficient, but at lower wind and boat velocities, the lower aspect ratio sails have an advantage (my capstone aero project was putting different aspect ratio sails into a wind tunnel). The high aspect ratio sails are great for high performing boats (multihulls, foiling...). With respect to having the boat stop when he went too close to the wind, a cool thing he could try would be to measure the angle of attack of the mainsail at different deflections of the wing elevator thing. He could plot them and then determine the boat angle with respect to the wind if he knew the angle of the mainsail and the deflection of the wing elevator (That could feed into his autopilot). I am also looking forward to the next one!!!!

[@fevesvfr]

@@matthewsnyder4211 Interresting. Maybe a self tacking jib is too small to increase pointing? A jib with decent coverage on the main sail creates a venturi that increases lift of the main sail. Not sure about the thory but the practice works very well

[@matthewsnyder4211]

@@fevesvfr All I know is that when I sail 420s without a jib I can point 5 to 10 degrees higher than everyone with a jib, although much slower

[@HaysClark]

As a Seattle sailor, both RC and full-scale, I agree with much of what @BlaiseVignon stated, especially about #4. IMHO, trying to retrofit a bulb keel might be worth the effort. If you look at SailDrone and many other autonomous wing designs you'll see that very long, swept bulb keel (to avoid getting snagged on sea-weed) is pretty popular. I'm amazed how tall/deep the keels are, almost half the height of the sail. You could cut out the original keel, then build a new keel out of wood. Maybe a the bulb from a local commercial kit like the T37 would speed things up. Making small/short RC sailboats is especially tricky because the wind speed get slower the closer you are to the surface of the water. The "Footy" is the smallest RC sailboat I know of.

[@catamaranman333]

Sailor here. a couple of suggestions for making the boat go upwind better. First, use a higher aspect centerboard and lose the lead keel. You dont need the righting moment if you have amas (trimaran configuration) and the deeper draft will keep the boat from being blown sideways. Second, Id move the sail backwards a bit. the idea is you want the center of effort of the sail to be as close to the CoG as possible. With the rig as far forward as it is, you have whats called "lee helm" which is fighting the rudder servo. Ill bet you were having to hold the rudder HARD away from the wind. Dragging the rudder stalls it and of course slows you down. If the CoE and the CoG are at least close to the same spot, the boat will be a lot more balanced and will go upwind much better. You could probably get close to being able to sail at 45 deg either side of the wind.

[@troydavis1315]

Yeah a hard chined tri and you'd be away laughing no need to worry about comfort or noise on that boat

[@LemonbreadSC]

Was that even a keel? It looked more like a centerboard to me. Maybe I'm wrong though, I'm still new to the hobby...

[@pb6839]

seeing 21 tango coming in was nostalgic. When I was a kid I spent probably ever other weekend at Seattle Seaplanes since my dad was flying there :,) Not sure if he's still around but the owner Jim used to do all the work that he was allowed to on the planes himself.

[@thesoupin8or673]

I race sailboats competitively in college, and I've been looking forward to this ever since you built your first autonomous boat! I can't wait to see how it goes 😊

[@azatecas]

i really admire you man, i remember the old RCSuperPower days, i subbed when you made that rc cargo plane, and 12 years later you are still putting out bangers while having a full time job, idk how you do it but keep doing it

[@LemonPie4Me]

Seriously, this guy got me into rc

[@anthonystownsend]

OnShape is the bomb!!! It's also great that Kiri:Moto is free and now I can create toolpaths for my CNC with STLs in the same place.

[@chubscub]

The build quality and engineering has gone up and up with every project, this one is hitting it out the park again. Your composite work is also getting much better, thank you for your creativity

[@aerostaraircraftsanctuary604]

Awesome lesson on fiberglass molding. A friend of mine used to sell a self steering system for full sized sailboats. He molded his own steering rudders in a mold that he also made.

[@fixedskidz]

Genuinely my favourite youtube channel right now. Seeing all the different projects that you've done on this channel makes me want to try creating things like this too

[@nrdesign1991]

Your channel inspired one of our projects at university in 2020, to automate an existing model sailboat. It managed to trim a canvas sail automatically and do two maneuvers. The only worries we had was that the small basin used for testing was in an always crowded spot with constantly changing wind.

[@c-dawg2145]

Interesting hull shape, especially from the bottom view.

[@seanyfpv]

sussy baka

[@vp_bot]

pattern recognition

[@frogz]

best part of the video, if only it was painted in such a way that anyone who saw under the boat looking up would see it

[@oddzc]

I love this channel, good mixture of craftsmanship, engineering, and nature!

[@score-graffix5694]

NICE! Can't wait to see, how Ardu-Pilot will work out! BTW - you could fill the main hull with PU foam; sticking/placing table tennis balls along the bottom and gear cavity boxes (for radio and battery gear, incl. added water sealing above) vertically near the center would reduce the amount (and weight) of the foam - all with the idea to not provide a cavity for water to seep in and weigh it down or cause damage to the electronics in the 1st place. Also you might possibly want to consider a bigger rudder with at least 1/3 leading surface area to reduce servo load, thus to give the rudder much more authority (e.g. two flat thin sheets of copper or brass around a soldered brass pivot tube, pinched and soldered together along the edges for neat and simple stream-lining and then filled with PU foam)... Luv this project - keep pushing!

[@markwells6384]

I love that you include your mistakes and how you overcome them. Peter Sripol does the same thing and I enjoy both of your channels.

[@billyfutch1473]

Wow, appreciate all the work and workmanship you did on this boat! Just wow!

[@GeneralThargor]

Holy crap, this is epic, I've been watching your incredible builds for years. I'm blown away by all the different skills you have acquired to build this one. Slightly disappointed that there is no shanty, but hopefully that'll be in part two :) Take care and keep doing what you do.

[@zicada7661]

Try to find the max mast height and keel ratio for your hull, you can probably go further if it feels really stable.

[@zebarzebra]

It would at this point be much better if he would make the Mast larger. Also I think a self-taking jib would go long way. Also I think it would make lot of sense to make the keel much longer. the keel is just to stumpy - that matters alot especially upwind, since the keel is too heavy and can not stablilize the boat against the wind and against the roll forces. Also maybe he could loose the swimmers - they produce way to much wind drag when going upwind. Yachts that are good at going upwind always have thing, but long keel - often with a ballast just at the end. Of course the other possibility would be to build a catamaran or a trimaran, but for that the swimmers should be shaped differently and the keel should just.

[@newt7743]

This is honestly pretty close to how real boats are constructed so this is really impressive just in buld quality alone. Great video

[@NerdTouchingGrass]

there is a surprisingly small amount of drone style boat content on youtube keep it up i am always fascinated by this stuff.

[@teamrapidus2411]

We've built several autonomous rc sailboats, the last of which was 3D printed and 1.6m lobg with a wingsail that was 2m tall if you want the 3d files for it, we'd be happy to share them :D we are happy to help!

[@MattBalder]

Super cool project! I'll be very interested in seeing Ardupilot sail in action.

[@toka100]

Always wanted to try rc sailing. I have a few boats and always looking at the sailboats. Just figured they would be hard to really control.

[@stepcraftgermany]

Always creating! 😍 Love your builds and how you're always finding solutions if something is not working as you first hoped it would.

[@emanuel_bv]

Let's be honest, 0:27 we all think the same thing with the first impression of a boat 🤣🤣🤣

[@razeridk1755]

No

[@SolarWebsite]

Absolutely. It's a boat. For sure. Really.

[@OddWhaler]

Dude I’ve been trying to figure out what the elevator was all about. Thinking to myself, airplane man trying to sail … SCOFF. But after your tutorial I’m honestly impressed. If you were to put an angle indicator on the elevator and start programming angle of attack, and tacking into the wind, you could easily make this autonomous. Again, it’s super fun watching you trouble shooting things that I deal with professionally. I want to send you a picture of some of the stuff I laugh from the research vessel, where do I send it?

[@leadgindairy3709]

That wing sail is fascinating to me. Thankyou for the introduction to it.

[@traisjames2]

For a project I do for Halloween I bought some Peristaltic Pumps. They are self priming and with a small one in the boat you could pump any taken on water. The pump is ok to run for long periods of time dry or while moving fluid.

[@DoveWrestler]

This is amazing. So excited for this project. With a small solar cell, you could go all day. I'm very interested in the autopilot capabilities.

[@dxb338]

All day? cover the deck in solar cells, program it how to sail autonomously with a wind direction sensor and GPS, and waypoint it around the lake. see how many days/weeks/months it can keep going.

[@linuxgeex]

@rctestflight To avoid the bubbles when filling with resin, simply put a subwoofer next to it and play something with a lot of bass for an hour. That will vibrate the bubbles out. No vacuum required. Very cool watching your various techniques. One of my friends' dad has done dozens of real "flip" positive mould boat builds. I'll pass along this video, he'll get a kick out of it.

[@zogworth]

But what if my project acquires a taste for dub step?

[@linuxgeex]

@@zogworth "Party on, dudes." 🎧

[@arial_01]

That beginning with the boat hull had me DYING!

[@KingKhiGaming]

Love your video very inspiring and I increase my knowledge due to you

[@ashers_workshop]

Me and a friend made a small wood Trimaran. The only RC thing about it was the rudder and a little motor in case it got stuck. My friend used to be a sailor so that was nice. The main difference on our one compared to yours is that we let the sail swivel back and forth and we had a little rope to limit the swiveling action on the sail. It actually worked quite well.

[@Gosuminer]

Absolutely love your autonomous boat adventures. It even got me starting my own ArduRover boat project. When I saw the Banana Slug endurance missions I immediately thought that instead of using a lot of battery energy to fight the wind why not use the wind for propulsion? Yes, keels need to be really heavy and have a decent lever arm. I don't know about the airfoil sail. For real sailing boats being able to change the shape of textile sail is essential in getting decent performance, especially with low angles towards the wind ("close reach").

[@boomfiziks]

I sail a trimaran sailboat. I love it! You cannot sail directly upwind. Instead, you tack into the wind. That essentially means that you zigzag back and forth from the direction of the wind. For example if the wind is blowing from the north to the south and the destination I want to go to is directly north, then I’m going to be alternating between northeast and northwest. What you’re doing is fascinating. I’m not familiar with rigid sails and my boat has no keel, but it does have a rudder. If you get the chance, check out the Windrider sailboats. They are are referred to as armchair sailing, because you don’t use your hands, but instead use your feet for steering. I know there are many of those sailboat in your area and I’m certain that someone would be happy to take you along and try it out.

[@markonis100]

That boat hull 3D model remind me of something. But I can't quite remember what

[@cirrusradiatus]

Nice hull

[@jeffreymorris1752]

Channel just keeps getting better. Proud I've been with you from nearly the beginning.

[@lenarkuba]

I'm an amateur sailor and I must say this I very interesting to watch! As I was listening to you speaking about air foil being more advantages than conventional sail I was screaming in my mind! But what about going down wind!? But you noticed it later while going down wind. So for your project it makes a lot of sense but on regular size boats conventional sail are better for couple reasons. 1. They can produce a lot of lift while going down wind when the foil can only use drag as you mentioned 2. You can shape the sail which is called trimming and on the regular boat that sometimes can be done with multiple ropes which adds complexity. You can make it fuller by putting your boom up for down wind sailing or flatten it for going closer to the dead zone. Or even making wind surface smaller which is necessary to keep boat steady while sailing through stronger winds. That's just my thoughts for anyone who might me interested in how those two methods of grabbing the wind my compare. t project! I will keep watching!

[@testi2025]

While sailing, I constantly monitor the vindex at the top of the mast, and the little wind ropes on the sail it self. These tell me how I need to position sails. Going upwind, I just tighten both sails so that they are almost aligned with the boat and check from the wind lines what is the proper angle. The boat has Raymarine Evolution autopilot with wind sensor, so it can automatically keep a set wind angle. Very helpful for long upwind sections.

[@w543e]

This is an interesting one..... The idea that you have more control over angle of attack is probably true at this scale, but with a larger boats (say small sailboats 100ft or less) and ropes you can approach low fractions of a degree in terms of precision. I would be interested to see a version of this that uses servos or steppers to wind some cord and control a more traditional sail. That would likely improve upwind movement and tacking significantly due to the curved profile.

[@guimblon]

I don't think it's true at this scale either, at least compared with moving the sail directly with the servo, which shouldn't be very hard either

[@KingJellyfishII]

it doesn't look like it has much control even on this model, but then again I wasn't the one sailing it. I can't see how using a sheet would be much harder though and it seems like it would produce more consistent results if nothing else, as the angle of the mainsail at a given servo input wouldn't depend on the current wind strength

[@tvuser9529]

"This is the Hull... for my Sailboat... then I made the Rest... of the Sailboat". You seemed a little distracted there for a bit. 🤣

[@peterpaul100]

what a pleasure to watch and what attention to the entire video montage and images

[@Hellsong89]

Little tips on the production design. You can reuse the positive mold, you just need to first produce one hull with out the rim, then the actual hull, sauna bag (This was one thing for me, so thanks) remove the mold like you did, put it into your first one fast as possible and push it in place, then put that combination back into sauna bag for little while and finally remove it to cool down. This should allow the plastic return into shape. Alternatively make the hull in two peace and fiberglass it together when mold is removed. For the gluing the plywood rim, place it into the even surface and clamp the hull down to it. With those smaller clamps you end up distorting the plywood even if its bit thicker material. Alternatively you could glue it to whole sheet, then rise it up and cnc peace out later, but this is very difficult and not worth the effort except for very special applications. It all depends on what tolerances we are talking about and how much unevenness there is to fix. In most cases your accuracy is fine, but if you really need to have it even as possible, latter method is the best. For the lead go to your local gun range, specially if its indoor and ask if they sell you some of their scrap lead. Other option is tire shop with their wheel balancing weights. If its real lead you should be able to cut them easily with pliers and mold to shape with hammer to get greater volume into your ballast weight. Mind that spray paint isint really water proof in a sense. Sure it works for test ship but for long term use. Depending what kind of resin you used you could have just dyed it red and coat the surface or better yet use top coat. Rudder tube you might want to fill with thick as you can find grease that is not water soluble as extra seal, should work fine long as its high enough and long enough, though groove and O-ring would be much better option. You can make the groove with ball head dremel bit, or even make your own cutter but drilling two holes into round rod or bolt. One that you can insert peace of hardened tool steel and another with treads that has locking machine screw in it, though for smallest of sizes you need to silver solder that tool steel in place since there is no space for the screw. "M3 press nuts" Well that would been useful to know few days ago.. well it was faster to make my own with cordless drill and angle grinder as poverty lathe from bolt, so not a big issue.

[@frednovate2558]

You should attempt a hydrofoil sailboat next. Maybe you could even use the sensor wand with the design. Also my need a balance system.

[@Robde84]

When I was a child I had an RC yacht called the KZ Kiwi. The keel was very much like yours. It was filled with lead. It was better than any other rc yacht keel design I have seen. Weed resistant and just works better.

[@DavidCousins]

Love your videos. This series is cool. Looking forward to the next installment.

[@MindCrime550]

Like you said, don't make the keel heavier, make it longer and keep the mass at the very bottom only. You also need to give it a leading edge with a steep trailing angle so vegetation or fishing lines get hung up on it. You might want to integrate your keel and rudder designs to protect the rudder from also collecting vegetation and fishing lines.

[@awetmore]

For stability, check out other model sailboats and you’ll see that they have proportionally deeper keels than full size boats. They also usually use bulb keels to get a lower CoG. I think you are having trouble upwind because your boat isn’t very well balanced between CLR (center of lateral resistance) and CoE (center of effort). You might want to do some research on those. You can adjust this (small adjustments can have big results) with your rudder size or by tilting the mast.

[@LaneBeScrolling]

It’s amazing to watch the very detailed build process and then get to “I don’t know how to sail”

[@beaterbagcar]

Dude your channel is the best man. I'm always happy to see a new post! Even your ads are good to watch

[@mattphilip3266]

Cool stuff! Part of the issue with the the single-hull-edition is how heavy your sail/mast is compared to the rest of your boat. Basically, the boat becomes a giant pendulum system when you get down to this scale. If you either reduce the mass of your sail/mast, or increase your hull/keel weight you will see improved performance. I had the same issue when I was working on my model Bluenose, it was part of why I super-sized it's rudder: kzbin.infoSRoWJFNkrf8 I made my sails out of acetate (lightweight, abundant, recycles here with other paper products), and eventually stunted my mast altogether.

[@zicada7661]

There's a reason they dont use rigid plastic sails irl, even on rc boats

[@AndrewWorkshop]

Really like these boating videos! For better upwind capabilities, a larger/longer keel may help. Look up daggerboard or centerboard.

[@mskills821]

I think there's potential for years of content here...love it!

[@grahammcnally4799]

Love the autonomous boat projects

[@Ozzy3333333]

I built my first rc boat in 1976, a swamp buggy with a 049 pusher motor, what a disaster, from that day I hate boats and still do, haha. I have 21 years racing rc electric on-road, sponsored for a decade, as you can tell, I like precision driving, and putting it on the line. Good luck with your boat!

[@simplecanadian2940]

Great stuff as always! Thanks! I think experience with fixed wing aircraft + experience with other watercraft made transition to sailing a breeze. Huge potential w/ solar panel to drive mast/rudder angle (and cpu/radio power).

[@jabberwockytdi8901]

Fascinating to watch someone with no experience of RC model sail boats approach this with a completely blank sheet. Some interesting solutions here , on the otherhand even a cursory look at some RC sail boats would have pointed up the need to look at the keel depth and weight vs wind loading on the sail!

[@sabredriver42]

The adhesive foam you are using for a hull seal is essentially a sponge and will wick water once it's wet, it's a great stop for wind not so much water. Some very thin line trimmer fuel line or silicone tubing may make a great O-ring type gasket seal in its place. As far as sailing you're on your own. I know big power boats and little power boats and lots of radio controlled objects and even some auto steer stuff in farm tractors, but sailing is outside of my wheel house. Good luck looking forward to seeing progress!

[@valderja]

Impressive work. Will be great to see this go on a monster autonomous voyage.

[@TrolloTV]

Yeah, with some solar panels on the wing sail this thing could probably go more or less forever

[@Jdavid1976]

I see what you did there in the beginning, and I'm still linger-laughing 😆

[@hipser]

your videos bring me so much peace.

[@naderelmahdy]

The boat hull... Immediately checks comments

[@Commander-McBragg]

The boat looks awesome. Very inspiring.

[@isaacpoulsen]

Those desks are outstanding....

[@graemezimmer604]

Super interesting. I've always wanted to build a wing-sail model!

[@jumpingjacks5558]

The boat is looking great. I look forward to your next video.

[@narnasqueneth]

absolutely loved this- thanks for the video!

[@kleanish]

You did it! YES. Ive been wanting you to do one

[@GordLamb]

Shipwright in the making. :) As a 10-year liveaboard, when I heard "water is somehow making its way into the boat" I was like... *nod* ... it be like that.

[@TheZombieSaints]

Great idea with thet food colouring as an indicator. 👏👏👏👍

[@paulbeeken6299]

I love the build and the effort you put into dealing with the setbacks. Good engineering requires testing and flexibility. Something struck me right away about your difficulty going upwind. I teach sailing and one of the things I emphasize with my students is the trade off of angle of attack vs Bernoulli effect as you go further and further upwind. Some of the other commentators have talked around this point but I didn't see a specific reference. Your 'foil' is symmetric which means you can't count on angle of attack allowing to 'pull' you upwind. For that you need an airfoil with a curve on the leeward side. This is what you get when you use a flexible material for the sail. Maybe some low weight nylon or other deform-able material? Great work!

[@carveroutdoors]

Thanks for another great one Daniel!

[@WoodsPrecisionArms]

Technical term - rubber squeegee shape thing. Need to pick up one of those - AWESOME VIDEO

[@richard_fish]

The beginning design graphic, followed by an endless reference to the "hull" and "deck" and all the commentary about them made me giggle the entire video.

[@snarkyboojum]

Love watching you design and build!

[@johnymodem1326]

Thanks for sharing another great video. Interesting project. Will be looking forwards to the next instalments :)

[@Rebar77_real]

Neat trick with the food colouring!

[@bobrouleau521]

Congrats on switching to Onshape, it is the future of CAD.

[@embracethesuck1041]

I remember when we were building tunnel hulls for racing, we would build a waterproof gasket for the radio box by using silicone and a release agent on one side. We would add a heavy bead on the radio box and then lightly screw down the plexi lid. It worked a dream.

[@dougbulington4318]

I'm glad you rotated that CAD drawing of the "boat hull..."

[@dsdy1205]

If you're revisiting this I have a couple of suggestions you might want to try on the control and handling front: 1. You have a symmetrical rigid sail and a trimaran setup, so barring any intricate maneuvers like luffing that you might want to do, you're generally going to be fine with just 2 fixed positions for the trim tab, so that you hit the maximum L/D angle of attack on either side of the wing, controlled by a toggle switch. That will probably simplify your workload tremendously as you can now just focus on pointing the boat. 2. Generally speaking you can sail the boat on a fixed heading or sail the boat at a fixed angle to the wind. Fixed heading will make sense if your boat is travelling at right angles to the wind (reaching), but if you're sailing into the wind or downwind then sailing at a fixed angle relative to the wind (fixed point of sail) is probably ideal. The problem here is that sailing at a fixed wind angle is quite hard from an RC perspective since there's no good indication of wind direction barring adding more sensors. One ghetto method you might want to try is to lock the rudder into a central position and add a switch-activated clutch to arrest the rotation of the sail, so that your boat is basically tied to a particular angle to the wind once you've hit the correct point of sail.

[@pseudotasuki]

Your friend's advice is solid. Try to tack (turn into the wind) rather than gybe (turn with the wind). The latter is dangerous because the wind will suddenly push the sail across the boat, which runs the risk of capsizing due to the sudden shift in force and balance. It seems like your boat could also get stuck with the sail facing the wrong direction due to gybing. You can potentially redesign it so the sail can pivot 360 degrees, at which point you wouldn't need to worry.

[@Mattoony]

Yyyeeeeaaaaahhhhhhh Sailboat time!

[@SailingFrolic]

I was waiting for this. A natural progression for someone with interest in the water who’s smart and daring enough to tackle aerodynamics as a main force to move around. I’m still restoring my 1973 Columbia 30 in Houston. Once I have sails repaired and the motor fixed, I’ll shoot you a dm on instagram so you can experiment with the rigging and try out full scale sailing. The bigger the boat, the faster it goes.

[@benhitchcock3057]

"... it was still really hard to go into the wind". Welcome to sailing buddy. I'd highly advise trying a day of windsurfing, it will make all of this a lot clearer.

[@b1air77]

@rctestflight we need some “This is the hull of my sailboat” merch! 😂

[@robbyg3989]

Smart with the food coloring! Thanks!

[@boogiehasfun]

YESSIR ANOTHER HIGH QUALITY RCTESTFLIGHT VIDEO TO WATCH :D

[@SubaruLove]

The C.A.D. picture of your hull looked inviting.😉

[@davebradley123456]

I been waiting on this video for like a solid year now