The Footy has a dual personality. It's a playful sailing model whose small size, straightforward design and quick response in the water make it ideal for novice boat builders and sailors. It's a serious racing model whose performance and open design allow experienced artisan sailors to compete in and out of the water. Each personallity will require a different preparation for launch. The playful Footy will require its novice skipper to master the basics of sailing, in theory and on the water. The racing Footy will require its experienced skipper to fine tune the Footy and master the rules and strategies of model sailboat racing. Both skippers would benefit from association with a local r/c model yacht club that could provide mentoring, sailing venues, and access to local materials resources. Below we suggest the sources that might be useful to each Footy sailor: the novice skipper and the racing skipper. See the HOW-TO page for additional sailing resources.

Sailing has its own language. Two useful online glossaries are the Seadercraft Sailing Glossary and the American Model Yacht Association's Sailing Definitions.

Wikipedia's online article on "Sailing" provides a useful and concise introduction to the basics of sailing. Of interest are Parts 2, 3 and 4 addressing the physics of sailing, points of sail and basic sailing techniques. Included are links to Wikipedia's "Glossary of Nautical Terms," related Wikipedia articles, and additional online and video sources.

The American Model Yacht Association provides both online and print introductions to the theory of sailing. Online, see Sails: the Source of Power and the Sailing Manual (particularly "Basic Sail Theory and Concepts").

In print, the two "Getting Started" issues of Model Yachting (the AMYA magazine) provide several introductory articles. Included are "Sailing Basics," "The Correctly Balanced Yacht" and "Sails:the Source of Power" (two parts). Copies of the Winter 2003 and Winter 2006 issues may be obtained from the AMYA Ship's Store (available to nonmembers).

Chris Jackson's book Radio-Controlled Racing Sailboats (2007) includes three useful chapters on "Basic Sailing Theory," "Setting Up a Sailboat's Trim," and "Fine Tuning of Hull and Rigs." See our discussion of the book for details and ordering information.

While it's certainly possible to sail the Footy on your own, and only practice will build sailing skills, an experienced mentor can speed the process. Local r/c model model yacht clubs are the obvious source for knowledgeable peers. National associations maintain directories of affiliated local clubs. The AMYA provides access to its affiliates at its Club Directory. NOTE: these clubs often adopt one or two specific model yachts for their members to build and race. Though the Footy may not be one of the models selected by the club in your area, club members are still a valuable resource for local sailing venues. And club members are usually generous with their sailing expertise, particularly to newbies. No local clubs in your area? Try locating nearby model sailboat skippers through the r/c model yacht forums: we link to several on our HOW-TO page.

Or search the Frapper online Footy Sailing Map that locates Footy sailors worldwide.

Local model yacht clubs can identify possible sailing venues. Access AMYA clubs through the Club Directory. See our HOW-TO page for other associations. If the club has a web page, check the "Event Calendar." Directions to public ponds used for scheduled events are often provided.

Absent a local club, parks and recreation districts may assist in locating local ponds. So might local hobby shops who sell model boats. Online group forums may include members in your area who could identify nearby ponds as well. See our HOW-TO page for links to these groups.

If you prefer to scout a pond yourself, experienced model yachters often recommend these pond attributes:

SIZE: A pond should be small enough to see your Footy on the far side but large enough to allow for placement of practice course markers: between 50 and 100 yards in diameter. (See Footy Internet Course for design of a solo Footy racing course.)

AIR: Can't sail without wind. Look for nearby obstructions (buildings, trees, tall weeds) that would interfere with air flow.

PERIMETER: The perimeter should be concrete or finished surface with shallow shore water (two - three feet) that allows for a safe launch.

AMENITIES: Some creature comforts are nonnegotiable: nearby public restrooms, drinking fountains, and public parking.

Once you've mastered sailing your Footy (it won't take long), you may wish to test your skills against other Footy skippers. Racing Footys can be as relaxed as five skippers getting together at the pond with an improvised racing course, or it can be as competitive as a regional Footy championship sanctioned by the American Model Yacht Association and conducted according to the international racing rules for radio controlled model yachts. It can be that serious; so can you. Whatever fills your sails. Here's the caveat.

Racing skills come with experience and the willingness to honestly self-review performance. Understanding the physics of sailing helps, mentors can certainly shorten the learning curve, model yacht clubs provide the opportunities for "observing" how it's done, and knowing the racing rules is essential. But winning depends on losing a lot first. Because there's no substitute for "just doing it," desktop sources are at best aids in learning the rules and improving performance. With that in mind, the Racing Skipper (below) suggests the structure of formal model yacht racing and the requirements for participation, and provides links to official and unofficial tools for honing racing skills.

If you're a seasoned skipper about to launch a new Footy, you already know that racing any model yacht successfully requires racing a lot and losing. If you're a newbie to model yacht racing, this is the first lesson you'll learn. Equally important (and a matter of good sportsmanship) is knowing the basic rules for model racing. We provide sources below that help satisfy both these requirements: rules knowledge and opportunities for experience. They're presented with both the new and skilled skipper in mind.

Radio-controlled model yacht racing is an internationally organized sport with rules for both crafting and racing model sailboats. Racing rules are the same as those for full scale yachts and are articulated by the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) in its Racing Rules of Sailing, revised every four years with input from national authorities. In the USA, the national authority is the US Sailing Association. The most recent rules revision took effect in 2009. The Rules are made applicable to r/c model yachts with rules modifications set out in Appendix E.

These international model yacht racing rules are administered by national model yachting associations as members of the ISAF Radio Sailing Division (ISAF-RSD). A list of these national associations along with their Internet addresses is available at the ISAF-RSD web site. In the US, the national association is the American Model Yacht Association (AMYA), organized by local clubs in six geographic regions.

Official texts of the Racing Rules of Sailing and Appendix E are available in .pdf format at the US Sailling Internet site. These Rules texts are also made available in .pdf format by the AMYA Racing Rules Committee (scroll down the page).

The Racing Rules of Sailing are made less daunting by several useful introductions.

The AMYA Racing Rules Tutorial offers an online version of Bill Worrall's multi-part series "Let's Race with the Rules," originally published as a regular column in the AMYA magazine Model Yachting. The series is an excellent non-threatening introduction to model yacht racing rules. NOTE: The author has updated the tutorial to reflect the 2009 rules changes. With the Spring 2009 issue of AMYA's Model Yachting magazine, Worrall began an overview of the 2009 rules revisions in his regular column. Copies are available through the AMYA Ship's Store.

Introduction to Sailboat Racing (Part I): Basic Rules of Sailboat Racing The US Sailing Association provides the ten basic rules for sailboat racing with illustrations, videos and links to definitions of terms. If you're new to sailing, this is an excellent introduction to both the rules and the kinds of maneuvers required to satisfy them--a sort of racing practices in a nutshell. Race courses and regatta procedures are considered (with illustrations and videos) at Part 2 of the Introduction to Sailboat Racing: The Basics of Sailboat Racing.

Pocket Rules The AMYA provides its own version of the racing rules in a nutshell: the "Sloop Boats" memory card. "Sloop Boats" is an acronym for the basic or primary rules for radio sailing. The acronym is used to summarize the basic rules on a pocket size document that new skippers may carry as a ready-reference. You will often see similar "pocket rules" posted at local model yacht club web pages.

Dummie Reflections by Rick West Posted on the Internet by the Delta Model Yacht Club in California and compiled by EC12 class sailor Rick West for newbie EC12 sailors, this series does include more general discussions of the "Rules," "Regatta Sailing" and "Fleet Racing"--a wry introduction to the basics.

Chris Jackson's book Radio-Controlled Racing Sailboats (2007) includes two chapters that serve as a brief introduction to model racing practices: "Race Strategy" (maneuvering a model yacht) and "Going Racing" (how regattas work). See our discussion of the book for details and ordering information.

To demystify the racing rules, two frequently recommended books are listed below. Both are available through Amazon Books or your local book store (use the ISBN number to order).

Perry, Dave. Understanding the Racing Rules of Sailing 2009 - 2012. U.S. Sailing Association, 2008. ISBN# 978-0979467769.

Willis, Bryan. The Rules in Practice 2009 - 2012. Wiley, 2008. ISBN# 978-0470727881.

Finally, test or hone your rules knowledge with the online animated rules game, Play the Rules, by Uli and Wolfi Finckh (English translation by Al Schonborn).

The AMYA establishes the protocols for radio controlled model yacht racing: the racing rules, boat design standards (class rules), race course standards, participant qualifications, and general instructions. These are all published at AMYA's Internet site. The AMYA also coordinates (through its class secretaries) the scheduling of national and regional regattas. The local model yacht clubs, however, do the organizing and officiating for both AMYA sanctioned regattas and their own local championships. Because the roughly 30 model sailboats (classes) sanctioned for racing by the AMYA vary so greatly in design, regattas are necessarily limited to one class. A local club is qualified to host regattas for the classes of boats its members sail. Most clubs sail two or three classes of boats. Racing Footys, then, requires identifying the clubs that sail them, and locating the calendars of the Footy regattas they sponsor. We suggest sources for these below.

LOCATING CLUBS THAT SAIL FOOTYS Most national model yacht associations offer searchable lists of their affiliated clubs. The American Model Yacht Association, e.g., provides a Club Directory that includes the classes of boats sailed by each club. We identify other national associations at our HOW-TO page. The club in your area doesn't sail Footys? Offer to share your Footy with a few members and watch what happens (that worked for us).

While discussion groups or online forums don't list their members by geographical area, it may be useful to query the group for Footy skippers and clubs in your region. We discuss and link to several online forums on the HOW-TO page.

A search engine may identify clubs as well. We were able to locate Footy model yacht sailing clubs by using Google and the search query footy+model+yacht+club. We were also able to use Google's advanced search screen to limit searches further by country and language.

LOCATING CALENDARS OF FOOTY REGATTAS The first AMYA National Footy Championship was held on March 6-8, 2009, hosted by the Central Florida Model R/C Yacht Club in Orlando, Florida. That event was listed on several online calendars: the FOOTY Class R/C Sailboat Internet site at the "Racing Calendar;" the AMYA online "Regatta Schedule;" the Central Florida Model R/C Yacht Club web page "Events" section; and the Footy USA group forum at its "Calendar." This is the model for locating Footy regattas online. Major Footy regattas are listed on the FOOTY Class R/C Sailboat site "Racing Calendar. The national model yacht associations' calendars post national and regional regattas for the classes of boats they have recognized. Local model yacht clubs usually maintain an online events or regatta calendar for local races. Internet discussion groups also post regatta dates on their respective event calendars and usually announce scheduled regattas well ahead of time in posted messages. See our HOW-TO page for these sources.

Along with coordinating national and regional events, the AMYA also recognizes (sanctions) and publishes the rules for the design of roughly 30 individual model boats (classes) within five categories. The Footy is one of these classes. Classes are managed either by a Secretary or a Class Owners Association, responsible for coordinating regattas and registering individual model yachts (assigning numbers). To sail competitively, a model yacht must be registered and adhere to class design criteria. Footys may be registered in the U.S. with the AMYA Footy Class Secretary. Registrars for other countries are named at the FOOTY R/C Model Sailboat Internet site. See our CLASS page for more information about Footy design rules.

While honing racing skills is mostly a matter of perseverance, tips and tools from seasoned racers are always welcome. A uique tool is the Footy Internet Course that allows solo Footy skippers to test their racing skills against other skippers worldwide. We provide the particulars below and suggest three other radio yacht specific sources.

The Footy Internet Course Initially proposed at the R/C Sailing Forum: Footy Class and designed by Ian Hull-Brown of New Zealand, this is a standardized 50 foot long windward-leeward course that may be used by solo Footy sailors to compete individually with other Footy skippers around the world. The race is called the Postal Classic and performance is based on individual Footy time trials run for a specified thirty day period (dates are announced at the R/C Sailing Forum: Footy Class). Best times for each boat are forwarded to the Footy Internet Course event organizer (currently Brett McCormack who also conceived this race format) who in turn posts the results his site Internet Model Yacht Racing. The Footy Class Association provides the standards and identifies the equipment needed to assemble the Internet Course at the FOOTY Class R/C Sailboat Internet site. Discussions of Course construction may be found at the R/C Sailing Forum: Footy Class. And the AMYA Model Yachting magazine for Spring 2009 has an excellent overview of the Footy Internet Course. Copies may be ordered from the AMYA Ship's Store and are available to nonmembers. NOTE: The 2009 race is scheduled for July 1 - 30. See the announcement at R/C Sailing Forum: Footy Class. Results will be posted at Brett's site. At the least, posted results of these races could certainly serve as benchmarks should you wish to run your own time trials.

Sailing Faster (For Reasonably New Skippers) by Stan Ogden: A member of the Bakersfield Model Yacht Club in California, Ogden offers tips to novice skippers about coordinating radio control of sails and rudder.

How to Sail Fast by Bob Sterne Bob Sterne's 25 years as a model racing yacht craftsman and sailor provided the expertise for a series of articles on rig tuning originally published by the Canadian Radio Yachting Association (CYRA). The series is available at both the CYRA's web page RESOURCES section and at Sterne's business web site, Bob's Boatyard. A second text, The Tuning Cycle, is found at his site as well.

Lester Gilbert's Radio Sailing Gilbert has used his skills in radio sailing and computer-assisted learning to develop online tools for measuring and improving model racing performance. He provides these tools along with useful, illustrated discussions of the racing rules at the RACE section of his site. The BOOKS section of his site identifies print racing sources as well. The whole of Gilbert's site is worth exploring.