Radio Controlled Sailboats

GONZALEZ: Model boat lover laments ban

Every summer Sunday for more than 25 years, Victor Cotte, a disabled former machinist from the Bronx, has traveled down to Central Park to indulge his great passion - model boating.

Cotte spent long afternoons at the park's boat pond, delighting kids with the remote-controlled, battery-powered boats he has fashioned by hand.

"I survived a stroke and take nine pills a day for congestive heart failure," he said. "The pond and my boats are how I relax and unwind."

But in April, park officers startled him by pulling his boat out of the water and threatening him with a summons.

A few weeks later, bright green signs appeared all around the pond with the words: No Motorized Boats Allowed.

The new edict - typical of Age of Bloomberg - outlawed all boats except wind-powered sailboats in the legendary Model Boat Pond.

"People always brought all kinds of vessels there - tugboats, battleships, cruise boats," Cotte said. "The Central Park Conservancy just wants to get everyone to rent wind-powered sailboats from their concession stand. They want to privatize the whole park."

Parks Department officials denied the ban is new. "It's been the policy for 12 years," said department spokesman Phil Abramson. "Individuals have been told they couldn't use motorized boats."

"Were some people getting away with breaking regulations before and now enforcement is tougher?" a spokeswoman for the Conservancy said. "Maybe."

Not so, says Cotte.

"All of us know that there's been a ban on powerboats, because they travel too fast, use gas and make too much noise," said Cotte, who also has built two wind-powered sailboats.

"But my battleship and my destroyer are both battery-operated. They move slowly and they make no noise," he said.

A longstanding "Quiet Zone" sign near the pond that prohibits music and Rollerblading also lists powerboats, but the sign says nothing about "motorized boats."

In the past, whenever park officers approached him, Cotte told them his vessels used batteries and the officers moved on without objections.

Yesterday evening, after the Daily News began asking about the boat policies, Doug Blonsky, the top executive of the Central Park Conservancy, suddenly sent an email to Cotte in response to the latter's many protests the past few months.

"Some motorboats are used inappropriately and interfere with the wind-powered sailboats and waterfowl," Blonsky wrote.

"In addition, motorboats are often loud and the Conservatory Water is a Quiet Zone.

RC Sailboats, A Hobby for Sailors and Non Sailors Alike ...

Photo by: Andy Cardiff

The one hobby that seems to be enjoyed by both kids and grownups is radio control… umm… toys, for lack of a better word! For us sailors, the ultimate RC vehicles are radio controlled sailboats or better known as RC sailboats kits. These magnificent objects can serve a number of purposes. Not only are they fun, they can be almost as beautiful as the real thing. A true hobbyist can build one to the exact scale of a real live sailboat and then enter it into an RC regatta! Now, how cool is that? Another purpose would be for sailor who either can’t afford a full-size boat or just doesn’t feel like dealing with all the maintenance time required for the real boat. Maybe the sailor wants to buy a bigger boat later on. In the meantime, he can enjoy sailboat racing with his beautiful handcrafted RC model! You don’t even have to worry about recruiting a capable crew! If you ask me, the ultimate experience would be racing a RC Beneteau sailboat while standing on the platform aft of a full-size Beneteau First 40. Now THAT would be legit!

RC sailboat construction can range from inexpensive plastic models to high-end and intricately designed wooden masterpieces. You will also find that some of the high-end models are made using some of the same materials their full-scale counterparts use. The hulls of some of these models are made of fiberglass. Just like the real live boats. Some feature super high-tech carbon fiber masts and aluminum booms. The more economical models are usually made of some kind of plastic. ABS plastic is one of the materials of choice for quality economy models. It’s a very popular material when the manufacturer needs to keep costs down yet still provide a quality product. The sail material is often Dacron. The same stuff used for the big sails. Other polymer type materials are also readily available. Just like with the hull, you can build you own sails. Much easier than putting together massive sails for a big boat if you ask me.

Most RC sailboats are easily controlled using a simple 2-channel radio control. This is similar to RC cars where one channel controls the steering and the other the throttle. In a sailboat, one channel controls the rudder and the other controls the winch for the sails. The winch for the sail simply sheets the sails in or out for the best angle to the wind. If you are familiar with sailing, you’ll know how to trim the sails to the sailing angle. If not, it’s really easy to learn the techniques of sailing using an RC boat due to it’s size and low risk of accident. So, not only are they fun, but they can be excellent learning tools.  A model sailboat can also be out sailing longer than a powerboat model.  The batteries that power the servos will last a long time, while the batteries or gas that’s used to run the powerboat models will only last a short amount of time.

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