With personal issues bearing down (school and work), I had little time to construct a full building article this month on the Victoria. However, I have come up with a few items to talk about. First, before you start to build your Victoria and during the constriction of your Victoria – read the class rules carefully! Once you have read and understand the rules, check your work all the times! It is very easy to forget or misunderstand on something that you can or can not do.

A good example of this happen to me at a recent Victoria regatta. A good friend was looking over my boat and wondered if my jib forestay was attached above the 37-½ inch limit on the mast. He took out his measuring tape and checked the height and found my jib forestay was attached too high! Luckily he knew of a good quick fix that allowed me to race that day (I was about ready to go home to fix a stupid mistake that I made during construction).

After the regatta, I got home and was about ready to start the fix job when I decided to measure the height of my jib forestay. I found it to be attached at 37-¼ inches. I checked the rules and re-measured several times it to make sure what I measured was correct. It was, and I was about to make a big mistake! My jib forestay attachment was ¼ of an inch short of the legal 37-½ inch limit! So the moral of my story is check the rules often and keep a copy of the rules in your toolbox in order to avoid mistakes.

The next item to keep in mind about your Victoria is the keel bolt and rudder shaft. It turns out on my Victoria the keel bolt is showing signs of some rust. No big deal if you catch it early (which I did), but if not you will have problems. To avoid rust problems, keep your keel bolt and rudder shaft greased with some grease that is not soluble in water.

In the past year the Victoria Class has moved from fifth place in the American Model Yachting Association (AMYA) class placement to third place! The Victoria has bypassed the Marblehead and the US 1 Meter classes. Talk about getting a lift.

Here is a prediction. Within the 2003 year, the Victoria will pass the EC12 class and become the number two in AMYA’s class placement! The Victoria will still be 300 boats short of being number one, but I’ll bet within a couple of years it will be the number one class. This begs the question, why is the Victoria class growing so fast?

The answer is easy. The Victoria is very low cost one-design boat. It is easy to purchase from about any hobby store for around $100 dollars. It is easy to build for almost anyone, and for a small added cost the skipper can improve the sail rig to make the Victoria a performance sailboat. So, for $350.00 dollars (or less), a skipper can build or buy a Victoria that has a high performance carbon fiber mast and mylar sail rig that sails just as good as a 36/600! You can’t beat that.

Think about it, to obtain a good, winnable 36/600 a skipper has to shell out at least $800 to $1300 dollars. If you want a good Marblehead, be prepared to cough up at least $3000 dollars plus! So, if a person that is just getting into model sailing, and wants a good, low cost boat to start with, or if a veteran skipper wants to expand their sailing fun, for $350.00 dollars they can have a boat that sail well and fun.

Well, that is all for this month. Next month I will describe how to construct the keel for improved sailing performance. See you then.