April 17th 2014 Our newest tools to produce the new "Mini-Opti". With these new tools we are able to produce the highest quality 1/4 scale Optimist Dinghy. We have redesigned the kit to incorporate the deck and waterproof cover in one piece making it a better performer overall.
Here are the new cad drawings of the daggerboard with integral lead bulb which we are shipping with our new kits.
August 25th 2011,We are forming the Elgin MiniOpti Sailing Club
If you live in the Northwestern Illinois and in or around Elgin, Illinois and want to participate in club sailing please contact us. We will tentatively be meeting and sailing behind the Gail Borden Library on the Fox River once we have established our club. Anyone interested in coming out to sail one of our demo boats is welcome. We will have ten club boats and hopefully members will build boats this coming winter and we will meet to plan an tentative schedule of 2012 season of sailing regattas and events.
August 24th 2011, We want to thank you all for your patience in getting the first boat kits off of the production line but we do not want to send out hulls that are not up to our standards. We have modified the vacuum former to include a double vacuum to allow proper drawing of the thicker ABS hull in the mold. We are as anxious to get deliveries out as you are in receiving your boats but waiting a bit longer will allow us to get out the first 350 new hulls that are of the highest production quality...
August 6th 2011 - We have sourced new drum winch servo's that resolve the complicated drum tension problem.
We will be stocking 4 models of new drum servo's that have enclosed drums which eliminate the need for special handling of the drum lines. They are fully self contained and make sheeting simple and efficient. They are cost effective and will work on a wide variety of sailing models. one set has nylon gears with 4 turns and 6 turns respectively and one set has metal gears for larger boats.
July 15th 2011
This is the big week, our vacuum forming machine is running and we are doing run tests to get all the settings perfect. We will be producing kits later this week so place your orders now.
May 31st has come and gone the bad news no boats yet, but the good news is the production machinery is running we are just waiting for materials, we will be producing the first boats by June 15th. We thank everyone for there interest and patience, good things never come easy!
May 21st 2011
More pictures of boat test #2 with full rubber seal around cover. Third boat will have a more traditional servo sail winch arrangement but we will sea trial this boat in the coming week. We believe some of the fun in building and sailing your Mini Opti will be the freedom you have to design your own radio installation. We want to give you the freedom to come up with your own ideas even as we present ours. The next boat will have the sail servo on a continuous loop with a secondary feed for the sheet. One thing should be noted that this is a dry sailor with good free board height and even without the cover stays dry unless she tips over. Not like some Radio Controlled sailboats that act more like submarines when they sail.
