The T27 is a wonderful small sailboat. It is 27 inches long and 43 inches tall from the bottom of the keel to the top of the mast. This is the smallest that a real remote control sailboat should be, because you need room for two servos so you can control both the sails and the rudder. I would not consider a boat in which you have no control over the sails because you are missing the ability to really sail the boat effectively and missing the fun of being able to control your boat like a real sailboat. A smaller boat than the T27 simply will not be very seaworthy.

The T27 holds its own quite well in rough water and will sail on big lakes very nicely. Ideal winds are 5 to 12 mph, but the T27 will be fine in winds up to 15 mph and higher. The deck of the T27 RC Sailboat is entirely sealed and the boat is completely self-righting so it can never capsize or get water inside the hull. For really open water and rougher conditions the larger T37 will have more power to handle bigger waves and stronger winds.

The T27 is ideal especially when its smaller size is a benefit. Travelling in an RV on vacation? Going camping? Going cruising on a full size yacht? You want a beautiful RC yacht to skim about and tack gracefully on your swimming pool? For all of these situations the T27 is the ideal boat.

The keel requires just 8 inches of water which is not as deep as on the larger boats. This can be an advantage for launching easily in shallow water. The mast and sail slide right out when you unhook the shrouds and forestay and then the boat stores away in very little room. The T27 is also the simplest RC kit to build so it is a good starting place to learn some good techniques. The building level is "beginner".

T37 Racing Sloop

The T37 is 37 inches long and five feet high from the bottom of the keel to the top of the mast. This is quite a boat and probably the best size for most people. The T37 is big enough to sail excellently in large bodies of water and will handle well in winds as strong as 18 mph and waves that are getting quite built up.

The T37 is still easy to transport. The hull with radio control gear and batteries installed still weighs only 5 pounds so it is easy to carry in one hand fully rigged when walking down to the lake with the transmitter in the other hand. For transporting in a regular size car or small car, the mast comes out in less than a minute so the boat is quite convenient.

The keel depth of 12 inches is not extreme which makes launching from the shore relatively easy. Boots are usually high enough to wade out from a shallow shoreline far enough to launch the T37 without waves sloshing over the tops of the boots.

The T37 sails incredibly well. Being larger, the T37 is a little faster than the T27 and will always win over the T27 in a racing situation.

In choppier water the T37 will tack and come about into the wind more easily than the T27 due to the T37 being heavier and larger and having more momentum. Ease of building the T37 is not much different from building the T27, so this is probably not a consideration for most builders. The building level is "beginner-intermediate".

There are over 600 T37s sailing now which means it is easier to find other local sailors to form a racing club with. All around, the T37 is a wonderful boat. There is no finer RC sailboat than the T37 or a more beautiful yacht for racing or pleasure sailing.

T47 Fairharbor RC Schooner

The T47 Fairharbor RC Schooner is a spectacular boat for capturing the traditional feel of sailing ships from the past. Its elegance and charm on the water are unsurpassed. We call the T47 our little ship and keep it displayed in our office because it is so charming. Sailing performance is excellent for a traditional rig and the fuller keel. As with full size schooners, upwind performance cannot rival the modern sloop rig such as the T37, but off the wind performance is superb with the large sail area and the lower center of effort in the sails.

The schooner rig is also ideally suited to reducing sail and remaining balanced. The schooner kit comes with an extra foremast.To reduce sail in strong winds, the extra foremast is rigged in place of the regular mast and foresail. The schooner sails beautifully in strong winds with just the mainsail in the back and the forward jib. It takes only a minute or two to switch to the reduced sail pattern. With the fuller keel on the schooner, tacking is not quite as snappy as on the T37 but she still tacks very nicely and jibes quite handily.

The sail control servo sheets in all four sails so you have full control of the sail trim. The schooner gets lots of admiring attention when you take it to launch at a lake! The building level is "intermediate" since there is more detail and there are significantly more parts than on the T37.


T50MOD Ultra-Light RC Racing Sloop

The T50MOD (Marblehead One Design) is an ultra light design built for exciting and very fast sailing. It is probably not the best choice for a beginner, partly because it sails so fast that it requires quick responses to keep control! Building the T50MOD requires about twice as long as building the T37. That is the primary reason we call the kit "advanced", although there are a couple of places where one needs to be careful and fairly precise in the building. The T37 kit does not require any real precision in the building since the positioning of all the parts is predetermined by how the parts are cut out before you receive the kit.

The T50MOD also has a much deeper keel! The keel is 20 inches deep. You can't wade out in regular boots to a depth of 20 inches. A dock is the easiest place to launch from, or else wear shorts and wading shoes to launch from shore in warm weather.

The T50MOD is the ultimate in RC sailing. At 50 inches long it is a big boat. The hull fully loaded with rc gear and batteries weighs just an amazing 3 pounds. The keel ballast is 4.35 pounds. The extreme fin keel is 20 inches deep and the boat carries 1200 square inches of sail area on a six foot mast. All of this translates into an extremely light and very powerful boat that sails incredibly fast. The sails are controlled with a powerful sail winch that gives the full range of sheeting control. The boat is very carefully engineered to be a phenomenal sailing machine. The design eliminates any extra ounce of weight that is not absolutely required for the structural strength of the boat. This is the America's Cup boat compared to the more normal fast racing sailboat.

Beyond the T50MOD design there is no way to excel. Bigger is not better, since the T50MOD is about the maximum size that most people would find convenient. The T50MOD RC Sailboat with a total weight of 8 pounds is still easy to carry. The mast comes out in less than a minute and the mast is in two sections for easy carrying. The keel slides out in less than a minute, and you are ready to slip the beautiful hull into your compact car.

For display in a room with an eight foot ceiling the keel must sit within inches of the floor, because the total heigth of the T50MOD is just under 8 feet. The hull on the T50MOD is built with a unique system specially designed by Tippecanoe Boats for creating a round bottomed strip planked hull very quickly and very easily. The first hull we built was finished in just under four hours. The hull construction is extremely light and very strong with carbon fiber reinforcement. The outside of the hull is gleaming varnished western red cedar. Nothing could be prettier. There is no step that the average builder should have any difficulty with, but we still rate this kit "advanced" because it will require more care and time than building the T37. Amongst our different boats, we predict the T50MOD will be the biggest fleet for racing in a few years. It is a perfect boat to start a racing fleet.

T50Tri Fast Ultra-Light RC Trimaran

The T50 RC Tri is another type of boat entirely. Sailing a trimaran is like nothing else. Like the T50MOD, the T50 Tri is ultra light and very fast. On a reach the Tri will outsail everything. Multihulls excel in speed on courses from slighlty above a beam reach to a broad reach. Their upwind performance is good, but not as good as with a mono-hull. Tacking is always more difficult with a multihull, and with light multihulls, if there is much of a chop, you will find it is easier to jibe. In smoother water there will be no problem with tacking.

In many ways sailing an ultra light multihull is the ultimate thrill in rc sailing because of the terrific speed potential of the very slender hulls. The main hull is just 1 3/4 inches wide at the waterline! The 48 inch beam gives the boat terrific power which turns into speed.

We have tested the T50 Tri in eighteen miles per hour of wind and could not flip it. This was with the smaller heavy air rig. The T50 Tri is remarkably stable. Still if you get some gusts coming through at 25 mph you will have to be good at sailing the Tri not to flip it. Having some provisions for a rescue boat in strong winds is a good precaution. The tri floats quite happily upside down without any water damage to the RC gear, but it is definitely not self-righting! This adds to the thrill of sailing a multihull in strong winds if you like excitement! Full size 30-40 foot trimarans flip too. That gets seriously expensive! Each T50 RC Tri comes with a light air rig and a heavy air rig so there is a wide range of winds in which you can sail. The taller rig has an 80 inch mast. 5 to 16 miles per hour of wind would be the recommended wind range for the T50 Tri.

The three hulls of the T50 RC Trimaran come apart in about three minutes and the mast unsteps easily so the boat, despite being very large when fully assembled, is still easily transported.

The building level on this boat is "advanced". There are some steps in gluing up the hulls that require care since we are putting some slightly compound curves into the flat 1/16th inch plywood hull pieces. All of the parts are pre-cut and the instructions are excellent and very clear. For a first time builder who follows the instructions carefully this would be an exciting and manageable project. For a builder who has already built the T37, the T50 Tri will go together quite easily.

In a race with an upwind leg, I'd bet on the T50MOD over the T50 Tri.

For overall performance and maneuverability combined with exceptional speed the T50MOD is the best choice. But for straight out speed on a reach, and for the exhilaration of sailing a multihull, you can't beat the T50 Tri.