The crowds were huge and the people chattier. I managed to sail Little Miss Minty but couldn't persuade Sooty to play ball.
We've discovered quite a few modellers who live withing spitting distance of the club (please don't we have enough water already) and so will hopefully pick up a few new members. The DVD I put together showing a few shots of last years activities has attracted a lot of attention.
You can't help everyone though. One visitor wanted a boat suitable for his grandchildren to sail. He fancied joining our club to sail it. Since a quick result was required, he was pointed to Howes to buy a RTR fishing boat, a bargain at £99. Later he came back sans model having decided it wasn't for him and being assured that if he turned up at the shop there would be more to choose from.
I explained the problems with cheap boats R/C - that it works on 40 or 27mhz and swamps the frequencies so he couldn't sail with anyone else. The suggested model had crystal controlled radio which avoided any problems. He suggested it was a finished model and he "wanted to be able to put his stamp on it" to which I replied that there wasn't any reason not to do this as he could re-paint and detail it to his hearts content. As a beginner he'd start with something that worked and be able to pick up the skills later. Also at the price you wouldn't do any better buying a kit. I knew from the earlier discussion that he'd never built anything before.
Pretty quickly it became obvious that what was required was cheap. The boat would be (now be) for a 7 year old and private water was (suddenly) available. Fine, so a scale boat wasn't ideal so how about a Slingshot - the kids could learn to race and no ones frequency would be swamped. It's a good little boat and not to expensive at £39. He still wasn't sure.
I doubt we'll see him again. And we hadn't even mentioned that there was a membership fee !
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