Building a DIY Drone Sailboat

Always enjoy your videos. Good job with the ads too. Get that money!

Please bring back the autonomous soaring, it would be a blast to see it fully taken advantage of!

Great improvement over your prototype! Next steps to help you tack: Lose the elevator. Its drag is probably the main culprit, and you can use servo control now that you've got wind direction. 2 fair your foils! You put a lot of thought into your airfoil and hydrodynamics on other projects, then you come in and use a plank for a keel and rudder. Give that keel a nice cross section and you'll improve speed and leeway.

As a sailing coach, RC model yacht enthusiast, ardupilot hobbyist, and autonomous yacht designer, I would like to commend you on your great and accurate explanation of sailing physics. Your boat likely won't tack because the wingsail is back winding (creating reverse thrust) during tacking. Your best bet is to reduce friction in the rotating mechanism, design the rotation point the right distance ahead of the center of effort, and set your wingsail trim tab to 0 degrees during a tack.

Pouring lead into resin was surprising, I would never thought that would work!

Excellent job! For a Newby sailor/designer you’ve covered a lot of bases using advanced solutions. Having the small recovery thruster was brilliant.

I don't know about everyone else, but I always appreciate longer videos.

Regarding the wind helm setup: it's also a performance thing. In many boats there are adjustments that can change where the center of pressure is. Tuning for wind helm requires that the rudder is constantly pivoted, and when that AoA is combined with the keel, they combine to form an effectively curved airfoil. When done correctly, it's possible to prevent the boat from sliding sideways due to the lift generated. This may not be the case at RC scale, but it was something I worked a lot to tune in C420s, where it can be a huge advantage.

I don’t care if it’s a plane or not. As long as it’s rctestflight, it’s good!

rctestflight casually arriving at a design for an unmanned marine kamikaze drone

Oooh autonomous sailing… that’s crazy!

‘I don’t know a lot about sailing’, then goes through moderately involved aspects. The smaller scale physics are interesting

I love how enthusiastic you were about the revamped boat and how unimpressed your friend sounded 😂

I think, he needs to make a simple, normal Rc sailboat and go from there. The hull doesn't seem very efficient, and whilst it isn't meant to be a race boat, speed is the byproduct of an efficient, low drag hull. If I were you I'd make the wing out of printed ribs and a film skin like with RC planes, the CG still seems too high in my opinion, better, but still high.

The video turned out so well! That's an awesome description of balancing the centers of effort and resistance. It was super cool to see you guys at the park!

-Weather Helm, not Wind Helm -Shore Breeze, not Offshore Wind -45 degrees AWA (Aparant Wind Angle) isn't that great, it's average at best, <30 Degrees is considered very good. High performance race boats can achieve <25 degrees. -Your wind indicator needs to move much more freely, and verify the balance so it does so while turned 90 deg to the side -Move your GPS to the stern as it moves less and will give a more stable reading

I’m from Seattle and I love how your videos always show off the natural beauty of the city and surrounding water!

guys wake up another rctestflight video was posted.

The lack of comments about it almost makes it look like betterhelp is a blocked phrase

I built an ardupilot autopilot setup for my 22 foot sailboat! Works awesome! Only took a 120kg servo!