AMYA Class Rules
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A concerted effort to make the Victor Soling 1M an AMYA recognized class began in early 1993. The effort was the outcome of a search for a "club boat" by the Minuteman Model Yacht Club in Needham, Massachusetts. The Minuteman club had determined it needed a low-cost, entry-level R/C yacht to attract new members. Since none existed within the AMYA system at that time, the search was broadened to include non-AMYA boats, with the proviso that the club pursue acceptance of the selection after it was made.
Based on many favorable comments from Stowe, Vermont and other sites, the Victor Soling 1M was selected. At the time, the AMYA process required 20 AMYA members to sign up for the class to have it be recognized. Once that occurred, the AMYA president would appoint the initial Class Secretary. Art Jacobsen of Avon, Massachusetts agreed to become the initial Class Secretary. All that was required was a set of class specifications.
In order to create a set of class specifications, a technical committee was formed based on names provided by Curt Wright of Stowe. During the winter and spring of 1993, a series of proposals and updates were hashed about by the technical committee. The committee was fortunate that there had been informal sets of rules that had been in use for some time. The resulting rule set was finalized in June 1993. The current rules can be found on the web, and are not included here because they are subject to tweaking over time.
While changes have been made to the Class Rules since 1993 almost all of them have come about with the idea of improving the structure and seaworthiness of the yacht without changing the handling characteristics. As a result boats carefully built by novice builders entirely from the kit components can be competitive with boats built by the most advanced modelers and incorporating all of the "upgrades"and "tweaks"allowed by the current Class Rules.
The official class rules are maintained and distributed at the AMYA website at: