The Montgomery Model Boat Club is located in Montgomery, Alabama. Founded in October 2007. Wynton Blount Cultural Park is our home port. The park is very beautiful with several ponds to choose from, but the Vaughn Road "Sail Boat" pond is where you will find us (see map at the bottom of this page).

In an effort to be environmentally friendly, we sail wind powered and/or electric types of radio control (R/C) boats as well as fly small, light weight, electric sea/float planes and flying boats. These are small inexpensive runabouts to expensive scale and sail models. Whether you're experienced or a novice...if you're looking for a place to play, please contact us.

Currently our club is informally structured and we have no officers, meetings, or dues. We're just a small group of like minded folks who meet/play every other weekend. This does not mean "anything goes". We all chip in to insure pond side safety. Anyone not operating safely will be asked to take their toys and play elsewhere.

Sailing times, dates and other valuable information can be found under the "CLUB NEWS" section in the column to the left. The "club" meets every other Saturday for sailing, fun and just plain boat talk; however, you can usually find some of us at the pond every weekend...go to our "Message Board" (in the links section) to see if and when we will be there.

Want to know "WHERE TO BUY THE NIRVANA SAILBOAT"? Look in the "Links Section" in the left hand column towards the bottom of this page. Click on the link titled "Hot Hobbies & RC". It's new and it's the one and only hobby shop in Montgomery. It keeps this boat and others such as the Aquacraft UL-1 hydroplane in stock. Card carrying MMBC club members will receive a 10% discount. You can also check out one of the on-line retailers such as "RC Hobby Explosion", "Tower Hobbies" or "Sail RC Nirvana" . These are just some of the many available suppliers.

Check out some of the power boats at MMBC, "Crackerbox Racing" and "Hydroplane Racing", and all the photos in "The Boats", "The Shipyards" and "Photographic Memories" also in the pages section in the upper left part of this page.

There are now videos going up of the boats and club. You can find a clickable link at the top of the "Videos" page.

We are promoting the awareness of R/C boating by introducing people to sailing, scale boating and building. You don't have be a R/C'er to enjoy boating, static builders are more then welcomed. The knowledge of building and building techniques that the static builder has, will be a great asset to the novice builders as well as the seasoned sailors. We enjoy boating almost as much as we enjoy the camaraderie. We do not tolerate mean-spirited actions or foul language on the pond and safety rules are always followed. If you would like to bring a boat out and join us or wish to try your hand at sailing please drop us a line or stop by and see us.

March 2009

Nirvana Yachts Racing

The start of a race.

It can get a little crowded at times!

Team "NAVY" P-88 Crackerbox Boat.

UL-1 & UL-88 duke it out.

Tug-O-War between the Atlantic Harbor Tugs "Working Girl" and "Belinda"

Spruance Class Destroyer "USS Cushing" DD-985

Small, lightweight, electric sea/float planes and flying boats are welcome too.

Our club is informally structured and we have no officers, meetings, or dues, but if a person wishes to race, they are encouraged to become an AMYA member. AMYA membership is $25 per year, which includes a subscription to Model Yachting quarterly magazine.

The current MMBC racing yacht classes are the "Nirvana" and the "Open Class". The entry level Nirvana racing yacht is 32" long and around $200.00 complete with radio. Information about the sailboat is in the "Links Section" to the left of this column. Click on the links titled "Hot Hobbies & RC", "Tower Hobbies", "RC Hobby Explosion", "Megatech" or "Sail RC Nirvana" for some of the places it can be found. Once you have been assigned a sail number, you can purchase the numbers for your boat at the link to the left titled "Sail Numbers".

Our models work just like the full size sailboats and use the same racing rules. As a matter of fact the AMYA is affiliated with the United States Sailing Association. To learn more about the AMYA click on the AMYA link in the link section. If you are not a racing type and just want to sail with others, please join us and enjoy the fresh air and sailing. Just bring a lawn chair, maybe an umbrella, something to drink and relax!

Relax...enjoy!

Missy Lou looks relaxed.

If you like the tall sailing ships, there are numerous kits available that will challenge even the most skilled builder. The scale at which the builder wishes to build is only limited to time and patience. Military ships are very popular with the scale modelers. The World War Ships offer the chance to re-create a ship that helped to change the world.

Some builders prefer to have their models remain static displays, others like to add motors, sirens, lights, engine sound, steam, smoke, fire monitors, working guns...etc. Some submarine models even have working torpedoes and missiles. Most R/C models are built from wood and/or fiberglass but plastic and composite models are becoming popular both as static display and R/C. Click on the "Warships Models Underway" link in the left column and view the gallery photos to see craftsmanship. Some of these models took years to build. If you are interested in how they are built, just browse though the how-to-section.

Many hobbyists just like to play and not build at all. That is where the "Ready To Run" (RTR) boats come in. This is a boat that usually requires just the addition of batteries to get on the water. The boat and radio are ready to go out of the box. You can modify it or not. Most of the boats on this page are of this type, as are the Nirvana yachts that we race.

If any of this sounds interesting and/or you have questions, please contact us.

Elvis Sighting!

RC Laser/Ch. 70/"Stinger"
Victoria/Ch. 85/"Kashmir"
Tippecanoe/24Ghz/"Ragtime"
Fortune 612/Ch. 2/"White Dragon"
Thunder Tiger Voyager
Newport 12M/24Ghz/"Santa Barbara Girl"
Paradise/Ch. 69
Footy "Zane"
Footy "GoSpectre" (sunk)
Footy "Survivor"

IMPORTANT!!!
(Read Below)

Any sail boat can race in the "Open Class", to include the Nirvana; but when a specific class is racing, channel priority is given to the boats racing in that class, whether it be in the "Nirvana Class" or the "Open Class". Once the race is over, it is up to members to share time on conflicting channels.

Be sure to sign in when you arrive at the pond. If you notice someone is on the same frequency/channel as you are, please let them know and work out share time.

These boats are a labor of love, some with many hours of work! Please remember that this is NOT DEMOLITION DERBY! Incidental contact with another boat is at times unavoidable; but purposeful damaging contact is unacceptable behavior.

For complete Nirvana rules, go to the links section in the column to the left under "Class Rules" for rules on Nirvana Class Yacht, and go to the American Model Yacht Association "AMYA" link, and scroll down in the link section there to the Rules of Sailing.

For pond rules go to the "Pond Rules" page...the link is in the upper left column.

For Crackerbox rules go to the "Crackerbox Racing" page in this web site....the link is in the upper left column.