by Ray
Davidson
AMYA #5
The evolution of Metro Marine
Modellers is unique in that the club, unlike most clubs nowadays, welcomed
all kinds and types of ships, boats and craft. So that today there
are four distinct divisions within the club – Sail, Scale, Display Models
(Galleons, period ships etc.), and Fast Electric (speed boats). All
with the one purpose of promoting model sailing and boating; radio controlled
or otherwise.
However, to retrace the history
of the club, we must go back to a small group of individuals who operated
free sailing and vane steered sail boats in the 40’s. These 5 or
6 individuals became the founding members of a group that would be known
at the time, as the Federation of Modellers. They met formally for
the first time in 1958. These enterprising folk were able to acquire
some space at a local boat show to show off their models. This apparently
was quite successful and attracted others who were interested, and so it
was decided to organize a formal boat club in 1959. The name became
Metro Marine Modellers.
Membership gradually grew through
the 60’s with informal regattas at local ponds around the city. The club
gained in popularity and members by sailing radio controlled boats at the
annual Toronto International Automobile show, which usually lasted 10 days.
The pool was only about 14’ x 16’ and just about 10” deep. Not large
by any standard, none the less, it always drew a crowd – and a few new
members both young and old.
By 1970, model boating, especially
radio controlled boating in the Toronto area had become quite popular.
The club membership had grown to almost 100 and it was invited to be part
of the Toronto International Boat Show. This is one of the largest
boat shows on the continent with over 400,000 square feet of exhibits (the
show runs for 10 days, incl. 2 weekends).
Metro Marine Modellers (MMM)
was located in an adjoining arena with bleachers on 3 sides seating about
1200 on any given evening. With the amount of working stuff,almost
exclusively radio controlled, it was often referred to as the best show
at the boat show.
By this time, the club had
3 divisions; the sail group being one and with the model boat pool being
65ft x 30ft and nearly 2 ft deep, it was easy, and also popular to even
have sail boat races. 5 large stanchion fans were set up at one end
of the pond and it didn’t take long for challenges to be thrown by big
boat sailmakers and manufacturers at the show like North and Fogh as I
remember. I have no doubt that a few bets were also made.
By 1972, the 10 rater was
the first major class that the sail group built and sailed regularly. Plans
were readily available from the U.K., such as Coller Herring, Marie 111
and Warlord. My first 10 rater was Red Herring. She sailed
on a 55” LWL. I remember making masts from Sitka Spruce in two halves
with a channel cutout of each half joined with a piece of 1/16” ply between
the two halves along the forward edge then shaped. This gave a slot
along the aft side of the mast and a channel inside the mast for the bolt
rope on the luff of the main. Later luff rings and jack lines were
used – of course they were definitely simpler, more popular and easier.
The first 10 rater ACCR regatta in Toronto was held in 1972
In 1973, with membership
growing, a ‘Canada Cup’ Trophy was initiated by the club and a tobacco
company was contacted regarding sponsorship for a group of sailors from
our club to go to England to sail in the first regatta for the cup.
Interestingly, the tobacco company declined to sponsor us on the grounds
that “the hobby did not necessarily promote smoking” -
Well! Well!
As R/C sailboat racing became
more popular around the great lakes and more frequencies became available,
MMM sailors sailed increasingly more cross-border regattas with clubs such
as
Buffalo, Rochester, Chicago,
Bowling Green and one great place the Belmont Country Club in Sandusky,
Ohio where they actually had golf carts to take you and your boat to the
water, what a great idea!
However, to continue to compete
in ACCR’s in the States, it became necessary and appropriate for all of
us sailors in Canada to join the newly formed AMYA. Hence, MMM became
AMYA club #5. However, to truly compete internationally, Canada needed
it’s own national authority, and subsequently the Canadian Model Yachting
Assoc (CMYA) was formed in 1974 with initially 65 members. |
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In 1975, regardless
of any sponsorship, a group of 6 sailors traveled to England for the first
international regatta for the Canada Cup for 10 rater competition.
The Cup was presented to the International Model Yacht Racing Union to
be competed for every four years internationally for 10 raters. The
same year the Canadian equivalent of the FCC made radio licenses mandatory
and the price was $13.50 for 3 years. Now, of course, no license
is required for radio controlled equipment.
By 1975, radio controlled
sailing was becoming so popular in the Toronto area that Grant Slinn, one
of the designers at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, and myself were
instrumental in getting the Science Centre to help fabricate 50 Marbleheads.
A plug was made from “Bambi” plans and Fiberglass hulls were pulled.
The complete kit including boat, #1 rig, and sails was $50.00, in fact
everything except the radio. An interesting fact is that we would
construct a winch by modifying a servo – removing the servo’s potentiometer
and replacing it with a “Ten turn Potentiometer” from the surplus store.
Drums for the sheets would be then attached to the output arm of the servo….it
was a little slow, but then, in those days, they all were. Another 50 boats
were made the following year. I have to wonder where all those boats
are now.
In 1980, “Sail 80” was an
international regatta for 10 raters. This was the last regatta held
by the CMYA. The organization is now the CRYA (Canadian RadioYachting
Association). I guess radio yachting sounds better than model yachting.
In 1981, the City was building
a landfill park on the shore of Lake Ontario at Humber Bay. Our club
was asked to submit a plan for a model boat pond which would be included
in the project. On completion of the park in 1982 we were given exclusive
use of the pond for sailing. There is also a pavilion and storage
for the chase boat and marks.
In 1989, MMM hosted one
of the largest Marblehead ACCRs at Humber Bay with skippers coming from
as far away as San Diego, Vancouver, New York City and of
course, Marblehead, Mass.
To this day the sail group
still use the Humber Bay site for the Soling 1M.
In the last couple of years,
the MMM sailing group has moved to a great sailing site at the Port Credit
Yacht club. This affords us a wonderful sailing basin, snack bar
facilities, and an exceptional site for regattas.
In 2006, the AMYA Region
1 International One Meter regatta, normally held in Connecticut, was held
in Port Credit, hosted by MMM. It was a very successful regatta with
24 skippers coming from places such as Texas, Michigan, N.Y., Florida,
and Connecticut together with many Canadian skippers.
In 2007, MMM hosted an August
Invitational for IOM class at Port Credit. This also was a successful regatta
with 16 boats competing and skippers again coming from various parts of
North America.
As mentioned earlier the
club including the sail group has always welcomed all kinds and classes
of boats. Right now there are 4 or 5 active classes of sailboat in
the MMM, including: Soling IM, Victoria, IOM (which is the strongest at
the present), Marblehead and A.C. This year the Marblehead
ACCR was scheduled to be held here at our Port Credit site, but unfortunately
had to be cancelled due to lack of response. However, both locally
and farther afield MMM sailors hold and attend regular regattas throughout
the spring, summer and fall season.
Today, the Metro Marine Modellers
club, from humble beginnings almost 50 years ago is still 100 members strong,
meeting on a regular basis and holding various events and regattas, with
a committed executive that holds us all in place. Hopefully the club
will still be going strong in another 50 years. Who knows??
Published by the American
Model Yacht Association (AMYA) in their magazine in 2008 - Issue 151 -
Page 29.
The Metro Marine Modellers
was the 5th club to register with the organization, the world's largest
model club.
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