The Boat

The Micro Magic is a small radio controlled sailing yacht designed and manufactured by Germany's Graupner company.  In recent years it has seen an explosion of popularity in Germany and Holland, where very active clubs have developed a grass-roots racing class for the boat.  The Dutch club alone tallies over a thousand race-registered vessels.

The MM makes both a fantastic entry boat and a high-performance class racer.  Its quality, both in component materials and performance, stands well above similar sized yacht models.  It has virtually all the tuning, trimming and performance of larger 1 metre models, but its size makes it a perfect trunk-fit for spontaneous afternoon trips to the pond.  The kit is easy to build without special tools and designed for a standard 2-channel stick radio with regular servos, perfectly balancing investment and performance.

The Micro Magic is modelled on trans-Atlantic sailing yachts such as those sailed in single-handed global circumnavigation races.  The appearance is generally scale, although the model's design is optimized for neutral sailing characteristics as a model rather than a faithful scale copy.

The basic specs of the model are as follows:

length: 530mm
sail area: 1550cm²
beam: 180mm
height: 980mm
weight: approx. 980g
ballast: approx. 350g

The model can be assembled from the kit quickly and with minimal tools.  All the vacuum-moulded ABS parts are supplied CNC-trimmed to final size. The sails in the kit are ready-made and sewn in ultra-light, true sail fabric, in red, blue and fluorescent yellow. Strangely Graupner does not allow customers to choose which colour they get, so it's a bit of a lottery.  The removable keel consists of a profiled fiberglass-reinforced fin and low-set lead ballast bulb.

The keel and lightweight aluminum mast fit in a strong keel/mast trunk integrated into the hull. Moulded-in recesses in the hull and deck shell dictate the correct position of the socket, so everything aligns perfectly right out of the box. The RC system components are also mounted on the socket and can be removed at any time, and maintenance is easy through the relatively large deck opening. A basic 2-channel stick radio with standard servos can control the model on all possible courses, extracting maximum performance from the model.

Contents of the quick-build kit:

- Building instructions in German, English and French.
- CNC-machined vacuum-moulded ABS hull, deck, canopy
- 2-part keel/mast socket
- injection-moulded fiberglass-reinforced plastic keel fin and rudder
- cast lead ballast bulb
- die-cut wooden internal hull fittings
- ready-made sails (in red, blue or fluorescent yellow)
- aluminium tubing for mast and booms
- various injection-moulded plastic parts and other fittings
- boatstand components
- decal sheets for hull and deck