A brief history and insight into how the Fiesta Yacht came about
By David Swain
The concept of the Fiesta yacht started in early 1994. I had always been interested in the smaller yachts, and in conjuntion with the Oxford Model Boat Club had run the 590 national event in Oxford for at least the previous eight years and prior to that the Duplex splendid little 575 Ocean Racer.
These small yachts are aimed at the scale modeller and therefore have a scale or semi-scale appearance and they really do look good on the water, I was however more interested in a small yacht for racing with no pretentions to a scale appearance ie; it had to have a deep fin, lead bulb and fairly high aspect ratio sails.
The first hulls were smaller than the final design, however it was proving difficult to achieve enough buoyancy to accommodate the standard radio gear and batteries, it was essential to the project that standard radio equipment and batteries could be used, so the hull grew in size until the present design eventually came into being.
Stewart a fellow club member undertook the design and making of the sails from the experimental beginnings through to the final choice and thereafter making all the sails for the kits, for this I cannot thank him enough.
It was initially going to be called the "Isis" but as I thought it woul be fun to make different coloured hulls and also sail trims, I decided on the name "Carnival" but this seemed far too clumsy, a similar but better word was "Fiesta", so there you have it.
This kit production was all very new to me and some of the items were quite time consuming to produce but as I envisaged a maximum of perhaps twenty kits the extra work involved did not seem to matter, how wrong can you be ?
I initially made up twelve kits in various colours for some of the Oxford members, luckily for me Stewart, was prepared to continue making the sails, however word got around and it wasn't long before the Leicester club ordered I believe seven or eight kits then Mid Thames and so on, this little project had started to grow like topsy and it was by now probably too far into production to consider any alterations, but as I was going to draw the line at fifty so what !
Finding the small quantities of materials at competitive prices was a time consumingtask and finding a firm willing to produce items in batches of less than five thousand proved impossible, luckily all the suppliers of basic materials could not have been more helpfull.
The masts in the original kits were one piece but I realised that for posting they would have to fit into a box so now had to be made in two parts thus complicating and increasing production.
David with Fiesta No. 28
The box was designed and made for me by a local firm who were most helpful, however it was a minimum order of fifty boxes, this really put pressure on the limited storage I had available.
If I remember correctly there were one hundred and twenty four parts and eighty five separate operations to produce them, it then took about fifteen minutes to make up the box, pack the kit, label the box and then post it.
So ten kits used twelve hundred and forty parts taking eight hundred and fifty operations to produce and two and a half hours to pack the kits, no wonder I decided to stop at fifty, some chance !
By the time Tony Watson of M & M Developments took over I had reached two hundred and fifty, so multiply the ten accordingly and I was fast becoming an automaton.
Tony has modified some of the parts to help reduce the amount of work involved, vacuum moulded decks, servo trays, a much simpler kicking strap and modified logo, in this light, Fiesta's up to and including No. 250 are now known as Fiesta Classics and No. 251 onwards as Fiesta M's.
This has not altered the one design concept in any way and the sailing ability of the yachts remains identical, with the skills of the skippers still being the prime factor in any racing.
The first Fiesta Festival was held in May 1999 at Ragley Hall in Warwickshire, it was a fun occasion and gave me a chance to talk with skippers I only knew from telephone conversations. The second was again at Ragley in May 2000 but the third in May 2001 had to be transferred to Bournville due to the Foot and Mouth crisis and a number of skippers felt that it was a little too far to travel, the fourth in May 2002 was held at Beale Park the well known venue for model boaters, the Beale Park Model Boat Shows and the home of the Mid Thames Model Boat Club, our hosts on this occasion.
