Mistral was my 12th scratch build and was constructed from a free plan in the Marine Modelling International magazine issue for July 2006. The designer Barrie Griffin had seen a French Customs (Douanes) boat tied up in Boulogne harbour when he visited and thought the design would make a good R/C model build. On return home he produced drawings from the photos he had taken, the success of which is best judged by the model that resulted.
No actual information on the French craft was available so one can only record details of the build. Because Mistral looked so good, its construction commenced just after magazine arrival. She is of ply on frame hull construction and was completed in November 2006 after 189 hours work. She first sailed on Setley pond on 30th of November that year. Mistral is powered by twin 600 motors, with battery energy supplied from 6 x 1.2 volt NI/Cd cells. All the items from the RIB to the hand rails were home constructed, the latter from cocktail sticks through which 0.8mm diameter holes were drilled to enable fine wire hand rails to be threaded through them. As seen in the photos, Mistral has a fine turn of speed and the twin rudders make her very manoeuvrable: her sailing weight is 3.2kg.