Skate 1000 Trimaran Sailboat 1700mm (ARS - Almost Ready to Sail)

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• Value

Customer Rated

Oct 11, 2015

mine was veryyy disappointing. hulls are way too weak and flexible. everything is out of alignment, bent or too weak to work with. total waste of time and money.

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• Quality
• Value

Customer Rated

Sep 04, 2015

Found some quality issues, as someone else has mentioned some holes do not line up quite and require some easing, also found the end of one of the stanchions was badly formed neither of which are major problems, soon sorted and of to the lake. Very impressed with it's initial sail. Enough adjustments available to the rig to do a few tweaks as needed. I have found that when running with the wind it tends to drop the bow and have extended the lead for the battery pack allowing me to move it further aft, this has improved the problem, but can still be an issue in higher winds. All in all excellent value for money.

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Customer Rated

Jul 26, 2015

I found the arms and pontoons to be correctly aligned but when bolted to the hull they are way out of alignment. The main hull has had the deck bonded 3mm lower one side than the other which rakes over the bow around 5 degrees this also throws the keel and rudder out as well. The sheeting is rubbish as it stretches a lot. I'm redoing all the rigging and sheeting with Dacron, removing all fittings and bedding them down with silicon and lacquering the steel screws to prevent rust and will silicon all screw and deck openings to prevent water entering when it inevitable cartwheels on the water as multi's do. I will also make a better forward deck pulley to captivate the sheeting so it cannot slip the pulley. Lastly I think I will rename it cheap skate! for the shoddy quality control if there was any.

• Overall
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Customer Rated

Feb 24, 2015

Great value for money and a real nice looking boat. However not without a few problems. The hull on my Skate had seperation between the side and top deck on the center pontoon. Was very difficult to repair, but was able to do it as I have done glass repairs in the past. Fittings like clips and rigging will need to be updated with better clips and wire or whipping twine rigging. These are all low cost updates that will make for a better boat. I have also updated the screws and fitted some ply under the winch mount that is simply screwed into the thin fiberglass deck. Adding some ply on the underside allows for more grip with the screws.. All this advice needs to be put into perspective. This model is well priced for what you get, so I have no problems with the updates. Was not real happy with the damage and felt it was cheaper and faster to just fix it myself... I would recommend this model to others that don't mind doing a small amount of work...

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Customer Rated

Feb 03, 2015

Sorry I must have got a real bad one. Both of the beams holding screws were too short replaced them with SS socket Head Screws. I would have done this anyway SS Screws mean less trouble in the Future. Bigger trouble all four countersink holes ih the beams were out of alignment with the center 4mm screw holes. Fortunately I have a Milling machine so I re-bored the holes with a 9mm end mill. A worse problem is the screw holes in the forward beam do not line up with the deck screw inserts. I drilled out the screw holes to 4.5mm and allowed to beam to float int alignment. Next worry will the pontoons line up have my fingers crossed, All told not a well made model or my one slipped through quality control. If all of the corrections work I think it will be a great sailler the lines look Good and I have been around boats most of my life.

Ron Canada

• Overall
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• Value

Customer Rated

Feb 01, 2015

Bought the Skate from HobbyKing a few weeks ago, arrived within 5 days. I'm into RC aircraft but this looked interesting which is why I bought it. The model assembles easy for someone who does not know what they are doing. Following the instructions and a bit of common sense had the Skate assembled in a few hours. I took it to a lake where some boat guys meet, they were impressed with it. Some friendly tips from the guys had the Skate sailing across the lake really well - in fact the Skate sails a lot better than what I do. Nice looking yacht with the back rake on the bows, the Skate will be getting a lot more sailing time. I'm impressed with the model, the easy assembly and the excellent sailing. If you are a sailboat person and know what you are doing I'm sure the Skate will really fly.