Can’t afford a yacht? Build your own.

If you thought racing yachts was strictly the province of Fortune 500 CEOs, the salty dogs at the Sun City Model Yacht Club would beg to differ.

Yes, model yachts—miniature versions of the real thing.

The Sun City Model Yacht Club started nearly 13 years ago in the Sun City community, an upscale 55-and-over retirement community in nearby Bluffton. The group sails two types of boats: an East Coast 12 Meter (5 feet long by 6 feet high, weighing 26 pounds) and a Soling One Meter (1 foot long by 4 feet high, weighing 10 pounds).

The club has 32 members and sails four days a week on Lake Somerset, competing in spring, summer and fall series. In addition, the club hosts two regattas.

But the Sun City sailors aren’t alone. The American Model Yachting Association boasts thousands of members around the country and even has its own AMYA Hall of Fame.

The boats themselves are radio-controlled and cost anywhere from $1300 for a build-it-yourself model to $2500 for a professionally built one. One hand controls the rudder while the other controls the sails. “You’ve got to marry the two perfectly or you’re not going to get the optimum speed,” advises Fran DiTommaso, who retired to Sun City from upstate New York. “It’s all in the thumbs,” he says emphatically.

Most of the club’s members are Sun City residents, with a few active members sailing well into their eighties. “It’s the kind of activity where you can do it for many, many years during retirement,” DiTommaso says.

Like many of the club’s members, DiTommaso used to sail the real thing, though he concedes he prefers sailing models. “No, I gave up big boats,” he says with a laugh. “It was just too much trouble keeping a boat, keeping it maintained, finding crew and then [sailing on] bad days,” says the club’s EC-12 champion for four years running. “With models, it’s pretty easy. If you look out the window and see it raining, you just don’t go.”

Interested in model yachting? Visit www.modelyacht.org for tips on how to get started.

See it Live

Wanna see the sailors in action? The Sun City Model Yacht Club hosts its signature event, the Sun City Regatta, on September 19–20. For more information, e-mail frandito@sc.rr.com