Delta Force Sniper 45 - Gas Mono

[Darin Jordan]

Darin,

A couple of suggestions: of the few non-FE sniper's I have seen run there were some common tricks that seemed to work well.

1. 2 pairs of long wide trim tabs. At least the SM 1.5"x1.5" ones. Tabs set with a little negative and about a 1/32" above the transom. Training wheels on the inner two helped. It looks like you are running N2 tabs on a T size boat.
2. 5" or 6" offest rudder. In rough water a rudder flag using 4" of your favorite radio box tape afixed below the water inlet. This helps keep the nose from lifting too much. 4" of tape from the trailing edge seems pretty good. Shorter and the effect is less, longer and attitude should be pretty consistent, but slower.
3. Use at least a 500mL or 1000mL or equal size hard tank just in front of the started cup and top it off. Or add 12-16oz of lead in front of the starter cup.

Octura X series seem to work well. X472, X467 pitched up or a X670 if your motor has some grunt. I have alsoe seen a 2914 and 3014 work too, but these were with stump puller motors without much high RPM.

Tyler

Tyler, I agree 100% with everything you've suggested!! The rudder is WAY too short, and the tabs are WAY too small. AND, the original owner mounted them about 1/4" above the bottom of the hull. Those are getting changed next.

The tank is a 500mL bag. I also had 1.5lbs of "Nuts and Bolts" (A large bolt with large nuts slid over it... didn't have any lead available Saturday night... ) in alongside the motor. We kept saying all weekend "needs more weight"....

The prop on the boat was an ABC 2614/3....

[Chilli]

Good Stuff guys. I'm going to start playing with the inner tabs and adding some weight. I've seen the Sniper videos on the DF web site and the hull does seem to ride a bit wetter than my set up (but not by much). I know these hulls will never run as deep in the water as many of the other gas mono's, but I hope to get that nose to stay down a little better in the chop.

Be carefull bringing those gas boats in perpendicular to the shore after a heat. Five feet from shore is a bad time to discover the the motor won't shut down (ask me how I know). It's much safer to parallel the shore, cut the motor and then turn in.

[Darin Jordan]

Here is a shot that Jerry Dunlap took! I love his "after the race weekend" e-mails!!