Another NOT so great day at the lake

[Chop]

My bad day was last Thursday. On the way to school my (10 year old) son ask’s me “Dad, how much time will I have for homework tonight?” I told him that he wouldn’t have much because he has a soccer game an hour away so he would loose 3 hours of time just with that. It turns out that he had not completed a report that was assigned in March and it was due on Friday! He still needed to get some notes, write a rough draft and write the final copy!!! A few emails to his teachers revealed just how much work he had ahead of him. Needless to say he didn’t go to soccer.

At lunch I went to a river to play with my new Micro Cat by Mini Cat Racing. I have used it about 6 times now and just love it. The water at the river was very calm, with just a slight ripple. Keep in mind that this river is about ¾ mile wide and flows at 8500 cubic feet per second (a big river). I put the boat in the water, hit the throttle and it shot off across the water beautifully. Time to turn it around... but it just kept heading out! Slowed the boat down and tried to turn, but it just went in a circle. As I fooled with the steering the boat kept going farther and farther out until it was nearly out of sight.

I called home and sent my girlfriend to get the Jet Ski’s. In the mean time I went to the a boat landing about a half mile downstream hoping that the boat would drift back into radio range. As I pulled up a fisherman was getting into his boat. I explained my situation and he gave me a ride out, we spotted the (bright yellow) boat, retrieved it and came back to shore. I thanked him, gave him $10 for the help and examined the boat. The steering servo had broken loose causing me to loose rudder control.

I get back to work and my boss calls me into his office (and I wasn’t even late). He tells me he has some good news and some bad news. The bad news, my contract will not be renewed. I work at a paper mill as a contract (mechanical) designer. The new company that has purchased the mill has decided to shut down one of the three machines here. All departments are being asked to cut back. I am one of the cutbacks.

The good news he tells me, he just signed another purchase order for my time and he can keep me busy until the end of August.

UGH!

[goingdef]

My bad day was last Thursday. On the way to school my (10 year old) son ask’s me “Dad, how much time will I have for homework tonight?” I told him that he wouldn’t have much because he has a soccer game an hour away so he would loose 3 hours of time just with that. It turns out that he had not completed a report that was assigned in March and it was due on Friday! He still needed to get some notes, write a rough draft and write the final copy!!! A few emails to his teachers revealed just how much work he had ahead of him. Needless to say he didn’t go to soccer.

At lunch I went to a river to play with my new Micro Cat by Mini Cat Racing. I have used it about 6 times now and just love it. The water at the river was very calm, with just a slight ripple. Keep in mind that this river is about ¾ mile wide and flows at 8500 cubic feet per second (a big river). I put the boat in the water, hit the throttle and it shot off across the water beautifully. Time to turn it around... but it just kept heading out! Slowed the boat down and tried to turn, but it just went in a circle. As I fooled with the steering the boat kept going farther and farther out until it was nearly out of sight.

I called home and sent my girlfriend to get the Jet Ski’s. In the mean time I went to the a boat landing about a half mile downstream hoping that the boat would drift back into radio range. As I pulled up a fisherman was getting into his boat. I explained my situation and he gave me a ride out, we spotted the (bright yellow) boat, retrieved it and came back to shore. I thanked him, gave him $10 for the help and examined the boat. The steering servo had broken loose causing me to loose rudder control.

I get back to work and my boss calls me into his office (and I wasn’t even late). He tells me he has some good news and some bad news. The bad news, my contract will not be renewed. I work at a paper mill as a contract (mechanical) designer. The new company that has purchased the mill has decided to shut down one of the three machines here. All departments are being asked to cut back. I am one of the cutbacks.

The good news he tells me, he just signed another purchase order for my time and he can keep me busy until the end of August.

UGH!

Ya know I don't care how many boats I lose. that still would not add up to the job situation hope everything goes better for you.Here this always makes me laugh

[Eyekandyboats]

its only a speed controller. not the end of the world.
no it just kinda seeped out of the cracks a bit. my boats are tightly sealed so there was not much

[ace028]

Chop, thats by far a worse day then mine. I don't think that losing your boat would have made your day any better, its really cool that the guy took you out to rescue your boat. If your like me, ya don't really have a lot of money to throw at your hobbies, so you kinda got to make the most of what you got, and having a few hundered bucks worth of RC stuff go bye bye is like hard to replace, unless your rich like some of these guys on here with all these awsome builds lol. Thats cool that you can stay working till august, gives you time to line another job up hopefully. The ecomomy is really bad right now, well at least here in California.

[peells]

Ace's Cracker Box Repair In Progress (finally)

Well Her it is again folks!! The world renowned Ace's Hot Rod Cracker Box

I have Finally gotten around to working on this little bit of body work which has been needing to be done for some time now (other priorities) well here are a couple of pics of the damage all feathered out, I will be filling it and doing a awesome spot repair to it, Keep watching for up dates..

P. Eells

[ace028]

Awsome! I need to buy a motor and esc for it. I'm not going to keep swaping it out of my car.

[peells]

Now buy a 540L or XL and the weight will move a little forward, and I have been thinking about making your skeg a little shorter because when I had one on my boat all it did was make it roll over the opposite way when I turned it so I knocked it off and my handling instantly got better!!!!!

[ace028]

It ran pretty good before with 3s, just need to adjust COG. Its not designed to handle well at the speeds I will be driving it anyways, I don't think they are designed to handle well at all lol. They are just fun.

[peells]

You can make it handle well!!! and if you are going to make a new one I have a really cool idea instead of the skeg we will put like four skegs staggered at the rear on either side but they would be about 1/4 of the size + or - so of the one on the existing boat like two near the center and two spread wider toward the back kind of like a v formation but without the one in the center.

[ozzie-crawl]

i think everyone has bad days at the pond.i know i have but then you get the days were its all worth while. like the other day have been setting up a 25" mono for 5 lap oval and decided to gps and got a top speed of 47mph not bad for race trim and dead flat water will be real happy when it gets to 50mph

[peells]

Yea I bet you will, 45 inn't too shabby and if you can maintain it for the 5 laps and win even if you do not hit 50 you will be really happy, What setup are you running?

[ozzie-crawl]

to get 47mph was that bust you get from fresh batteries plus proped up a bit. so batteries dropped of a bit after two laps. setup is a 25" mono (chinese copy) ammo 2300 with a detounged X640 on 4s 2p. runs about 43mph. the 47mph was a detounged x642. water was dead flat and boat was running wet so i reckon there is a 50 mph pass to be had. not to bad for a boat that has cost me less to put togethor includeing batteries than a stock sv27 would cost me here in oz

[peells]

It sure does sound like there is a 50 somewhere in there, my boat runs a 540XL 1800kva w/6s2p and I still cant get it up to full speed watch my video from my link below I am running a x438 cut and polished (de-burred) I made this boat from scratch I have another one I am going to swap all my stuff out of the current model and and see what happens but first I must paint the new one they are both 28" with a 8" beam but I have a newer design which is about a 9" beam for more stability it might even be my wiggly Fine Design Rudder Assembly (which I will soon be correcting with a new stand off and rudder bracket)

[ozzie-crawl]

cool video. boat runs real nice. i like my mono its reliable every time i go to the pond i get acouple of runs out of it. but for speed i run a 32" cat with 7XL on 4s. and iam in the process of building a twin motor cat

[Mikey P.]

I know many of you are much more experienced then I am in the RC boat world. With that said, if that was my boat, I'd reinforce the hull with composite, bondo the hole, sand the hull, and repaint. In that order. I wouldn't do another nice detailed paint job until after i tested, just a base coat.