Looking for a new cat

[gfm1135]

Thanks Dave. These forums are a great source of information but with all the varied opinions it can be very confusing to the newbie. I appreciate you sharing your first hand experience as to second hand opinions. I have a 120a ESC. What about a motor? around 50mph with the stock motor?

[gfm1135]

Also you said a couple of 4s batteries. Do you mean running them individually or in a series? Thanks again

[keithbradley]

A boat'a bottom design has an effect on handling, despite what you may choose to believe. Saying that it's a myth is just silly.

[1945dave]

A boat'a bottom design has an effect on handling, despite what you may choose to believe. Saying that it's a myth is just silly.

Keith, no question a boats bottom will affect handling. The myth has to do with ride pads on a cat. I know vee hulls and mono's benefit from so called ride pads but how about explaining to me how a ride pad configuration on a cat improves handling. Ride pads are all about speed. Ride pads on a cat? To the best of my knowledge ride pads flatten out the ride attitude and to improve cornering on a cat usually means changing the diheadral angles in a design. Am I mis-informed? Educate me.

Dave

[1945dave]

Also you said a couple of 4s batteries. Do you mean running them individually or in a series? Thanks again

4S batteries. 1 individually will work but more likely 2 in parallel, The good news if you buy a couple of good 4S batteries they will work well in all of the boats mentioned here. Buying additional 4S batteries is just a matter of what can you afford for spares.

Dave

[SirBudman32]

My experience is first hand as well, like I said had one till yesterday, I smashed it. I just think you would be happier with a better handling boat that will go fast straight as well as in turns. Its your money and you can do what you want just be careful as you may be doing it twice.


Genesis17.jpgGenesis15.jpg

[1945dave]

My experience is first hand as well, like I said had one till yesterday, I smashed it. I just think you would be happier with a better handling boat that will go fast straight as well as in turns. Its your money and you can do what you want just be careful as you may be doing it twice.


[ATTACH=CONFIG]84818[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]84819[/ATTACH]

Hey Budman, you smash it? How bad. Want to sell the naked hull?

Dave

[SirBudman32]

smashed in two pieces and in trash. only thing left is the hatch.

[keithbradley]

Keith, no question a boats bottom will affect handling. The myth has to do with ride pads on a cat. I know vee hulls and mono's benefit from so called ride pads but how about explaining to me how a ride pad configuration on a cat improves handling. Ride pads are all about speed. Ride pads on a cat? To the best of my knowledge ride pads flatten out the ride attitude and to improve cornering on a cat usually means changing the diheadral angles in a design. Am I mis-informed? Educate me.

Dave

I don't have time to take pics and explain the difference right now, perhaps I can post more this weekend.
I can tell you for sure that if you experience a few cats that are superior in cornering to the Genesis/Daytona, you won't need much of an explanation. You can get a Genesis to handle OK, but you will never get it to take a tight corner at 70mph consistantly. I am assuming you have never owned a cat that will and that is why you hold the Genesis in such high regard. That's not meant to be offensive...just an observation.

[1945dave]

I don't have time to take pics and explain the difference right now, perhaps I can post more this weekend.
I can tell you for sure that if you experience a few cats that are superior in cornering to the Genesis/Daytona, you won't need much of an explanation. You can get a Genesis to handle OK, but you will never get it to take a tight corner at 70mph consistantly. I am assuming you have never owned a cat that will and that is why you hold the Genesis in such high regard. That's not meant to be offensive...just an observation.

Relax Keith, I am not so much defending the Genesis nor do I hold it is such high regard. I always take strong critism of a retail product that confuses a newbie when so many on this forum think nothing about saying buy this over that even though the newbie is not prepared to spend as much as everyone else would like him to. Just the same I still stand behind my defense of the Genesis as a nice 50 mph entry boat.

However I have been involved with Nitro and Gas RC competition mostly heat racing for 40 years. I have seven other cats at this moment, mostly bigger however, though I can't say any of them are 70 mph heat racing cats. And if you are critical of the Genesis for not being a good 70 mph heat racing cat I think I can see the problem.

Your feathers got ruffled and I am sorry about that I didn't mean to step on your toes. If your ride pads are just different styles of steps and in strips you might have a case to prove lowering the wet surface lift or raising the lift may help a cat and that I can believe and understand. Just the same My short experience in this hobby leads me to say without a doubt cats are much more difficult to tweak than either mono's or out-riggers. In part that is what endears me to them. My favorite cat is one that was a discard by Aeromarine when developing the Avenger. It would hook and spin out at will. I glued and sanded popcicle sticks for months until I got it going pretty well. I also have molded and custom built my own cat adding 4 inches to a popular retail cat and am always looking to incorporate new ideas. So on second thought, please take a good photo or two of your favorite best handling cat's bottom so I can see if I need to change my thinking.

Anyway, the beginning of this thread was based on a newbie asking for some advice. I think he got confused and discouraged rather than encouraged and confident which is what we should have done. Somebody on this forum stated that 3 out of every 4 newbies give up on the hobby in less than one year. That is what we need to work on. I never said don't buy a Aquacraft or proboat. And yes a strong case could be made for any newbie to start with a vee bottom boat over a cat, but that was not the basis for this thread.

Dave

[keithbradley]

Relax Keith, I am not so much defending the Genesis nor do I hold it is such high regard. I always take strong critism of a retail product that confuses a newbie when so many on this forum think nothing about saying buy this over that even though the newbie is not prepared to spend as much as everyone else would like him to. Just the same I still stand behind my defense of the Genesis as a nice 50 mph entry boat.

However I have been involved with Nitro and Gas RC competition mostly heat racing for 40 years. I have seven other cats at this moment, mostly bigger however, though I can't say any of them are 70 mph heat racing cats. And if you are critical of the Genesis for not being a good 70 mph heat racing cat I think I can see the problem.

Your feathers got ruffled and I am sorry about that I didn't mean to step on your toes. If your ride pads are just different styles of steps and in strips you might have a case to prove lowering the wet surface lift or raising the lift may help a cat and that I can believe and understand. Just the same My short experience in this hobby leads me to say without a doubt cats are much more difficult to tweak than either mono's or out-riggers. In part that is what endears me to them. My favorite cat is one that was a discard by Aeromarine when developing the Avenger. It would hook and spin out at will. I glued and sanded popcicle sticks for months until I got it going pretty well. I also have molded and custom built my own cat adding 4 inches to a popular retail cat and am always looking to incorporate new ideas. So on second thought, please take a good photo or two of your favorite best handling cat's bottom so I can see if I need to change my thinking.

Anyway, the beginning of this thread was based on a newbie asking for some advice. I think he got confused and discouraged rather than encouraged and confident which is what we should have done. Somebody on this forum stated that 3 out of every 4 newbies give up on the hobby in less than one year. That is what we need to work on. I never said don't buy a Aquacraft or proboat. And yes a strong case could be made for any newbie to start with a vee bottom boat over a cat, but that was not the basis for this thread.

Dave

No feathers ruffled here...I'm just giving my honest opinion...nothing personal. Some boats are better than others at certain things. All of them can be made to handle decently if modified enough, but if I can choose between a cat that I have to glue popcicle sticks on to get it to handle correctly, and a cat that handles well without mods, I'll take the latter.

[gfm1135]

Well said Dave. I come this forum to try and educate myself and make an educated purchase decision. What occurs more times than not is greater confusion than prior to asking for advice. Either you get opinions from members who have a knowledge base less than or equal to mine or you get a seasoned veteran who gets into a knowledge war with another seasoned veteran which just has no benefit to my decision making process.

[1945dave]

No feathers ruffled here...I'm just giving my honest opinion...nothing personal. Some boats are better than others at certain things. All of them can be made to handle decently if modified enough, but if I can choose between a cat that I have to glue popcicle sticks on to get it to handle correctly, and a cat that handles well without mods, I'll take the latter.

Great Keith, we are good to go. Perhaps at another time or occasion you and I can discuss stability issues with cats in general and how you address that. Quite frankly I am proud of all the years learning from a guy you may have heard of. Tommy Lee. He knew more about cats and handling than everyone else I knew combined. The popcicle sticks and toung compressors were pretty useful, We could extend the riding surface in both directions (still not a pad in my opinion) and also add thin strakes to help with sliding. Your point to buy a proven boat with most of the handling issues already addressed is a well founded principle. While I know it is hard to get everyone to like the same varibles such as brand X or brand Y I have implored the moderators to help us do just that for the newbies before they make a complete blunder. It seems we can not officially endorse any brand of product over another but in the product review section we can give our opinions for such things as brands of motors and speed controls etc. I think we need a beginners section set aside with a shopping list for matched items as recommended by our most experience racers for popular hulls to help a newbie in his thought process. The Genesis is the only almost ready to boat I ever got and it was a present. I prefer to build my own. I even enjoy repairing boats other guys wreck then recycle them to newbies forthe cost of any hardware I had to include. Generally a repaired boat is not always as good as new but they generally are better that RTR mass market items in my opinion.

Dave

[Rumdog]

The Genesis will turn like a shed compared to ANY of the PB, or AQ RTR cats. It hooks, and it also rolls. More so even for sport boaters, where most guys will make very abrupt manuvers in both directions. Any of the Aeromarine cats will also outhandle the Genesis without breaking a sweat.
Maybe you can make a Genesis handle OK.... but 99% of the people who own them will tell you the same thing about their handling. As far as being bigger... Not really. Maybe a few inches length wise, but width, and/or volume of the hull.. not really anty bigger than the above mentioned rtrs.

[keithbradley]

Well said Dave. I come this forum to try and educate myself and make an educated purchase decision.
a seasoned veteran who gets into a knowledge war with another seasoned veteran which just has no benefit to my decision making process.

In what way do you prefer to gain knowledge? Would you rather one person post and you blindly follow their direction?
It's threads like this that prevent me from posting more here. Someone reccomended a cat to you that I can absolutely guarantee will not handle as well as other options out there. If you look into it, you will find a couple of cats that are WELL KNOWN to handle poorly in turns. One is the Genesis/Daytona, the other is the DF Explorer cat. Strangely enough they both have scale bottoms, not the flat ride pads that better handling cats will have.

I'm not looking to get into a "war" with anyone (and I don't consider myself a veteran). I made a comment here about the Genesis' handling and hull design, and my comment was immediately disputed by another member who obviously has an affinity for the Genesis. It's perfectly fine that some people like the Genesis. I like it as well, but I am aware of it's limits.

If you want to take the first advice given and you don't think you can gain knowledge from a discussion, that's fine. I was not attempting to have a "knowledge war"...I very simply have nothing to gain by participating in such. The statement of "It has little if any complaints" is not an accurate one. Of hulls in current production, the hull we are talking about is probably the most notorious and well known hull in existance to have handling issues.