My Rivercat sank :(

[Local Boy]

Hey Travis,

I've been quietly hoping that you would find your boat, and continue to do so. Perhaps an inflatable kayak? Much easier to transport... I got one, just in case, the situation calls for it to be deployed.
For whatever its worth... You did the right thing.... swimming out is the easy part...swimming back is when most people succumb to the quiet and incessant pull of the depths... happens alot here in the Islands...

Good Luck...and Be Safe!

Aloha

[kfxguy]

Time heals all things, I wanted to throw in the towel after I lost a brand new fe30 on its maiden. Spent lots of time making it my own, got to excited about it. Finished it up just before dusk and really wanted to test it. Dumb me didn't think to do a radio test. Boat lost signal about 100 ft from shore, went to get the recovery raft in my truck, when I got back boat was gone. Kayaked the entire lake the following morning but never did find it. At least you got to watch yours sink. I did win the boat in a raffle but I supplied all the electronics and hardware. I did eventually get over it but it did take a couple years.

The only good thing I can say is I wanted to make changes or wished I had done some things different on this boat I lost, well now I get to...but not by choice lol. I'm just really hurt that I lost a $450 motor.

[TheShaughnessy]

Time heals all things, I wanted to throw in the towel after I lost a brand new fe30 on its maiden. Spent lots of time making it my own, got to excited about it. Finished it up just before dusk and really wanted to test it. Dumb me didn't think to do a radio test. Boat lost signal about 100 ft from shore, went to get the recovery raft in my truck, when I got back boat was gone. Kayaked the entire lake the following morning but never did find it. At least you got to watch yours sink. I did win the boat in a raffle but I supplied all the electronics and hardware. I did eventually get over it but it did take a couple years.

[srislash]

You put it much better than I could!

There's many things in life that we all get upset over, stress about, get mad over but in the ultimate end, none of it really matters. Life really is simple. We are all here just killing time until it's our time. Some make a difference in society and some don't. To the above guy, thanks for posting that video. It does put things into perspective. It still won't change the fact that every time I visit that lake I won't get bummed being remind of what's sitting on the bottom.

You'll get over it Travis, it may take... Umm... 4 years, LOL. And you may STILL think of recovery then. But you'll quit looking out and going 'DANG!!!'.

[kfxguy]

You did the right thing, it's hard to have the right frame of mind when you see your beloved boat sinking and not go for a foolish swim. I have been there myself once and I turned back because I started to remember the admonitions from members here at the Forum. My life might have just been saved by the fact that I read those stories.
As far as getting a perspective, for those of us who are in love with our toy boats, this is it, we let our imagination strectch as far as we can. A lost like that is a tragedy and I see no harm to express our grief.
Nothing is more tragic than real life death. I have watched that clip before and everytime I am saddened by this man's death and especially his father had to witness the event unfolding.
I echo Travis' sentiment that this thread is not about not having perspective on real life mishap. The fact that we are nuts about model boats means we have passion about this hobby.
Just my $.02





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You put it much better than I could!

There's many things in life that we all get upset over, stress about, get mad over but in the ultimate end, none of it really matters. Life really is simple. We are all here just killing time until it's our time. Some make a difference in society and some don't. To the above guy, thanks for posting that video. It does put things into perspective. It still won't change the fact that every time I visit that lake I won't get bummed being remind of what's sitting on the bottom.

[tlandauer]

You did the right thing, it's hard to have the right frame of mind when you see your beloved boat sinking and not go for a foolish swim. I have been there myself once and I turned back because I started to remember the admonitions from members here at the Forum. My life might have just been saved by the fact that I read those stories.
As far as getting a perspective, for those of us who are in love with our toy boats, this is it, we let our imagination strectch as far as we can. A lost like that is a tragedy and I see no harm to express our grief.
Nothing is more tragic than real life death. I have watched that clip before and everytime I am saddened by this man's death and especially his father had to witness the event unfolding.
I echo Travis' sentiment that this thread is not about not having perspective on real life mishap. The fact that we are nuts about model boats means we have passion about this hobby.
Just my $.02





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[boilo56]

Tragic of course, but what does this have to do with it? Of course I'd much rather lose my boat than my life, the main reason I didn't swim for. I've gotten flack from several people asking why I didn't swim out there and get it. You know what my response was? I asked if they had ever swam out and retrieved a water logged object that weighed prolly 25-30lbs full of water.....swimming back with one arm. Not one of them has. So I told them to try it. I did it once and I'd never do it again. It's not easy even for a very in shape person. Being smart I'm still here, lost my boat but I've already started on another one. I wasn't going to do a build thread on it as I've build many of these, although this one will be a bit better and different in many ways. I don't want to bore anyone with Rivercat builds lol.

Go with the built thread, i will be the first to follow it, and in the same time, i will learn a lot more on Fe Boat building!!!

[kfxguy]

Lets get things into perspective https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xemKc2In5Y

Tragic of course, but what does this have to do with it? Of course I'd much rather lose my boat than my life, the main reason I didn't swim for. I've gotten flack from several people asking why I didn't swim out there and get it. You know what my response was? I asked if they had ever swam out and retrieved a water logged object that weighed prolly 25-30lbs full of water.....swimming back with one arm. Not one of them has. So I told them to try it. I did it once and I'd never do it again. It's not easy even for a very in shape person. Being smart I'm still here, lost my boat but I've already started on another one. I wasn't going to do a build thread on it as I've build many of these, although this one will be a bit better and different in many ways. I don't want to bore anyone with Rivercat builds lol.

[Andrewc]

Lets get things into perspective https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xemKc2In5Y

[USA4ME]

Sorry to hear about this Travis. My son dives, he said it depends on how tall the grass and weeds are on the floor. Some ponds have zero weeds, some have ten foot tall weeds. That would be the hardest part about finding it. It's rare to see or hear about one going down with proper floatation. One pool noodle will keep a fifteen pound boat afloat slam full of water at the surface. And by proper I mean, the pool noodle needs to be zip-tied to a main structure in the hull. I've never been a fan of any type off blow foam. I've seen decks come off, boats hydraulic from a crash and dead boats opened up like a can opener hit it from another prop and rudder driving over it. It floods fast! Noodle not tied in will come to the surface and hardware goes to the bottom.

Chances are, if it had time to flood. It went straight down. I would try a john boat and a casting net. Check the depth and mark the line, let the net go all the way to the bottom. Time consuming, but you never know you might snag it.

[kevinpratt823]

Kayak was the best investment I ever made. I bought it the day after my retrieval boat died way out and I ended up trespassing my way to swimming out for 2 boats.......

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[lt130th]

Stay positive, man. You might get it back & find it was something little like the hatch that caused it to sink. Everything might dry out & keep running just fine. You never know. Don't give up the search. Show that lake who's boss!

[kfxguy]

It's funny cause over the years I've heard people saying "don't control you're expensive boat with a cheap radio". But it's like the same guys who build cheap retrieval rigs that are useless when the boat goes nose up. The best investment I ever made in the hobby was that kayak.


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Well my retrieval boat hasn't let me down in two years. It's brought nose up boats in several times. It's just this boat had a major failure. It was probably only going 80-85 which may have been slow enough to where it didn't take much flight to slow it down. I didn't reinforce the hatch either like I should have. My fault. I didn't want to block the signal with carbon and I couldn't get the black fiberglass to lay well enough to use it for an inlay. Well I didn't try hard enough actually. Last night I did a customers hatch with the black fiberglass and it worked great. That's what I'll be doing for now on. I'm seriously thinking about a kayak. Seriously. I could chain it to the tree and funny you say that because me and bduncan were discussing that just the other day. I have to be careful tho, it's mainly kids that hang out at this lake. I was thinking about getting a two person, my son paddle while I dredged the bottom for my boat. At this point I don't care about anything in it except for my strut that I custom made. O and the mbp collet. I'll let you know what I come up with.

[Luck as a Constant]

My Rivercat sank

It's funny cause over the years I've heard people saying "don't control you're expensive boat with a cheap radio". But it's like the same guys who build cheap retrieval rigs that are useless when the boat goes nose up. The best investment I ever made in the hobby was that kayak.


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[Luck as a Constant]

I know it's not much good now in finding your boat, but for future incidents. I wonder if you could just chain it to a nearby tree or whatever and leave it there.
Maybe you can find some cheap pos locally. Craigslist it for a beater and chain that sucker up.


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