Newbie

[water dog]

Hi guys .I just purchased a new Cen nitro Auqua Jet and cant wait to get my feet wet.I really dont want to get my feet wet ,so I hope that a fishing pole can help me get it bank when it stalls,or I may need to get a small electric boat to get it back .I hope the engine is reliable .I have a traxxas nitro sport truck and I know how to tune and mod an engine .Wish me luck !!!.Any tipps will be thankfull .Thanks!.

[manuloco]

:) Your going to have a blast!!!!!!!!!!!

[scorpien boats]

have fun man!

great to see more people with rc cars getting into rc boating!!

[Ron Olson]

I use a fishing pole with a top-water lure for close retrievals. If they get too far out, I use a cheap inflatable row boat.
If you haven't run the boat yet, it will run really rough until the motor gets broken in, CEN's are that way. After that, they start and run great. The stock prop is terrible so plan on replacing it with an Octura, X437/3, X438, X637 or up to an X440/3.
For a bunch of tips that will help you out, look for my posting in this section called "Boat Review Coming". Do a search for it as it's probably back a ways. Most you can use for your boat.

[water dog]

The manual says to run it rich for 3 to 5 tanks of fuel.can I run it on a bench connected to a water hose to help the break in process?.I just broke in an engine for my truck and I heat cycled it for 30 min .I ran it for 3to5 min ,then let it cool.I dont want to do that with my boat.It is very time consuming .Do you guys run FAIL SAFES on your boats?.

[Hydro Junkie]

Boat motors are a totally different animal than a car motor. While you can run it on the bench, it's NOT ADVISABLE. I did it with a K&B 7.5, big mistake. I ended up having to rebuild the motor and the boat. The marine motors need to have a load on them. You are better off to run your boat rich at about half throttle on the first tank and lean it out gradually over the next few tanks while increasing your speed. Others may have other ways to break in a motor, too. As for fail safes, as far as I know, ALL IMPBA/NAMBA/APBA affiliated clubs REQUIRE FAIL SAFES. They are normally on the throttle, set to shut the motor off if the transmitter signal is lost. Even if your boat is going to be just a toy, it beats having your boat slam into the beach, or something else, due to a radio failure. :(

[water dog]

Thanks for the tip .I had a truck that went out of control and hit a pile of wood and broke in two.I now have a fail safe on it .

[water dog]

I use a fishing pole with a top-water lure for close retrievals. If they get too far out, I use a cheap inflatable row boat.
If you haven't run the boat yet, it will run really rough until the motor gets broken in, CEN's are that way. After that, they start and run great. The stock prop is terrible so plan on replacing it with an Octura, X437/3, X438, X637 or up to an X440/3.
For a bunch of tips that will help you out, look for my posting in this section called "Boat Review Coming". Do a search for it as it's probably back a ways. Most you can use for your boat.How about the 9.00 carbon fiber prop that they offer as an upgrade?.

[Ron Olson]

As for fail safes, as far as I know, ALL IMPBA/NAMBA/APBA affiliated clubs REQUIRE FAIL SAFES. They are normally on the throttle, set to shut the motor off if the transmitter signal is lost. Even if your boat is going to be just a toy, it beats having your boat slam into the beach, or something else, due to a radio failure. :(
This is a new one to me! I've been in the IMPBA for a long time and have never heard of such a rule. None of my race boats have a failsafe installed. Yeah, I know that I'm asking for trouble in case something does happen and yes, it has, but not at a race. It would be a good rule for sure but there is not one in the IMPBA or any other sanctioning body that I now of. If you find a ruling somewhere, I'd like to see it if possible. I do have a RAm failsafe but I had a problem with it at a race so it got tossed.
I don't know about the 9.0 prop, this is the first time that I've heard of it. I'll have to look in my Grey Thunder owners manual to see if it's in there.
I did a search after I posted my last reply and didn't find my article. I might have been dumped during the upgrade of this site.

[Hydro Junkie]

Where I got that from is talking to people out here on the West Coast. Every boater I've talked to that belongs to a club is required to have a failsafe on their boat. If this is a club requirement, and not a national one, I agree, it should be. The only exception I've heard of is the electric scale ship modellers. I assume it's because they will only run till the batteries die, and they aren't nearly as fast as the gas and nitro boats

[BoatDoc]

oh no!! i've lost control of my scale boat! it's going 3 mph and it may hurt someone! oops...now that i'm running 40+ with my prather, maybe i should get one too!

[Hydro Junkie]

O K Doc, maybe I'm too gung ho, but after seeing out of control scale hydros run up the bank for thirty feet, hit trees and do donuts out in the middle of the lake for five minutes, I really think they are a nessesary add on. It beats the hell out of having to rebuild a boat or take some one to the hospital that was in the wrong place at the wrong time :(

[BoatDoc]

i was refering to stuff like scale fishing boats. soooooo slow. i wish i had a good scale hydro, they rock and i would hate to crash one.

[Ron Olson]

You'd be surprised at how fast some electric scale boats can go! The Scale Ship Modellers of North America used to have one of their big events about 2 miles down the street from my house. The majority of the time they do run them at scale-like speeds but some can really move out if they want them to. With the time, money and enough detail to make a person go insane on them, a failsafe wouldn't hurt a bit on them either. BTW, a Miss Darby tugboat weighs well over 80 lbs and I've seen others that need a full 8' truck bed to transport them.
When I worked at last years IMPBA Internats, we had a few boats get OOC at very high speeds, it's not a pretty picture. You've never seen a bunch of old men run so fast out of the pit area in your life! All I got on my camcorder was the ground as I was running out of there!
If I think about it tomorrow, I'll post a shot of the results of what happens when some Moron gets his radio and turns it on without a frequency clip.

[Hydro Junkie]

Are you saying there was not an impound area, or was this guy too good to use it? I don't know if you belong to a club or not, but the club I belong to REQUIRES ALL RADIOS IMPOUNDED during the heats, UNLESS the frequency pin is available. You also are not allowed to be on the driver's stand without the frequency pin for the channel you are running. So far, I haven't seen any one hit, but there's still that chance.........

[BoatDoc]

i crashed one of my boats a long time ago. if i had a fail safe in it, it would have been ok. luckily, i recovered the boat and the electronics. can't say much for the 30 some-odd inch carp that i hit! that is the incident that caused me to leave the hobby until last summer. now that i'm running faster than ever, i should start investing in fail safes. especially with two racing outriggers in the process of being built. outriggers are just too fast to run without some sort of safety device on board.

[Hydro Junkie]

Especially with a boat that, depending what you power it with, can top 60mph. The club I belong to has scale boats that top 60, weighing in at 14 to 20 pounds with .67s. I'm a little surprised you are going to finish the Hawk. I decided after my second Dumas kit(?), that a Dumas would never again enter my house. Have you decided what motor is going into your boat? By the way, what happened to the carp? And did I read right, you want a scale hydro?

[BoatDoc]

yes, i'm going to finish this kit. i bought it a long time ago, but it will see water. i'll be using a K&B inboard .21. i'll have to "massage" it a bit, but it'll be a fun ride. after this, i will never touch another die cut kit. after building a laser cut kit from Climate, i figure that laser is the only way to go. but believe you me...i will not touch dumas again. unless they decide to start putting out a better quality boat. i'd rather scratch build! but on a positive note, i'm ditching the stock sponsons in favor of Climate pieces meant for the firefighter .21. and i think i'll be installing a fail safe on this puppy. i intend on milking every last mph that i can from this one.

[Hydro Junkie]

I was expecting an OS 21 with the pull start. After looking at the specs, the K&B gives about 4k more revs. So, what was this I was eading about you and scale hydros?

[BoatDoc]

i wasn't talking smack about scale hydro's. i think they are great. i was talking smack about tug boats and fishing boats.

[Ron Olson]

This is the result of some idiot grabbing his radio from impound and turning on Channel 70. We had trouble tracking down the culprit as it was the most popular Freq at the Internats. The owner WAS in the running for 1st place in "F" hydro before the crash. Luckily, somehow they had a sense of humor after the incident and brought it down for a run-off. Would a failsafe have helped? Possibly. Some are designed to shut down if it recieves conflcting signals.

[Hydro Junkie]

Was his boat damaged, I couldn't tell. He didn't look too happy. By the way, Boat Doc, I know you were talking smack about scale boats. I was just curious if you are serious about getting a scale hydro. I might be able to help you out on that one, if you dont mind building :cool: I can also tell you where not to go for a scale hull :( Let me know :D

[BoatDoc]

i've been thinking about a scale hydro. i really like 'em. but i'm in the middle of setting up a climate blizzard, a dumas hawk, tuning my prather vee, repairing my bud and tweaking my hammer. the next boat i build will most likely be the el lobo2 from fuller's. maybe i'll do a scale hydro this fall. my honda can only carry so many boats! and once all 5 of these are ready, it'll be a full house. besides, i live in army barracks! and i don't know where i'm going to keep my hawk when its finished!

[Ron Olson]

Yeah, a little broken. He hit a steel wall doing about 70 MPH. What is in his hands is an outrigger hydro, the back half of the tub from about the motor mount back. One funny thing about it, the tank manufacturers were there, Tanks2U. The former owner, Steve Ball and the new owner, Walt Barney were trying to figure out who made the fuel cell. It was hard to tell, it looked like a crushed pop can.
The problem at the Internats was a shortage of help. No one was working at the impound area so people were taking their radios as they needed them. I was pulling duty as pit boss, retrieve boat driver, handing out T-shirts, pit man, plus working on my son's boat. I was spending 12+ hours a day at the pond alone then doing the cooking, laundry, etc. back at the campsite.

[Hydro Junkie]

Sounds like it's time for a storage shed :D A 5x10 would do nicely, room for all the boats and accessories. It also sounds like it's time for a truck or an SUV to haul them :cool: I take it you don't qualify for off base housing. As a former Navy payclerk, I know BAQ and VHA doesn't cover a hell of a lot, unless you have officers bars :mad: The scale boats can be a blast, once completed. Nothing equals the sight of six of these monsters screaming to the start :D The only problem is 'WHERE DO I PUT THIS THING WHEN ITS DONE?" As the average boat is 42" to 52" long and 18" to 24" wide, they do take up a lot of real estate. The next question is what era of boat would you want? An early round nose, a conventional picklefork, a cabover or a turbine? If you're looking at this fall, you have a while to think about it :)

Ron, it sounds like a typical day at the races. How often do you see enough help at any big event? The last time I saw enough help was at the SeaFair Mini Cup back in 1991. I was working Security at one of the gates, so I missed the first half of the days racing. Unfortunately, the event wasn't repeated. The race site is now Safeco Field, so I don't think it will be there again, either :(

[BoatDoc]

i like the shovelnose hydro's. i think that they're slicker than snot on a door knob. i've been thinking about the electric one that climate just released so that i could try my hand at some LSH racing next time i'm back in sweet home milwaukee. but the big nitro's are ohhh sooo sweet!

[Ron Olson]

OK, back to the original posting. I (we) have a problem of going off on a tangent, it happens all of the time. :D
Anyway, some of the mods that I did on my Grey Thunder included turning the cooling head 90 degrees. I don't like the idea of having a cooling line right over the top of the carb. I installed a 4 oz. Sullivan SS-4 tank in it for longer run time. It fit right in between the engine rails of my boat. Get some stuff like Aeroplate, Corrosion X or The Stuph to waterproof your servos and reciever seeing that they are not located in a waterproof radio box. I flipped mine the first time out without treating the equipment. I got lucky but did treat them afterwards.

[BoatDoc]

i was going to ask about that radio set-up. i don't like the idea of an open radio tray. have you had any other water problems? cuz if the hatch is good enough to keep water off of the radio, wouldn't that mean the engine is breathing a lot of hot air, and not getting any fresh air?

[Ron Olson]

True. You can drill a 1" hole over the top of the carb to let cooling air in. It might look a little ugly there but it will help a lot. Maybe some smaller holes along the front of the cover would help too instead of the other. Any fresh air will help.
Yeah, I did have radio problems like what I mentioned before. My reciever took a dump then sat for about 2 weeks when I thought that I'd give the Aeroplate a shot. It worked! If you want to know where to get some, most Hobby Shops can get it even though most don't have a clue as to what it is. It's made by Aerotrend, the same people that make tuned pipe couplers, clamps and other parts. The radio gear does sit up pretty high in my boat so that does help in case some water does get in but not if it gets submerged. Oh yeah, add some foam floatation in there also.

[water dog]

Thanks for the tips .Iam writing them all down.

[Chris LaPanse]

A Hobbyzone Zig Zag Racer with that little net attachment makes a great retrieval boat for stranded nitro boats. A lot easier than the fishing line method. :D