There has been some progress on the 1982 Oberto for 1/10th scale, with the sponsons completed and attached to the boat. THe build is going pretty cleanly so far - but then again it should be going pretty well considering this is the third time we have built this boat.

There was our first LSH boat as the 82 Oberto in 1/12th scale. That was a mainly balsa boat that ran great but was insufficiently waterproofed and fell apart after a few runs. Then we built that boat from plywood, reused the balsa cowling from the Oberto and painted it as the Executone. That boat is ok, but we didn't get enough angle on the sponsons and it didn't plane properly. (If we were to add some ride pads I think that could be fixed). Now we scaled the boat up for 1/10th scale. Hopefully the third time is a charm.

The second race season is over, and the new building season has begun.

The race season was pretty successful and I ended up winning the end of year championship for SV27, and finished second in both 1/10th scale and LSH.

Kyle and I have already starting building a new boat for next year in 1/10th scale - and we are going to do the 1982 Oberto. We like this boat because it is pretty easy to build and it does not have a rear tail! For the most part a rear tail seems to be extra weight, easy to break and not much for up side.

We are going to try to build this boat a lot lighter than the 7-11, and are using thinner wood pretty much all around. The 7-11 used 1/8" wood for structural pieces and 1/16 for the bottom of the hull. The Oberto will be 1/16 wood for structural pieces and 1/32 for the bottom of the hull. We will try some carbon fiber strips to strengthen the bottom of the hull so that it does not flex too much.

So far we have the hull framed and pink foam shaped for the sponsons. The sponsons will be built flat, and then glued to the sides of the hull.

The race season is now just about 1 month away and the building season is coming to a close.

All of my new 1/10th scale boats should be ready in time. The Miss 7-Eleven is complete and ready for testing while the Circus Circus is fully painted and just needs to have the hardware installed.

I hope to be able to test both boats this weekend, but it might take a bit longer to finish the Circus Circus. I just have no idea what to expect with the Circus design, but there have been very successful 4 point radio controlled designs so I am hopeful.

Jim Stephens
Puget Sound Fast Electric Model Boat Club

The rain let up for a bit today and we did get out to test the Monster Cat. It ran ok - just over 40mph but it is still a bit twitchy in the turns. I think reducing the rudder throw will help some, but after that I am not quite sure what to do.

The decals are also on the Miss 7-Eleven now, and that really improved the look of the boat. Hopefully next weekend we can test this boat. The issue will be with how to hold down the removable cowling section. I still have not decided on a good approach.

If the rain in Seattle would stop for a while I could do more testing. It has been warm enough, but wet, wet, wet.

In spite of the rain we still managed to get out and run the catamaran last week. It was quite successful until the set screw on the rudder came loose and we had to tow it back in. Some Loctite should fix that problem. I must say the catamaran turns on a dime and leaves change. It should not have any problems with the turns on the offshore course.

Meanwhile the Miss 7-Eleven is now about a week away from testing. All that remains are some details like the radio gear, the turn fin and applying the decals.

Rain, rain, go away.
I want to test another day.

Today we went out to test some new props on our LSH boats, specifically an Octura 1445 made by Andy Brown.

The results were very positive - my 7-11 LSH boat registered 50.3mph on the 1445 prop running with the 4s Hyperion G3 batteries. This is the first time we have had a LSH over 50 mph. The standard prop we ran with for racing last year was 45.2 mph, so we picked up 5mph. According to the Eagle logger we were averaging about 55 amps through the UL-1 motor. I need to do some more work to see if I can properly duplicate the prop that Andy made because it certainly did work well.

Meanwhile, the catamaran build is coming along nicely and I have some paint on the boat now. The remaining tasks will be getting the hardware installed and doing the last bit of paint.

The new 1/10th scale 7-11 is also getting some paint, but has quite a ways to go yet.

The plans arrived for the 1980 Circus Circus and I now have all of the parts cut out for that boat. It looks to be a fairly complex build, but it can be done.

The Miss 7-Eleven is making decent progress. The deck sheeting is in place and most of the construction bits are done. There is still more fiberglassing to do but things are looking good.

Currently the boat hull weighs 3lbs 8oz with hull, cowling and tail. That will incrase a bit with more fiberglass, but I think it will be fine. The old Atlas hull weighs 3lbs 2oz and that boat was built very light (and fragile). This boat should be much more durable.

I still don't have the FlightMetal for covering the turbine exhaust, so hopefully that will arrive soon.

For Black Friday at Newton Marine plans I ordered the 1980 Circus Circus - the 4 point canard style boat. The new and improved plan is to build that boat as the second 1/10th scale boat to go along with the Miss 7-Eleven.

The parts arrived today for the 30" catamaran - all nicely laser cut, and they fit together perfectly.

The plan is to run the boat with a UL-1 motor and ESC, Offshore Electric drive hardware and 4S LIPO power for racing in the spec offshore category next season. The planned paint scheme will be a black and green "Monster Energy" boat.

I am quite excited.

Meanwhile, the 7-11 has been making progress with the bottoms of both sponsons now sheeted up and the cowling under construction. The cowling is all balsa, and will have a layer of fiberglass cloth over it for strength and ding protection. The plan is to make the exhaust from a Estes B-80 rocket body tube that will be covered with Flight Metal for the aluminum look.

After some weight and balance tests I think the tail is just too heavy and is really messing with the overall balance of the 7-11. The tail was made from solid basswood and all three pieces weighed 5.6oz. The new plan is to cut out the center section, fill that with pink foam, then put a layer of fiberglass cloth over the wings, as in the picture below. It looks like the modified tail will weigh 2.7oz, so basically cutting the weight in half.

Now that the racing season is over it is time to start the building season.

First up will be the 1985 Miss 7-Eleven in 1/10th scale from Roger Newton plans. This boat has been started and the hull is framed up. The graphics for the 7-11 will be from Wesley's Custom Graphics (https://www.wesleyscustom.com/) who have a pretty wide range of boat graphics and can do them in 1/10th scale.

Next will be a 30" catamaran from plans courtesy of JesseJ on the Offshore Electric forum. The original boat plans are to make a 26" boat, but I am going to scale it up and go for 30" and race it in the P-Spec Offshore class. The plan here is to get the boat parts laser cut. I have contacted Alex Guzman (http://a-mmodels.com/) to do the custom laser cutting and it should be shipping out today. At this point I would highly recommend Alex for laser cutting. He digitized the layout from a PDF file, scaled it up and will be cutting all of the parts in 1/8" light plywood for $40, plus $15 for shipping. I am pretty excited about this boat.

The 3rd boat will be a 1/12th scale 1985 Miss Rock or 83 Oberto for LSH built from the Dave Frank plans for the Oh Boy Oberto. We built this boat once before but used balsa and had it self destruct. This boat will be built with the plywood and pink foam method that worked out nicely for our other boats. Kyle is the primary builder for this hull and is using it to get his feet wet in the whole building process. However with Kyle being a dad and expecting a new daughter this month... I think I may be doing more building as time goes on.

In the break between races we have been working on the boats and mostly on a new SV-27, a Titan 33, and repainting the older SV27.

For paint it is all Duplicolor automotive paint and we tried for a similar paint scheme on all three boats. The Titan and the new SV both use Duplicolor chameleon paint. The Titan has green/purple chameleon and the SV has red/blue chameleon.

The Titan will have Feigao 580 6L power, a Turnigy 180 controller, and Hyperion 4s 5200 batteries.

As an end of season update - we burned up the 580 6L and the controller in the last race of the season. I think the 6L and M445 prop was a bit too hot. We were getting pretty high motor temps which I think seized up the motor, which shot the amp draw through the roof and burned up the ESC. For next season we will try the Feigao 7L motor. Then we will be running more like 90 amps, have a longer run time with the 5200mah batteries, be able to check amps with the Eagle Tree logger, and hopefully run cooler.

Race 5 for the Puget Sound Fast Electric Boat Club was the "Bandit Cup" and it was a very nice day at Lake Tye in Monroe for racing. The Bandit Cup itself is a big traveling trophy and was raced in the LSH class.

The format for the Cup was 3 heats to qualify 5 boats for the final, plus a consolation heat where the winner made the final. That put 6 boats into the "winner take all" final. Kyle and I were both in the final. Kyle had been running pretty good all day. My Miss 7-Eleven had finished all of the heats but was down on speed. I finally figured out it was the battery and switch to a different set of batteries for the final.

For the final I managed to get into lane 1 while the other boats were swinging a bit wide at the start and hit the line perfectly. Kyle was back a bit and racing side by side with Scott Bickford's UL1. The Miss 7-Eleven was running good and in clear water to pull away to a significant lead. But, on the backstretch of lap 5 I had a radio issue and went dead for about 10 seconds. That was just enough time for Kyle to pass me and win the final with the Twin Wing American Spirit. Woot!

The weather has been really good for the last two races of the Puget Sound Fast Electric races at Granite Falls.

I had a pretty good day for the last race, actually winning the LSH class with the Miss 7-Eleven.

The Atlas is also looking much better after making a few modified X447 props for the boat. I don't have any GPS speed numbers yet, but the boat is much faster now compared to when it was running with the Graupner K45 prop. Now I have to work on getting it to stay down on the water with the faster speeds.

Jim Clark was also at the race and took some more really exceptional pictures. Check them out here:

Jim Clark's Pictures

Way too much fun

Sunday was our second race with the Puget Sound Fast Electric club at Granite Falls. (It was actually the 3rd race for the club, but we missed one.)
The weather was far better than the previous outings. It started out cool - in the 40's - but the sun was out and it warmed up during the day. Roughly 10 racers were there racing SV27 (6 boats), LSH (6 boats), P-Mono (4 boats), P Offshore (4 boats), 1/10th Scale (5 boats), and Tunnel hulls (4 boats).

Kyle had a good day of racing with the American Spirit and 1990 Oberto getting a second place finish in both events. My 7-Eleven had a variety of problems including radio problems and never finished a heat. The Atlas raced to 3rd place in 1/10th scale and had some good battles with the Oberto including a couple deck-to-deck laps in heat 3. Kyle also ended up 3rd in the SV27 class which could have been higher until he flipped the boat running up a rooster tail in the 3rd heat.

The good news is that I don't have to build or rebuild any boats before the next race.

The race was sponsored by Team Kaos and they supplied some nice prizes and a great lunch.

Speaking of Chaos, that would have described the P-Mono and Offshore races...fast and wild with more flipping than finishing.

Last weekend the weather was nice and we got in a test session for the American Spirit and the newly built 7-11. A short video was uploaded to the site for some of the testing. The camera focus had a little trouble with the light coming off the lake ... but any sunlight is a welcome thing about now.

Test Session

We ran the American Spirit with a modified X645 prop that had a Barr cut and detounged. We also lowered the strut down about 1/4th inch since pictures from the first race seemed to indicate it was a bit down and wet at the stern. The boat just runs great - stable and fast. I think we need to get some data logging done on the boat to verify the amp draw, but it sure looks good to me.

The new 7-11 also ran nicely, although it did hit a wake at one point that nearly flipped the boat. I don't know that I can really adjust for that. The 7-11 ran with the 42/58 3 blade Grim Racer prop. It cavitates a few second before it gets up on plane but overall it seems to be working. I think I want to try this boat with another modified X645.

I need to do more work on the Rigged Insanity. I found that I had not been careful enough with the sponsons and they were not all that accurately aligned. This was likely the cause of the problem where the boat just did not want to track a straight line. I think I have that fixed, but now the boat is taking on water, so that has to be addressed. I think the sides and bottom of the boat are no longer water tight. This boat has been a real challenge to get running anywhere near its potential.

The next Puget Sound Fast Electric race is just 4 days away, but I think we will be ready to compete. It would seem that Darin Jordan's new Miss Elam is running up near the 50mph mark... pretty impressive, but I think we can be close.

After a fun week in Vegas, it is back to building the Pak replacement.

The original plan was to reuse the cowling from the first Pay-n-Pak, but that has not worked out. When I moved the motor forward for balance the motor ended up a bit higher up and the old cowling does not fit. I should have designed the motor mount to be lower, but 20-20 hindsight is wonderful.

I made a new cowling that is more of the fast back style, but now it is not really a Pay-n-Pak anymore (not really any hydro). I do like the fact that the cowl is held down by a a tab in the nose and two allen bolts and blind nuts in the back. While it will not be totally water tight I dislike tape-down hatches. At some point I will have to come up with a truely water tight hatch that does not tape down.

After due consideration I decided to use a paint scheme modeled after the 1985/6 Miss 7-11. In terms of boat history the Pay-n-Pak equipment was solid in 1983 to Steve Woomer, who then modified and raced the boat as the Tosti Asti in 1984. In 1985/6 the boat was sponsored by 7-Eleven and in 1986 the F-16 canopy was added. So, there is some history of the Pay-n-Pak through to the Miss 7-Eleven although by that time a front wing had been added to the hull.

Attached are some pictures of the completed paint scheme. I used Duplicolor auto spray paint and inkjet waterslide decals and then finished it all with Duplicolor clear coat.

The hardware is going in now so it should be ready for...Continue Reading

I got started Sunday night cutting out parts for the rebuild of the Pay-n-Pak after the sponson disintegrated at the end of the first heat of racing.

The new build will be 1/8" plywood for the sides of the sponson, 1/16" plywood for the bulkheads and bottom and 1/32" plywood sheeting over foam for the deck.

This should make it strong enough to hold together for the season.

At this point I have the framing done, the foam shaped for the sponsons and the bottom and side sheeting in place on the sponsons. Next up will be the non-trip chine.

Pretty soon I need to test fit the hardware again and work out the balance. I think I will try to move the motor slightly farther forward this time to help with the balance since the previous boat required a couple ounces in the sponsons to get the CG right.

Race day 1 is completed on a wet and rain soaked Saturday at Granite Falls. We raced the Pay-n-Pak and American Spirit in LSH, an SV-27, the Oberto and Atlas in 1/10th scale, and the Rigged Insanity in P-Hydro.

Overall the results were good. The Atlas finished 2nd in 1/10th scale, the SV ran a respectable 2nd, and the American Spirit was 3rd.

The Pay-n-Pak ran one heat and just 5 feet after crossing the finish line at the end of the heat it "blew up" - where the right sponson tore off the boat. Up to that point it had looked good in the water. I will not be using any balsa on any boats in the future, that's for sure. Now it is time to build another Pay-n-Pak.

The American Spirit Twin-wing ran perfectly. For a new boat with zero testing it ran exceptionally well and finished 3rd out of 8 boats.

The Rigged Insanity was a total handful where it had issues with pulling right, then left. It finished one of 3 heats and rolled over and played dead on the other two. It actually ended up second - but only because there were only 2 boats.

The 1990 Oberto was running quite nicely, but broke the strut a couple laps into the final heat, but fortunately it did not cause too much damage.

The Atlas had some radio receiver issues, but after changing out to the reciever from the Pay-n-Pak, that solved everything and the boat ended up 2nd out of 7 boats. I guess that was the up side of having the Pay-n-Pak scratched.

Well, the twin wing has some paint now, and the hardware is here, so unless something goes wrong the boat should be ready for the first race in 4 days.

The paint is in the style of the American Spirit with decals to follow.

[Edit] The graphics are now on except for the vertical tail graphics.

[Edit] The boat is now totally done and ready for racing. The final weight is 4lb 4oz and the balance point is between 1.5 and 2 inches behind the sponson. Racing is tomorrow...

Except for some final sanding/filling/buffing the construction of the hull for the twin wing is complete. The upper hatch was covered in light fiberglass and the wood work is done.

I still need to figure out how I will attach the cowl, install hardware, build a bit of a waterproof radio box, etc, etc...

The current weight is of the boat hull is 1lb 10oz.

The construction of the new twin-wing replacement boat for the lost American Spirit has made some additional progress with getting the hatch/cowling built and more of the surfaces sheeted.

The next step will be to temporarily install the hardware so that I can check the CG. Since the deck sheeting has not been applied it will be easier to add nose weight if needed.

Once I have the CG close... then I can see about finishing the sheeting and doing some fiberglassing. I have never done fiberglass over balsa before as a finishing technique, so this should be interesting. The plan for paint and decals is to get another set of American Spirit decals and name this one the American Spirit 2.

I still don't think it will make the first race is 10 days, but the second race two weeks later should be good.