I was wondering, how do you use a tugboat for retreaval of a staled boat? I am used to the fishing pole and tennis ball, but other than those, are there any other ways, cheaply?


Thanks,
Erik

I sail my destroyer, or now my fire boat, out to the stranded vessel. I contact the boat to be recovered at the center of gravity(or the center of rotation) and push the boat in on the bow of the recovery ship.

It is more difficult to recover a ship, when the recovery vessel is under fire by three enemy destroyers, and the ship that you are trying to recover is a 6'-6"(1981mm) Light Cruiser.
This can be even harder, when you have to get both ships through a 2'-6"(762mm) gate. We were painfully successful....

(more on that story when we get the results of the 2004 combat nationals posted)

Umi

if i was to make a retrieval boat i would make a river towboat or tug.

or simple, two foam hulls with pvc pipe conectin them.

how would you get the two foam hulls out there in the first place?

Just a simple, cheap 2 channel radio with a on off motor switch and a rudder.

James.

Hi guys,
Hope you dont mind me intruding on your conversation, but I thought this device I made up for someone might be useful and relevent to your discussion ??
It's simply made up of scrap materials found in most garages/workshops. I used water pipe insulation for the floatation on mine ((The type with the split in that folds round water pipes)).
Its extremely simple to use, when a boat needs rescuing, you enlist the help of another model ((Im assuming here that there usually IS another model on the water at the same time here ie a friend !!!))
The device floats on the surface and the second model simply drives into it and moves it forward. You then "catch" the model requiring rescuing, in the other side and sail it back to shore.
Hey presto - one saved model.
We have used this device for many years at my local model boat club and it works everytime believe me !!
Hope this is of use guys,
Nige

Good idea Nige,

does the rescue boat need to have a little left rudder to stop it going around in circles???

James

Hi James,

Only a little, the drag is very slight. The important thing is that it can be thrown (Literaly!!) in the back of the car and simply sit there until needed. As 9 times out of 10 I sail with other people, there's usually always someone around with another boat to act as a rescuer.

The good thing about it is that you dont need a dedicated rescue boat - any model that happens to be there can use this device to retrive a stranded model (Or even the local kids football on occasions !!).
Nige

I listed these pictures of an easy retrieval rig in the scale thread, but got some guy who went off on some model warfare thingy- hard to explain cause I can't figure out how he picked up on that while talking about saving boats either..........

Thought y'all would appreciate these pics.......

Bob

The folks at the Edina pond have a small fleet of what they call "Polo" tugs. At some point in the clubs history, there was a one design tug that many people built to play a version of water polo.

As any good group of good natured modeling enthusiasts would, the one design didn't last long, different scales were used, etc...but the boats are still around and tend to be great at pushing other boats around. I believe George Pfeifer's is a variant of this design.

With some padding on the front these tugs do a good job pushing other boats around.

For sail boats like Fairwinds, Seawinds, etc, a rope with a tennis ball works well too. Do a couple circles around the stalled sail boat and tug it in to shore.

Here's some pictures of my 20 inch tug, with its 9 foot towline. The best length for the towline is 4 - 6 times the towboat length. Shorter boats with a tight turning radius can use a shorter towline than longer boats with a larger turn radius.

I have used this style of towline in several SSMANA regattas to salvage disabled vessels.The floats are foam fishing floats. The larger yellow was cut in half so I could make two towlines. The hook is brass rod soldered together.

using celestia, I pull up along side the beam of the stricken vessel and move bodily sideways, using the cross keel thrusters to push the stricken boat home, different levels of thrust on the bow or stern thruster allow me to steer celestia

you could get your friends to all put a plate of metal on teh bow of the vessel, and get a boat that you would use as your tug and put Rare Earth magnets on teh stern, thus reversing into teh bow of teh dissable boat will sitck to the tug and then you can pull off.

Anything that gets the stricken craft safely back wins...

looks good jim, but thats only good for models that will fit inside. what about having one that is like a pi bar, so called because it is shaped like the math symbol Pi, the boat goes between the two verticals, and the cross piece goes along the beam of the boat. then with gentle movement the boat is brought beam-on to the shore L shape sections grafted to the cross bar go under the hull and to above the bar act as buffers