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Have you ever been at the local pond and put your sub or target in the water only to have it go out about 40 feet and then stop and refuse any of your commands? Although we probably all swim to some extent , getting wet just sometimes is not on my list, especially if I am not dressed for it. What to do? Well I always take along a inflatable raft with oars and before I ever begin I always inflate it first. Why you ask? Because if a strong breeze comes along (in florida they do) it can push your model way out making retrieval much more time consuming and inconvenient. Have I made my point? This is what I did about it. I had a Graupner Portafino fast electric boat that I had for years sitting on the shelf.
I installed one of the dual motor speed controls from dimension engineering and made up two harnesses for the two 7.2 volt 4200 mah batteries. One for 7.2 volts for better slow speed control such as when attempting a rescue operation. The other one is for all out speed. This gives me 14.4 volts by wiring them in series. In this configuration it really screams. Ill bet it could easily clock 30 mph. Not very good for submarine rescue. More for draining your batteries at the end of the day. So by using the 7.2 volt harness and carefully manuevering close to the stalled boat you still have a problem. Have you ever tried to push one boat with the pointy bow of another? Kind of a exercise in futility. so I made a pusher attachment for the front and installed it so that it can be easily removed.
I made it out of sheet styrene that you buy at a hobby store. Then I reinforced it with strips of plastic angle.Then I drilled holes in it to reduce drag and installed some rubber weatherstripping from Homedepot. This to better grab onto your subject. Its funny but when that rubber gets wet it seems to cling to whatever it touches. How does it work? Great! Ive already made two rescues with it. The neat thing about this boat is that its always had twin steerable outdrives that allowed for fantastic manuverability over using a conventional rudder. Now add to that the ability to independantly control each outdrive for maximum manuverability. Also since this dual motor speed control is designed for use in robots it has incredible slow speed performance . You can open the throttle to the first click and the propellor responds with a steady sustainable slow revolution that can slowly be increased as you need to. You dont have to worry about it jerking or lurching forward too fast. Not a good thing when easing up to your friends stalled sub and damaging it. If you do that the next time there is a need for a sub rescue then they will decline your offer of assistance. Now that I have learned to post video I will post one of it rescueing a sub in the very neer future.Keep a steady bubble
I installed one of the dual motor speed controls from dimension engineering and made up two harnesses for the two 7.2 volt 4200 mah batteries. One for 7.2 volts for better slow speed control such as when attempting a rescue operation. The other one is for all out speed. This gives me 14.4 volts by wiring them in series. In this configuration it really screams. Ill bet it could easily clock 30 mph. Not very good for submarine rescue. More for draining your batteries at the end of the day. So by using the 7.2 volt harness and carefully manuevering close to the stalled boat you still have a problem. Have you ever tried to push one boat with the pointy bow of another? Kind of a exercise in futility. so I made a pusher attachment for the front and installed it so that it can be easily removed.
I made it out of sheet styrene that you buy at a hobby store. Then I reinforced it with strips of plastic angle.Then I drilled holes in it to reduce drag and installed some rubber weatherstripping from Homedepot. This to better grab onto your subject. Its funny but when that rubber gets wet it seems to cling to whatever it touches. How does it work? Great! Ive already made two rescues with it. The neat thing about this boat is that its always had twin steerable outdrives that allowed for fantastic manuverability over using a conventional rudder. Now add to that the ability to independantly control each outdrive for maximum manuverability. Also since this dual motor speed control is designed for use in robots it has incredible slow speed performance . You can open the throttle to the first click and the propellor responds with a steady sustainable slow revolution that can slowly be increased as you need to. You dont have to worry about it jerking or lurching forward too fast. Not a good thing when easing up to your friends stalled sub and damaging it. If you do that the next time there is a need for a sub rescue then they will decline your offer of assistance. Now that I have learned to post video I will post one of it rescueing a sub in the very neer future.Keep a steady bubble
Perhaps next year 
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