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This is a tale of one of my new hare-brained ideas.
When I was younger I had one of these Water Devil plastic kits made in the 1960’s by Monogram.
I had forgotten all about this boat until a good friend in our local club was telling me about a boat he had when he was younger.
He sent me a few photos of one he had picked up on eBay and I remembered having mine.
At our next YMCA fun run he had rebuilt his boat and installed R/C in it.
Well, long story short it sank on him during it’s madden voyage.
It was quite funny actually (not shared by George) as it sank in about two seconds when he turned his back to talk to someone.
The way the top attaches to the bottom the waterline on the boat is dangerously high with R/C gear inside.
Well flash forward a few months and I found one on eBay that was not going for an arm and a leg.
(Collectable prices! You got to love them)
I decided to one up George and install a (Wait for this!)
450 watt brushless outrunner helicopter motor in mine.
No one in their right mind would install a motor that size on a 12†plastic model boat.
But no one has ever accused me of being in my right mind.
The conversion was quite straight forward and I was able to keep the weight under 1 LB.
Even at this the boat sat low in the water but undaunted by this risk factor I decided to press on and took the boat to the next fun run to show the guys my new toy.
Well as it turned out it did not take long until my boat was sitting on the bottom of the YMCA pool like Georges.
While slowing down for a turn I was swamped by my own wake.
I could not get the boat over half throttle without cavitating.
I did get it to plane out for one pass.
It looked like a crackerbox jumping on the water.
Only one photo was taken in the water before it sank and although it was captured on video it was so far away from the camera you could not see the sinking well.
I believe I have figured a way to seal the hull between the top and bottom half’s, and will try it again at the next run.
I will try to get some video too. BD.
When I was younger I had one of these Water Devil plastic kits made in the 1960’s by Monogram.
I had forgotten all about this boat until a good friend in our local club was telling me about a boat he had when he was younger.
He sent me a few photos of one he had picked up on eBay and I remembered having mine.
At our next YMCA fun run he had rebuilt his boat and installed R/C in it.
Well, long story short it sank on him during it’s madden voyage.
It was quite funny actually (not shared by George) as it sank in about two seconds when he turned his back to talk to someone.
The way the top attaches to the bottom the waterline on the boat is dangerously high with R/C gear inside.
Well flash forward a few months and I found one on eBay that was not going for an arm and a leg.
(Collectable prices! You got to love them)
I decided to one up George and install a (Wait for this!)
450 watt brushless outrunner helicopter motor in mine.
No one in their right mind would install a motor that size on a 12†plastic model boat.
But no one has ever accused me of being in my right mind.
The conversion was quite straight forward and I was able to keep the weight under 1 LB.
Even at this the boat sat low in the water but undaunted by this risk factor I decided to press on and took the boat to the next fun run to show the guys my new toy.
Well as it turned out it did not take long until my boat was sitting on the bottom of the YMCA pool like Georges.
While slowing down for a turn I was swamped by my own wake.
I could not get the boat over half throttle without cavitating.
I did get it to plane out for one pass.
It looked like a crackerbox jumping on the water.
Only one photo was taken in the water before it sank and although it was captured on video it was so far away from the camera you could not see the sinking well.
I believe I have figured a way to seal the hull between the top and bottom half’s, and will try it again at the next run.
I will try to get some video too. BD.
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