millzee
12-30-2011, 08:13 AM
I took my t29 out this evening with a couple of new props in hand and 4 set's of batteries, it's been very windy here over the last few days and today was the calmest by far but still gusty swirling winds that cause mini twisters to stir up dust as they rip across the dry dusty paddock beside the lake and make there way to the waters edge and then you can see them rush across the waters surface. The water was small chop down the streights with the wind blowing into my face, then glassy water where I turn because those sections of water are tucked in out of the wind behind the Islands. I started my first run with a new x442 that Chris cupped, balanced and sharpened for me and it ran with a top speed of 50.7mph, temps where all good even though it was still in the low 30c's outside and after approx. 5.5minutes the batteries still had enough in them to go again for around another 5minutes, again it ran 50.4mph on the gps. I then thought I'd bolt on a new m445 Chris did for me after I lost both the others I had, I set my timer for 5 minutes and chucked it out expecting the same results as the last time I drove with a m445 but this time it seemed to rip, it was like a rocket all over the water yet still stable enough but at around 3/4 throttle or a tad more, it began getting very dicey looking like it was about to go over but for something different I decided to punch it at this point and instead of flipping it steadied out and rode the water with sunlight beaming off the water beneath the hull as it ripped past us at almost perfect level about an inch or so above the water and only the prop and the rudder in the water, simply beautiful. I drove it like this for nearly the full five minutes and after about the third timer warning sounded the LVC kicked in on it's way back to me. I was shocked and sure the gps had glitched when it read 64.4mph, some older guy's that where watching me recon it was doing an easy 60mph but I kept my thoughts to myself thinking that it's impossible, only way to check was to swap the batteries in both the boat and the gps and chuck it back out. I was a little excited this time and was having trouble hitting the full pin on a lot of the streight sections but after changing direction and running more across the wind it was starting to find it's sweat spot again until a huge flip, splat, crash at the far end of the lake brought me to a stand still, or at least, a paddle. I got back to shore after a friend drove the boat back and opened her up, no issues and the gps read 60.3mph. I swapped the packs and sent it out again, this time a few minutes into driving and those little twisters I spoke about earlier started whipping across the lake again and as I was comming down the streight with the wind behind it at full throttle a mini twister threw it into a multitude of flips, twists and spins bouncing off the water a couple of times until finally slapping down on the hatch and bouncing back up the right way, I applied the throttle and wriggled the rudder and luckily found it driveable so I figured one more speed run on it's way back but at about 1/2 throttle I noticed the front of the hatch lifting so I backed off and drove her in slowly. The single pin in the front of the hatch had torn through the fiber glass and must have opened up during it's crash and the perpex waterproof cover went missing, the part that frustrates me apart from the fact I got one of those little waterproof action camera's for chrissy that I didn't have on it, is that I have been thinking about putting a pin on either side as I've found the center pin to allow too much twisting in the hatch. I looked at doing it today but decided against it for tonights run, wow, how silly of me. Temps where all good with this m445 and after the crash the gps again said 61.2mph. I ended up strapping the gps into my XXL truck to and took it for a spin to check the gps reading and sure enough, it come back at 48mph which is somewhere around what I have it geared for at the moment.
My question is, how the hell does this prop differ to the other m445's I've had and lost, they where only running 49-52mph, or, is it the winding giving me all this extra speed and keeping the hull from taking off into space???? Would I be nuts to try the cupped m445 chris did for me or maybe a x645???
My question is, how the hell does this prop differ to the other m445's I've had and lost, they where only running 49-52mph, or, is it the winding giving me all this extra speed and keeping the hull from taking off into space???? Would I be nuts to try the cupped m445 chris did for me or maybe a x645???