Darin's Twin Stiletto-Powered Pro Boat Thunder Cat 31

[Darin Jordan]

I was waiting for some epoxy to setup on my Phil Thomas Stealth 30 tonight, so I decided to get a jump on another project I've been wanting to do. I was going back and forth between this project, or a twin powered Mystic or Miss G... The Thunder Cat seemed like a more unique project!

I cleaned out some of the interior wood to make room for batteries. More may come out, depending on how it balances out. I'll clean up the interior more once I figure out what needs to be done to make the boat work.


I cut off the stuffing tube, and then found the centerline of the transom and mounted the outboards based on where the rudder bracket holes were. I picked up the bottom hole for the rudder bracket on the right side (replaced the metric blind-nut with a 8-32 blind nut) and drilled up the rest of the holes to 3/16" and installed 8-32 blind nuts.

I then drilled and taped a hole in each cav plate and fabbed up a 4-40 sized tie-rod. Outboards are now mounted and tied together. I'm going to have to think about how to tie in the steering so I can still get the hatch sealed. I'll work on that more tomorrow.

[izcain]

That is a neat looking project. I can't wait to see a video of it running!!

[roadrashracing]

wish you all the luck in this build and hopefully this will turn out better then the last attempt someone did at this.

[Darin Jordan]

wish you all the luck in this build and hopefully this will turn out better then the last attempt someone did at this.

We have a guy in our racing club that did this, using REK lowers and SV27 power systems and it turned out GREAT! Boat is a rocket and flies around the course... Either way, it's going to be a fun project...

[shannon87]

Awesome work Darin as I love outboard cats and monos once I get my other boat finished I would really like to finally commission my own outboard cat either a single outboard or twins most likely single what ever would work best probably from Randy at bby and hopefully race it and b competitive as I wouldn't b able to build it properly myself I've only just started rebuilding my mono anyway good luck with the build ill b following closely

[bruiser77]

That looks so cool! Suscribed.

[RayR]

Darin,

Just curious as to the placement of the outboards, why not more like the full size boats?

[Darin Jordan]

Darin,

Just curious as to the placement of the outboards, why not more like the full size boats?

Honestly Ray... I'm not really sure what the heck I'm doing on this one... Here is my thinking, however... Real offshore boats are MUCH narrower in relation to their length than our models NEED to be in order to turn... You just don't turn an offshore boat at the kinds of angles or speeds we are with our models. That's why the Mystic and the Miss Geico, the MC, the Mean Machine, etc... turn so well. They AREN'T scale...

The wider you put the thrust, the more differential you are going to need to get the boat to turn. I wanted them as close together as practical, because I still want this boat to be able to turn... In fact... it's one of the things I need the most. With them way out wide, I just don't think it would turn as well.

I could be wrong... This is my first rodeo with something like this, so we'll see. If I am, it's not hard to make it all wider... Just a few holes...

[RayR]

I have actually been noodling the same type project for the last several months (Cheetah and a couple REK's I have sitting around).

[Darin Jordan]

I have actually been noodling the same type project for the last several months (Cheetah and a couple REK's I have sitting around).

If I can get the two current projects (PT Stealth paint and assembly and Lynx disassemble, paint, and reassembly), then I'll have most of the big stuff done for the Nats... I'm hoping to get the time to perhaps have this one together in time to take to the Nats for P-Offshore. Might be pushing things to quickly, but we'll see what I can get done. I'm hoping to have the painting done by this weekend. Then it's just an evening with the Lynx and an evening with the PT Stealth, so it is possible...

[RayR]

Any progress?