Rescue/Camera boat MkIII.

[pescador]

Here's some pics of my Vac-U-Tow build, it's a little bigger and more powerful than the old Vac-U-Tug it's replacing. Some of the highlights of this one are more scale detail, 3rd channel controlled lights, automatic bilge pump with fire nozzles and a GoPro mount.





Flanking rudders for better control backing up.


The bilge pump is mounted with Sugru rubber and uses a 9v battery.


These are the nozzles for the bilge pump before paint.

[pescador]

After some paint and fitting the stairs.


Added the stack, nozzles, and working on the railings.



I modified some sideboard lights and made a mast to fit some super bright led nav lights, all the lights and motor fans run through a PiccoSwitch relay and are powered by a Life rx pack.
Before paint



Testing the lights

[pescador]

There's a mount on the front for my Hero3 that you can control with the remote or IPhone.


The railings are all from Plastruct and were a bit of a pain to finish.


I went with 3s power for a little extra jam, the biggest batteries I could get to fit once the deck was attached are a pair of 3s 2200mah in parallel. The lights and fan use a separate LiFe rx pack.



I rebuild the frame for the rescue arms and it attaches to the tug with two velcro straps.

[pescador]

Now I just need some soft water to try her out.



The little stick in the middle of the arms works great for snagging canopies and low floating riggers.

[marko500]

Very nice! We have one of these that we have used for rescues the last couple of years. These boats work great, and have quite a bit of power for their size. Ours uses a floating grappling hook towed behind the tug.

[electric]

Very nice! We have one of these that we have used for rescues the last couple of years. These boats work great, and have quite a bit of power for their size. Ours uses a floating grappling hook towed behind the tug.

Dumb question possibly? Could you tell me more about the floating grappling hook? Can you buy one that is floating or do you just have a hook with some foam attached? How big a hook? I gather you just circle the boat and snag the hardware? Thinking about doing the same.

Really nice looking tug!

[marko500]

I took a piece of brass tube approx 3 inches long, and 3 pieces of wire about 4.5 inches long. Inserted the 3 pieces of wire into the tube and epoxied them in. Then when the epoxy dried I bend the ends of the wire to form the hooks. To make the hook float I used a tube shaped fishing bobber that slid over the brass tube.
The hook is towed at the end of some high strength kite string about 6 feet long of so. I just go out and circle past the stranded boat and head back to shore. The only thing is to make sure there is something for the hook to catch onto if the boat is upside down. On the hydro in my avatar I had to add a piece of wire about 2 inches long to the back of the hull on one of the rudder bolts. Since my antenna is inside the boat there was nothing for the hook to catch onto when it was upside down.

[pescador]

I made a tow hook rig from a floating fish stringer I found at Walmart. Just needs a couple cuts and some bending.
Unfortunately our pond can get floating weeds near shore, I was dragging through it collecting greenery and I was a little worried about getting snagged.

[pescador]

Boat in a box

I found a toolbox that the boat will fit into, a 28" Stanley Fatmax. The pilothouse sits sideways on top of the hull and there is room for it's radio as well. It's definately going to help make loading the truck easier.

[Boosted2000si]

Very cool! I enjoyed the build, I wish I would put something together like this. Thankfully my pond is small enough to walk, takes about 20mins but still seems like every day on the pond ends in a few needed rescues.

[pescador]

Vac-U-Tow Rescue/Camera Boat MKIII

I never did update after trying it out, it's working great it's first recovery was an 1/8 scale nitro boat that blew off on the back straight. It was 3 trips to recover the boat, canopy and dummy engine but it all came back. The stick in between the arms really helps snagging canopies and low floating riggers. The 3s packs were barely dented with the stock motor, it should be good for hours of runtime.