Osprey Offshore Endurance Boat

[hughb]

I guess battle scars add character! Well done in your races. I like how you have added the the red/green for port/starboard down the sides of your boats. Is it for looks or does it also aid in visualising the boat’s orientation when it’s a long way away?

[NativePaul]

Can you fit a flood chamber in it with the big battery? It would piss even more people off, but you wouldn't need the rescue boat, maybe worth a shot if they rule you out of continuing after a rescue.

[Peter A]

Don't really need the battle scars! The red green was intended as a visual aid, but 150 M away it is just hard to see any way when there are other boats throwing up walls of water.

[Peter A]

Self righting was something that I thought about. It just ended up looking like a lot of extra work for this project and I am not sure that it would work so well with the overall weight. Nearly 4kg of batteries! Self righting would be sort of a 'holy grail' if it could be done while keeping good rough water handling.
They will just make a rule saying that rescued boats have to be brought back to shore. It would depend on the rescue boat operator anyway at this point whether or not they just flipped you over or brought you back.

[Old School]

I looked at making my current build Osprey hull self righting, however, given the factory stock nose heavy attitude of the hull and the need to move weight aft for a reasonable CoG location I decided that there may not be available chamber volume to right the hull. From my recent experience with the three self righting hulls built, the chamber needs to be quite large with a definite port side imbalance. Given the volume of the Osprey hull and the amount of imbalance required to self right, I chose to not build a chamber. The large Osprey hatch may have been a positive should I have decided to build the hull self righting, however, I was not prepared to experiment for a more than likely expensive failure.

[Peter A]

I looked at making my current build Osprey hull self righting, however, given the factory stock nose heavy attitude of the hull and the need to move weight aft for a reasonable CoG location I decided that there may not be available chamber volume to right the hull. From my recent experience with the three self righting hulls built, the chamber needs to be quite large with a definite port side imbalance. Given the volume of the Osprey hull and the amount of imbalance required to self right, I chose to not build a chamber. The large Osprey hatch may have been a positive should I have decided to build the hull self righting, however, I was not prepared to experiment for a more than likely expensive failure.

Yep my brain came to much the same conclusion after a months holiday at Christmas!

[Peter A]

Update from the latest offshore round.
This is the biggest one of the year held at Lake Taupo, our biggest lake in NZ. With a SW breeze the back of the course was rough, like two foot rough and the rest of the course not much better except the first turn which is a little sheltered. I was so cruising on throttle due to the water conditions so much that I only used 50% of the battery for a 20 min race. All up there were two 20 min heats and a 40 min, reduced from 60 mins due to time. I could have done 60 mins on only two sets of batts instead of three. I think the boat spent more time above the water instead of on it! Buried it in a few times too!
I managed 118 laps for 5th place overall out of 19 boats. Not too bad being the only electric boat up against all petrol boats that are bigger and have much more power. Only 1 lap behind 4th place and the winner did 147 laps.

[Brushman]

Had the first offshore regatta on Saturday, 100 mins of racing. 2 x 20 min heats and 1 x 1 hour race. I did 131 laps, the winner did 157. I managed 5th overall in a field of 10 boats.
On Sunday, another regatta and I managed second in a 20 min race with 37 laps, the winner did 41. Not too bad racing against bigger petrol boats that are mostly faster and have way more hp.

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I had two unscheduled stops on Saturday, once when a plug came loose on the esc, left me dead in the water, of course someone had to run over the top of me on the front strait didn't they! Have a battle scar now! The second time I rolled upside down, when the rescue boat went out and turned me back over and I continued, well... Now some want a new rule to stop that from happening again. Gassers!!

Hello Peter,

boats are not turned back in our races, the safety loop is disconnected and the boat is brought back to the dock by the rescue boat. We do not have flood chamber, it is not permitted.

are people thinking about going electric around you? for our 24h race, I think a FE boat is needed to win ...

Vincent

[Peter A]

Hello Peter,

boats are not turned back in our races, the safety loop is disconnected and the boat is brought back to the dock by the rescue boat. We do not have flood chamber, it is not permitted.

are people thinking about going electric around you? for our 24h race, I think a FE boat is needed to win ...

Vincent

Hi Vincent
I have come to the conclusion, from experience so far, that it is better if the boat is brought back to check before continuing. Despite a safety loop, on all electric boats, they hardly ever get pulled when boats are picked up. Perhaps a bit of education required (maybe too many petrol fumes for some) or it will take an 'incident' for most to realise why they are there!

There is one guy interested in going electric, I may end up selling this boat to him as I am building a new boat for next year. A build thread will be started when I am further through the build.

[Brushman]

Hello Peter,

I think you will make a bigger boat? are 12 S allowed?
the winning boats are running 56-58mm motors with 400-450 kV, 12s 16000, Seaking 130HV, 60-65mm prop. 22-25lbs. these setups will give you 45-50 mph speed and 20-25 minutes, with 10- 20% left in the batteries. No turn fins (or little), no flaps. Gassers wil not like, because you will be on the podium at every race...

Vincent

[Peter A]

Hello Peter,

I think you will make a bigger boat? are 12 S allowed?
the winning boats are running 56-58mm motors with 400-450 kV, 12s 16000, Seaking 130HV, 60-65mm prop. 22-25lbs. these setups will give you 45-50 mph speed and 20-25 minutes, with 10- 20% left in the batteries. No turn fins (or little), no flaps. Gassers wil not like, because you will be on the podium at every race...

Vincent

Next years boat
20180730_123036.jpg

46" hull, will stay with 10s next year as I do not have the budget for more batteries, but it can upgrade. Leo 5692 540kv, SK130 HV (I am already using one), no trim tabs as COG can be set well with battery placement, turn fins- only as big as needed, adjustable stinger. This hull has been in our club from new and I am the 4th owner, It is needing a bit of work to clean up and convert from a gasser but it is a good hull and should be the ticket. I may upgrade to 12s setup as the money allows, but that will be another $1k or so to spend.

[Peter A]

Well, we had a 4 hour endurance race on Saturday. It is a teams event and I had a team with two gas boats, 'cause there are no other leckies doing this yet. Sadly the gassers were not too reliable and as one of the team is in a wheelchair and the other has gammy knees, I was the person who got to do all the rescuing. Man that was hard work, especially after I had done 20 mins and ended up struggling to get time to get batteries back on charge! Anyways my boat went great, didn't need any rescues, until...just one more lap, with 1/2 hour to go, and a swap of boats and then I stopped. The other two boats had come right and were going well, until ten minutes later a snapped shaft put one out, and then the failsafe in the other developed an issue and kept cutting out, so with about 15 mins to go we had three dead boats! My motor had disintegrated the end bearing and the motor is toast! I knew I should have put some new bearings in last week!!
Any how we took 3rd from four teams and 2nd place only beat us by one lap! Beaten by Dumb and Dumber - that is what they actually called their team!
Well that's this boat done for the year, not too bad with only two club days to go. I will have to get on with getting the new boat ready for next year now. Overall it has been a blast running endurance with electric, and it really is fun running for 20 mins at a time. Looking forward to doing this again next year, and possibly this boat may be competing in the hands of another...

Here's a couple of pics of the damage.

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[srislash]

I’d say a fairly successful season Peter. You’ve done well. It’s been great to witness from afar. Thank you, Shawn

[Peter A]

Thanks Shawn.
It is not the normal with FE to have such long runs, and reliability, but it awesome and doable. If you can put up with 45mph, (slow for many I know) you can bash around for 20 mins easy, sort of like gas or nitro, but without the mess and noise!
It would be even easier done where parts, especially batteries are more readily available. On the down side HobbyKing seem to have discontinued the 20 AH packs. It may mean going to 12s setups after next year, no biggie really.

[srislash]

Yup it is coming along. I have a 40” AC Boats Lazer that runs 8s Thru twin TP 4030’s and I can pull off 9-10 mins runtime on 9000mah @ 45’ish. Not the stretch you are doing but not bad. Kinda known to be a wet running hull.

So what hull is on the block for next year?