JAE 21 FEs First Race

[Doug Smock]

Hey Fellas,
I knew we were in trouble during open water late Friday afternoon. The boom tubes on the left side of my rigger gave up while running in rough water.
I gave Joe at Zippkits a call to let him know what had happened and to get some advice.
I knew If we didn't do something we were going to be in serious trouble. We worked to hard on these boats to not finish this race!!
Joe apologized, was very helpful and suggested we find a sporting goods store or possibly a kite store. We were looking for suitable arrows or fiberglass rods. Unfortunately we were in the middle of no where in a cotton field. Another thing we discussed was trying to put a dowel inside the carbon tube to get me back in the water, and reinforce the booms on the other boats.
We had no luck finding a suitable replacement for the booms, so it was off to Home Depot ( 20 Miles north) for some dowels and sandpaper. We spent some time Friday evening sanding 1/4"dowels to slide inside the 5/16 boom tubes.
Yep, Ken Haines, Reed Eagle, Paul Rollins, and myself found ourselves sanding 48" dowels in the parking lot of the Best Western in Ashburn Ga. We can only imagine what people were thinking about us.LOL Can you picture this??
Sat. morning when Trini, John and Louis arrived they were handed dowels and told to slide them in the booms and CA them in place. I purchased some 36"X 5/16"OD K&S brass from Barry the gas guy since my booms were fractured.
Ok, now we are ready for the first heat, me with booms that are 2" too short.
I think it was about the third lap when I took a bad hop on buoy 3 with my short boom boat and the boat settled in sideways the driving lanes. My good bud Trini was RIGHT there to remind me just how dangerous that is. Yes my boat got T boned, and Trini was now upside down in approx lane 4.Sorry bud!
I got back in the throttle and the boat got back on plane, but something was very wrong. When the boat came back in front of the drivers stand we could see what had happened.
When Trini hit me (again my fault) his boat had folded my left sponson under the boom tubes. We looked closely at the tub as it passed by and it looked fine. We couldn't believe that I still had control of the boat with the sponson laying on its side and a nose high attitude. I kept driving and finished the heat. Dead last but I finished, I'll take it.
Now we have two boats out of the race, but round two isn't until tomorrow morning. Ok there is hope!!!!
Trini had some 5/16 K & S brass and I bought some more from Barry the gas guy. What now??
You guessed it, back to the Home Depot for some 5/16" dowels this time.
Trini, Louis, Reed and myself spent some time Sat. evening sanding 48" dowls in the parking lot of the Best Western. We sanded enough dowls for the whole AMB fleet of JAEs.
Sunday morning Trini and I were back in action. Round two no, issues the boats were flawless, and we drove better.
We had to hook John up with the "Smock Poon Kwan" Gen 2 JAE boom tube retro fit kit as he smacked a buoy hard and trashed a set of JAE Gen one retro fit boom tubes in round three.
Ok, no problem, by now we have this mastered.LOL
Round four, again the boats were flawless and Whooo Hoooo, WE MADE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! We brought five boats and all five started all four rounds of racing. We are the man.
I contacted Joe after the race and told him that we had made it through the weekend, and that all the boats were running. He was as happy as we were.
Joe had already ordered solid carbon rods and told me that new boom tubes would be on there way to us as soon as the material arrived.
We had no doubt after our previous experience with him.
The JAE 21 FEs are a GREAT fit for P-Limited Hydro, and the after the sale service from Joe Petro is second to none, period!!!
We love these boats and can't wait to get them back in the pond!!!

Joe has a message for all of the JAE 21 FE owners out there. You can find it on his website in the "News" section. http://www.zippkits.com/
All the best,
Doug

[RayR]

I thought this was an oval race? Sounds more like floggin at the SAWS! LOL!

Ray

[detox]

Kite Builder is a verygood supplier of kite building supplies.

http://www.kitebuilder.com/catalog/index.php/cPath/33_56?osCsid=e528ac767ab166307f8c726f978ad34e

[longballlumber]

Doug,

So you simply had a boom tube failure? Where did the boom tube fracture?

Another question... What hardware did you use? It looks like speedmaster strut and rudder. On your strut did you only use one mounting bracket, I couldn't tell from your build pictures...

Thanks
Mike

[Doug Smock]

Ray, It did kind of remind me of the SAWs.LOL
You know how it is, if one of us are in trouble, we all work at it till we "all get to do what we all came to do".

Thanks Keith!

Mike, Yes we used just half of the Speedmaster strut bracket, and the mini hydro rudder.

Note: I have two more kits on the bench. One I'm building for our club president (another gas guy) and I'm building myself another one with hardware from Zippkits. With this boat I will be doing side by side testing with the 90 degree fiixed strut, and the fixed strut with 1.5 degees of negative. I'll post the results in the build section.

The boom tubes were failing right at the tub. Joe thinks they just can't handle the added weight of the FE set up. They haven't had this problem with the nitro boat.

I'd encourage anyone with basic building skills to build the JAE 21 FE, and go have some fun. You won't regret it!!

Doug

[longballlumber]

Thanks for the response,

What was your track width (inside sponson to inside sponson)? I think that Rod has suggested 16" but you could run 14"

I may and try to extend the brass tubing beyond the tub sides rather than sanding flush with the tub sides. That should give a little additional support to the boom tubes...

Later
Mike

[Flying Scotsman]

I still can not get this picture out of my mind, of men of a certain age, sanding dowels in a hotel parking lot....not once but twice. I can visualise concerned parents steering their kids away from group of ???? men.
Thanks for the candid remarks as usual Doug

Douggie

[Doug Smock]

Thanks for the response,

What was your track width (inside sponson to inside sponson)? I think that Rod has suggested 16" but you could run 14"

I may and try to extend the brass tubing beyond the tub sides rather than sanding flush with the tub sides. That should give a little additional support to the boom tubes...

Later
Mike

Mike, with the 18" tubes we were at 15.5" With the original tubes we were at 17.5".
Like you we thought about extending the brass tubes beyond the tub, but after talking with the gas guys decided not to.
Their thoughts were if we happened to bend the tubes in the tub, now we have to deal with the larger issue of replacing them, instead of just replacing the boom tubes.
Hopefully with the new rods from Joe, we won't have to concern ourselves with this.

Doug

PS Hi Douggie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[longballlumber]

Mike, with the 18" tubes we were at 15.5" With the original tubes we were at 17.5".
Like you we thought about extending the brass tubes beyond the tub, but after talking with the gas guys decided not to.
Their thoughts were if we happened to bend the tubes in the tub, now we have to deal with the larger issue of replacing them, instead of just replacing the boom tubes.
Hopefully with the new rods from Joe, we won't have to concern ourselves with this.

Doug

PS Hi Douggie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just an FYI incase you want to try them.... I plan to run these solid FG rods from McMaster Carr. They have been used successfully in .21 riggers in the past...

http://www.mcmaster.com/#8543k47/=5y10fa

[Doug Smock]

Thanks for the link Mike!!
You can bet we'll have spares before the next race.

Doug

[D. Newland]

Great report, Doug.

Any issue with driveline heat? Do you use a teflon liner?

My reason for asking: I made a test run with a new "ski" installed on my rigger on Sunday and noticed the driveline was getting rather hot. Most definitely an alignment issue but it never got hot before...because most of the driveline was in the water before I put the ski on...duh. I don't run a teflon liner.

[Doug Smock]

Thanks David,
No sir, I didn't have any driveline heat, and as far as I know the other guys didn't either.
We used 7/32 K&S brass and .150 cables.

Doug

[Chilli]

So guys, any suggestiong on replacement booms if we want to upgrade? Do we go FG, solid carbon or maybe if someone makes a thicker walled tube. Obviously we dont want boom failures during normal racing conditions. But I thought I read that Joe wanted the booms to be the sacraficial weak link incase of an incident where the sponsons or tub could be damaged.

Also Doug, people were commenting on the ski dragging when they saw your video. Did you notice any difference with different props that people were running? Is the dragging ski a none factor as long as the weight bias is correct, since it's supposed to be riding on the water? Should we just be reading the roosertail as Rod suggested?

[Doug Smock]

Mike,
I'm going to sit tight until we have time to run the solid carbon rods Joe is sending. I DON'T want bullet proof booms. I would much rather replace booms than try to repair the tub / sponsons on a race day. I think Joe is spot on.

As far as the dragging the ski goes, I'm happy with the way the boat is running and will continue to test props and follow Rods advice to the letter.

Doug

[Doug Smock]

The new boom RODS arrived today. These things look like cable when you hold them in the light.

More prop testing this weekend, I'll post some vids.

Thanks again Joe!!
Doug