Not my best day at the pond

[Simon.O.]

Have you ever had a day where you went to the lake and realized that this is not your day and you should have stayed at home.?
Today I did.
I packed in the Rigger, Hydro, and Cat into the back of my wagon and off to the pond.
My favourite spot is currently off limits as the swans babies (signets) are under training from the parents and if you are not fully familiar with swans they are very protective of territory and their young.
I went over to the sheltered corner and parked under a big tree as it was just beginning to rain lightly.
Tape down the hatch on the rigger and give a quick control check. Good, into the water and its off like a greased weasel for about 20 metres and stops. What ??? Why ???
There is a light breeze beginning to blow it across the pond. The other side is only accessible from the water, scrub covered near cliff and all that.
It was too far from me to cast a tennis ball with the short pole that I have, I tried !
In goes the tug, it is a twin screw springer with a push frame on the front.
Riggers are very difficult to push forwards.
Upon arrival at the rigger the tug will only respond on one motor. What ?? Why ??
Back to my wagon to get the cat so that it can at least tow the fishing line out and I can get the rigger back. The tug can wait.
The Cat shares a motor with the ……………….you guessed it the rigger.
The hydro was quickly relieved of its motor so the Cat could go to the rescue.
I tied the line to the rear of the cat and off it went while I paid out the line.
Pass the rigger and swing round then back to shore at low speed pulling the rigger backwards. Once the Cat was on the bank I reeled in the rest of the line and in came the rigger.
One down one to go.
By now the wind had shifted a little and the tug was headed for the carpark side of the pond, I was in no mood to sit and wait for its very slow drift so decided to send the cat for another towline pass. Now with a steady drizzle I managed to get the tug back and decided to pack up and go home.

The tug picked up some rubbish in the starboard prop fouling it.
The rx in the rigger is now the chief suspect in this case.

I am reviewing my recovery methods.

[ace028]

I know how you feel, I may not have had as bad of a day as you, but I know how you feel. Your just trying to have a nice realxing run, and then random problems happen at the most akward times. I have been using a raft I bought at wal mart to retreive my boats. Works out great, just hate blowing it up and deflating it everytime since I don't have a truck, just a little honda. Where do you live that it is raining right now? ITs like 110 here in nor cal.

[ChaKane]

Can go you one better. My SV suffered a similar fate with it stopping mid lake. Had my boy run up to the car and retrieve the rescue boat and line. Back he came and while setting it up on the deck to send out for the rescue I hear a 'plonk' and my boy had dropped the car keys through the only space big enough for the keys to fit through and into the drink.

Then the part where I had to ring up my wife and get her out of bed and wake our daughter up to come and deliver the spare keys down to the lake. They were both very 'unimpressed'.

It then cost me big time to repay them by buying breakfast. All in the good 'fun??' of RC boating.

hehehe

[rockwerks]

IF you are using the cheap knockoff version of the Deans plugs sometimes they can be finicky, and have a sweet spot they like to be plugged into. on my super crawler The sweet spot is about 1/16" from all the way pushed in

[Simon.O.]

I know it is an old thread , I started it, here is more.

Wind, light rain, overcast....no big drama there. Running a SW wind so i have to go to Chelsea as Pupuke will only be suitable for the board sailers.

Grab the 30"mono that now has a 7XL on 4S to spin the 637
The cat with 8S on 2S to a 432
The hydro with....does not matter as it did not get wet.

I got to the pond and there was about 1-2"chop with an onshore wind.

Out goes the mono, a few half to 3/4 throttle straights and then a full trigger for the downwind run. Dang that is moving !!
Out to the back and round for a front straight full wot pass. All was good but then it stopped and gave that sound of the motor spinning but no action.

The wire-drive decided to up the excitement by parting company with itself.
It snapped inside the stub and I was lucky to get it all back.
10"of .062 wire is the total cost of that outing.

Out goes the Cat. I think Jesse once used the expression "like a cat shot in the ass"
Gentle into the wind and wot back in to me. That is cool !!!
Out again, bend it round, full trigger....woohoo......%$#@&^%

It was very acrobatic !! Landed upside down. Bugger !!

Out with the tow vessel. This was fine until I ran over the tow line and fouled the prop.
No worries I'll just grab the casting pole and tennis ball. You guessed it, the tennis ball was not on the end of that line.

Wind is now my friend and in they drifted.

The tow vessel will get some mods to prevent this happening again.
I will check if the tennis balls are there in the future.

The cat had a catastrophic failure
The strut blew apart and the shaft whiped about.

Here are the pics.

[domwilson]

Wow. Sorry for the mishap. I hope you get it fixed.

[ozzie-crawl]

bugger, my day wasnt that bad but was one of those days were nothing went rite, is that the dodgie motor i know of simon moving out the mono snapping wire

[Apples1]

2 weeks ago, i was running my now wicked fast rigger for about the 5 time in race trim, and on the 3rd lap, heard a bang!... and then nothing, wind was blowing in my direction but slowly.

as i wansnt at my race lake there was no recue gear, so i had to wait.....

as it drifted closer to shore( about 15min or so) i heard that the NEU was still spooling up ,but with no drive, assuming the motor collet had came loose i dint worry too much.

i finnaly got it to shore, undid the all the hatch tape to find the flex cable had snaped clean about 1-1.5inches at the motor end, and ripped the crap out of the stuffing tube and brace and top part of the hatch, but to make thing worse after a little closer inspection, bugger!, there goes on of my brand new GEN 3 hyperion 3s packs ( with 2 cycles on it) the flailing cable had slice 2 cells, ( probably my eargerness, spooling the motor and left over cable did the damage after the fact, not sure though)

Could of been worse .. could of been 1mm deeper into the lipo and

oh well back to the drawing board and RClipos again.

[Jesse J]

I learned one day that it isn't always that convenient to have the same channel rx in two boats...

Fortunately I wasn't at Simon's pond, but our little villiage pond. I was running my 26" mono on 3S2P 5000mah each - she was sitting real low, like water over the back deck - and I was driving crazy trying to learn the flip limit. Well to learn it, you got to flip it. Ok, no worries pond is small. but then when it flipped in the middle (and didn't yet have my tennis ball technology) the wind suddenly stopped..... classic.

So, go get the rescue vessel - my homade guy, but quickly found his rx was shot... ok back the shop. the only other boat ready was my avatar balsa hydro... with the same rx as the mono (and no I didn't think to change it). Well this guy wasn't exactly ready - didn't have a .062" coupler, so had to use a .078". so get back to the pond and there is the mono, about 1/4 out of the water - ass up. Uh oh... Throw in hydro and head out rattling like a tin can behind a car dudududududududududu with that floppy coupler. All the while the mono is mocking me by mimicking the throttle with its ass in the air.

I get out and gingerly bump the mono hoping it will right, but I am sure you can picture this scene as a hydro, a hydro is doing the rescue no reverse poor slow speed maneuvering. Anyway, it bumps the mono and somehow it slowly inverts... nose poking up - now less than 1/4 out of the water. Another loop with the rescue hydro and just as I bump it, the mono shoots out like a nuke from a sub. This caught me off guard... ok, maybe we can work with this, but that was it - no more (the poor guy is totally flooded inside by now and I am relying on my waterproofing of the rx, but it is underwater...).

Another pass with rescue hydro and by this time there is a pitiful small amount of nose sticking up, so little that the hydro rides up onto it. Uh oh, then - you guessed it, another nuke from the sub - and over with the hydro. By now, not much is surprising me (at least it wasn't raining).

Ok, I am sure the folks in the villaige office are having a good laugh by now as well as the apartments lining the pond... a tiny cone of red poking up next to an upside down bright yellow hydro.

Back to the shop to throw my last operable option at it. What is left? my balsa micro cat, 14" of "I want to torque roll over" fun. . . . Ok, I am sure you have this vivid image, you all know how un-rescue friendly hydros are... nice sloping angles, well this was an exercise in patience, but finally got the hydro close enough to snag - and the micro cat.

Now for the quickly sinking issue. I go ask Mr. pool caretaker if I could use the pool skimmer and by the time I got back to the scene, waded out into the goose dung soup - up to my teets, reach out and scoop the red devil, he was about 2" under and sinking fast. I used up all my extra margin and caught it at the very last instant.....

Return home and the wife almost didn't let me come back inside... dressed.

Definitely could have done without that anti-relaxing boating outing. I did have to laugh at the absurdity, though.

[bustitup]

lol..."goose dung soup"

sounds like something andrew zimmer might try

I learned one day that it isn't always that convenient to have the same channel rx in two boats...

Fortunately I wasn't at Simon's pond, but our little villiage pond. I was running my 26" mono on 3S2P 5000mah each - she was sitting real low, like water over the back deck - and I was driving crazy trying to learn the flip limit. Well to learn it, you got to flip it. Ok, no worries pond is small. but then when it flipped in the middle (and didn't yet have my tennis ball technology) the wind suddenly stopped..... classic.

So, go get the rescue vessel - my homade guy, but quickly found his rx was shot... ok back the shop. the only other boat ready was my avatar balsa hydro... with the same rx as the mono (and no I didn't think to change it). Well this guy wasn't exactly ready - didn't have a .062" coupler, so had to use a .078". so get back to the pond and there is the mono, about 1/4 out of the water - ass up. Uh oh... Throw in hydro and head out rattling like a tin can behind a car dudududududududududu with that floppy coupler. All the while the mono is mocking me by mimicking the throttle with its ass in the air.

I get out and gingerly bump the mono hoping it will right, but I am sure you can picture this scene as a hydro, a hydro is doing the rescue no reverse poor slow speed maneuvering. Anyway, it bumps the mono and somehow it slowly inverts... nose poking up - now less than 1/4 out of the water. Another loop with the rescue hydro and just as I bump it, the mono shoots out like a nuke from a sub. This caught me off guard... ok, maybe we can work with this, but that was it - no more (the poor guy is totally flooded inside by now and I am relying on my waterproofing of the rx, but it is underwater...).

Another pass with rescue hydro and by this time there is a pitiful small amount of nose sticking up, so little that the hydro rides up onto it. Uh oh, then - you guessed it, another nuke from the sub - and over with the hydro. By now, not much is surprising me (at least it wasn't raining).

Ok, I am sure the folks in the villaige office are having a good laugh by now as well as the apartments lining the pond... a tiny cone of red poking up next to an upside down bright yellow hydro.

Back to the shop to throw my last operable option at it. What is left? my balsa micro cat, 14" of "I want to torque roll over" fun. . . . Ok, I am sure you have this vivid image, you all know how un-rescue friendly hydros are... nice sloping angles, well this was an exercise in patience, but finally got the hydro close enough to snag - and the micro cat.

Now for the quickly sinking issue. I go ask Mr. pool caretaker if I could use the pool skimmer and by the time I got back to the scene, waded out into the goose dung soup - up to my teets, reach out and scoop the red devil, he was about 2" under and sinking fast. I used up all my extra margin and caught it at the very last instant.....

Return home and the wife almost didn't let me come back inside... dressed.

Definitely could have done without that anti-relaxing boating outing. I did have to laugh at the absurdity, though.

[Apples1]

BTW blew Hydra 240 yestersay aswell, bugger. i didnt notice one wire was off the motor,and tried to do a ESC reboot and BANG and Flames, also looks like the 1521 1y is buggerd aswell, it wont free spin properly and gets caught on something, every 2nd rotation.

I am the camels Back and that motor will be the stick. keep you guys posted, might have a BBY rigger for sale later this week.

[Simon.O.]

BTW blew Hydra 240 yesterday

What a farkin surprise !!

might have a BBY rigger for sale later this week.

Don't sell it !! I'll tell ya how to make it honk well on a shoe-string. If that fails then you can send it to me.

PM me and we can "talk"

[Simon.O.]

My small rigger was rooted !!

This was fun !! 55mph with a small rigger

Full story here,
http://forums.offshoreelectrics.com/...757#post108757

[Apples1]

the thing is honking, but $200 for a Hydra 240 and $350 for a NEU, havnt given up yet, just waiting on the outcome from my GUY. it really sucks im get 120kph consisantly out of her. and she turn like a demon.

let you know what the outcome is tommorrow night.

Catch ya.

[Apples1]

Prognosis.... HYdra 240 Shagged ( no surprise there) one of the internal wires had come off and shorted, and as for the NEU 1521 1y, its just the bearings than need replacing,

outcome $200 for a new 240
$20 for bearing
Bottle of johnny for the fixer

Not too bad an outcome. Still not sure if this caper is worth it, still trying to work out if i can ever race, if no then i'm probably out, give it a couple of weeks and see.

But if anyone is seriously intrested in a BBY CF rigger RTR @ 120kph, PM me. it might help me make up my mind,