Well.......she's all done !!

[Gary]

Take a good look because that's the last video of a great life for a Phil Thomas 45 boat. Had some sort of servo glitch going on with my new Hitec servo's. They seemed to be drawing to much power for whatever reason and would make the receiver unresponsive. Thought it was fixed and tested it many times but....guess not. Boat was on a strong pass and I suddenly lost communication with the servo and slam into a rock near shore at 95 mph, according to the GPS. Boat is completely destroyed....and I mean the worst i have ever seen in 15 years of boating. i don't think I want to go down the SAW boat MPH chase anymore since it took 4 years to get to where it was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkKNLOkGXVE

[Raydee]

That stinks, my PT45 is about 8 years old now and still going strong. Wait a little bit and build another

[fweasel]

Sorry to hear it. Am I an ass that I was also disappointed to not see a video of the crash itself...

[CraigP]

Sorry to hear that, every boater's worst nightmare. All of us have that thought cross our mind while running... I crashed my new hydro after just pain stakingly panting it. I was very fortunate and it wasn't a total loss, but I sure thought it was! Put it up on the shore, stuffed it into the side of the bank, doing about 50... It took me a week before I even thought about starting the repairs..

It's a grieving process, so like the advice above, just let it go for a while. We all feel your pain!

[Gary]

Sorry no vid of crash. The hard part is the years invested plus a few thousand in broken,burnt,worn out parts, the fact that running a boat like this requires night before prep,perfect water conditions,no one around on or near the lake and an hour round trip drive while doing this for years. Best mph was 107 and things go really bad when something screws up !! My other boats are FUN to run....and cheap....this one was a major personal project that consumed a lot of time and resource.
This really bites !! O-well just venting.

[fweasel]

This really bites !! O-well just venting.

You're certainly entitled.

[rol243]

sorry to hear about this crash. one thing all should remember is if you have any radio issues on land you don,t go in the water just like r/c aircraft , any radio issues you don,t fly as i once found out.

[Gary]

You are 100% correct. I had my someone stand with the boat at the garage and I walked at least 700 feet down the road and even pushed the antenna in a foot just to bias the signal and no problems. Checked this on two different days.
I just talked to Phil about doing a custom carbon fiber enforced hull but don't know if I want to go down this up hill speed road again. I do make him laugh a lot about the speeds I am doing and he always says...."Ya know....that hull was only designed to go 50+ mph" and I always say "Come on Phil ,I can run faster than that. LOL

[rol243]

Gary are you using an FM radio set ? if so i must say some after market receivers can become glitchy with electric models. i remember some time ago i had a Hitec receiver with a JR tx and as soon as motor power was applied , the servos glitched. swapped to a JR rx and all was then fine. same thing happened with a Corona FM rx .

[MarkF]

Gary
Sorry to hear of your crash. I want to ask you a question. My PT45 hops real bad until I get to full throttle. And then it runs solid until a little wind gust or chop and up and over it goes. Did you do anything to the sponsons or other changes?

Mark

[Gary]

Your prop is to deep....more than likely. What are you using?
Sponsons are stock and will go over 100+ no problem.

[MarkF]

No the strut is 1/2 to 3/4 inch. Any more than that and it hopes worse. I tried the cg were they say and then I added weight to get it more forward. It's a little better with the strut at 3/4 and the cg forward. I have been racing for over 25 years and went over 100 mph for the first time about 7 years ago when I use to put on the saw event in Las Angeles. This isn't my first rodeo and I have never seen a boat behave this badly. I think the boat must be warped or something. That's why I asked if you did something to your boat versus stock.

Mark

[rol243]

Mark, i had a simular hop issue with a gas powered sport hydro and found the cause was a combination of too forward of c.o.g. plus the use of a lifting prop. this forward cog made the tail [ transom ] too light and with the lifting prop amplified the transom causing it to lift and drop in concession. the fix was to move the c.o.g back abit and use a non lifting prop, also a few guys mentioned a flat bottom strut can cause a hop when using the wrong prop type.
are you using a lifting prop ?

[Gary]

Rol243 is correct to much forward will cause the transom to lift,sponsons dig in,slow boat,transom comes back down, repeat LOL

[T.S.Davis]

Did I read that right? 95 mph on an FM radio?