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My whole reason for being into RC boats is a weekend of racing that my family does at our yearly family reunion at the cottage. It started with 3 boats including my old brushless mono, and has steadily increased to 10 boats in total. The rules are loose and the stakes are high... bragging rights and a small trophy. The field now consists of 4 SV-27's, a Fine brushless mono (very fast), a Fine brushless Cat, a Traxxas Villain, a couple other nice monos, and my UL-1.
I sold my old brushless mono because it was simply eating the field alive, it was a chinese made deep V hull, with Fine turbo trans, and brushless drive. It handled like a slot car and never flipped. I got bored of the easy handling and wanted something more challenging to drive, so I parted it out and bought the UL-1 sight unseen.
I've had the boat since April, and have been chipping away at the mods in preparation for this weekend. I never even water tested it prior to this weekend! I had one practice run and then it was race time.
Here is what I did to it to prepare for this weekend:
1) Darrin's turn fin reinforcement with ply and epoxy.
2) Kintec larger fin bracket.
3) Expanding foam injection inside 90% of the hull
4) Kintec water jacket.
5) Added Kintec capacitor to ESC in addition to the stock cap.
6) Grimracer 40x52/3 sharpened copper prop.
7) Grimracer Speedgrease
8) Nylon shear bolts in fin and rudder
I left the strut and rudder set at factory spec. Loaded up some 5000mah lipos, taped her up with matching orange tape from Kintec and threw her in. A quick tap on the throttle and she popped up on plane and took off like a bat out of hell. Maybe I got lucky, maybe it is the foam injection adding weight, I don't know, but the boat was rock solid on the water. It handled like a champ, with amazing manners, and even handled the course’s inside left turn with ease, which I was sceptical about. The vids I have seen seem to indicate the boat is a bit sketchier, but mine was glued, no hop or chatter. The water had a slight chop, but the boat never blew over when running unmolested (more on this later), instead it just popped up over a wave and settled right back down. Wonderful stability. After a 6 lap race the boat was never hot, motor, esc and batts were all well below the danger zone, even though this tight course required alot of feathering of the throttle to make the inside S-turn, between the full throttle long straight-aways.
Overall, I couldn’t be happier with this boat. I gave me all the speed I could handle, coupled with solid handling and great reliability.
Unfortunately, I didn’t win the series this weekend. Out of 5 races, I won 3 easily and flipped twice due to contact with other boats. Once, I ran up behind an El Lobo mono which sits very low in the water, my sponson ramped up it and over I went. My fault, and my Grimracer prop sliced off the El Lobo’s antenna flush with the hull. Kinda funny. The second flip happened when I rubbed shoulders with the Fine Design Cat and lost my nose canopy and one rear fin. To make up time I pegged it and realized that the boat is much looser on the water without the canopy and fin. It wanted to lift at full throttle, where before it would stay glued to the water. I blew over trying to catch the leader. Has anyone else experienced this when driving without the nose canopy? Maybe it acts as an air dam to provide some turbulence under the hull and prevent lift?
The winner of the weekend was an SV-27 with the roll-over cowl. That damn roll-over cowl works wonders!! It allowed him to finish each race so he won on points.
To wrap it up, thanks Grim and Aquacraft for building a boat I could have so much fun with, at such little expense. There will be 2 other racers switching to the UL-1 after this weekend. My previous Fine Design mono probably cost me $800-900 to build and wasn’t any better or more reliable than the UL-1. The UL-1, despite its shortcomings, truly is a gift to the RC boat racing community
I sold my old brushless mono because it was simply eating the field alive, it was a chinese made deep V hull, with Fine turbo trans, and brushless drive. It handled like a slot car and never flipped. I got bored of the easy handling and wanted something more challenging to drive, so I parted it out and bought the UL-1 sight unseen.
I've had the boat since April, and have been chipping away at the mods in preparation for this weekend. I never even water tested it prior to this weekend! I had one practice run and then it was race time.
Here is what I did to it to prepare for this weekend:
1) Darrin's turn fin reinforcement with ply and epoxy.
2) Kintec larger fin bracket.
3) Expanding foam injection inside 90% of the hull
4) Kintec water jacket.
5) Added Kintec capacitor to ESC in addition to the stock cap.
6) Grimracer 40x52/3 sharpened copper prop.
7) Grimracer Speedgrease
8) Nylon shear bolts in fin and rudder
I left the strut and rudder set at factory spec. Loaded up some 5000mah lipos, taped her up with matching orange tape from Kintec and threw her in. A quick tap on the throttle and she popped up on plane and took off like a bat out of hell. Maybe I got lucky, maybe it is the foam injection adding weight, I don't know, but the boat was rock solid on the water. It handled like a champ, with amazing manners, and even handled the course’s inside left turn with ease, which I was sceptical about. The vids I have seen seem to indicate the boat is a bit sketchier, but mine was glued, no hop or chatter. The water had a slight chop, but the boat never blew over when running unmolested (more on this later), instead it just popped up over a wave and settled right back down. Wonderful stability. After a 6 lap race the boat was never hot, motor, esc and batts were all well below the danger zone, even though this tight course required alot of feathering of the throttle to make the inside S-turn, between the full throttle long straight-aways.
Overall, I couldn’t be happier with this boat. I gave me all the speed I could handle, coupled with solid handling and great reliability.
Unfortunately, I didn’t win the series this weekend. Out of 5 races, I won 3 easily and flipped twice due to contact with other boats. Once, I ran up behind an El Lobo mono which sits very low in the water, my sponson ramped up it and over I went. My fault, and my Grimracer prop sliced off the El Lobo’s antenna flush with the hull. Kinda funny. The second flip happened when I rubbed shoulders with the Fine Design Cat and lost my nose canopy and one rear fin. To make up time I pegged it and realized that the boat is much looser on the water without the canopy and fin. It wanted to lift at full throttle, where before it would stay glued to the water. I blew over trying to catch the leader. Has anyone else experienced this when driving without the nose canopy? Maybe it acts as an air dam to provide some turbulence under the hull and prevent lift?
The winner of the weekend was an SV-27 with the roll-over cowl. That damn roll-over cowl works wonders!! It allowed him to finish each race so he won on points.
To wrap it up, thanks Grim and Aquacraft for building a boat I could have so much fun with, at such little expense. There will be 2 other racers switching to the UL-1 after this weekend. My previous Fine Design mono probably cost me $800-900 to build and wasn’t any better or more reliable than the UL-1. The UL-1, despite its shortcomings, truly is a gift to the RC boat racing community
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