Fast Electric World Championships

[NativePaul]

No, unfortunately not Mark, one of my prime objectives was to get some video of the F3E steering, but the course that the held the speed and steering events on was on a tree lined bank with a scaffold jetti for the competitors and officials to stand, and no room for extra bodies filming, i did do some rescue and judging for F3e and you get a great view from the rescue boat parked on the island but no opportunity for filming, the new records are super impressive though, as you say <10 seconds for the speed classes, but even more impressive for me was <15 seconds for F3e steering round the christmas tree, it would have been incredible if I had not seen it with my own eyes, I think if I practised 8 hours a day for the next year I might get a clear round, but it would take me a minute.
This is not my video, was not shot at this world champs, and the new record is nearly a second faster, but this shows the extreme difficulty of the course to those that don't know F3e, you must go clean through the gates, a touch gives you a 5 second time penalty which puts you way out of contention.

[T.S.Davis]

Those guys are not human. Can't be. haha I couldn't hit those openings if my life depended on it.

I think Doug was just pointing out that the loops are required for "safety" but racing boats with people on the pond is okay. It's a weird is all. Maybe we should have a run with the retrieve boat class here to make it easier for international mingling. I'm kidding BTW. One whoops here and it would be off to the lawyers. Not a criticism of NAVIGA. More of a US problem.

[NativePaul]

I see safety loops as a convenience thing more than anything else, in the UK we have to do duties like race control, caller/timekeeper, lap counter or buoy judge when we are not racing, with at least 1 duty per class you race, so if you race 3 classes like a lot of people do and do 3 duties there are probably only 2 classes you are not involved with, if you couldn't tape up well in advance and plug in when it is time to race no one would be ready for their heat and races would run so late we would need lights on our boats. There are other issues too once you have more than 2 models in a rescue boat it gets hard to find places to put them down where the prop cant touch the rescue boat, each other or you should they come to life. And very infreqently but once in a while we do see boats upside down going balls out, or stopped boats with smoke coming out from burned ESCs and it is nice to be able to disconnect them rather than just watch the show and wait for further damage to stop the action.

Unfortunately we are fast catching up with you in our litigiousness and daytime TV is full of adverts for no win no fee ambulance chasing lawyers that deserve to be run over by the ambulance they are chasing. This and the increasing speed of mono1s is why I don't think we will have active rescue boats in Team Mono1 for much longer. While it is pretty scary, it is an irrational fear and I don't believe there is any safety issue with running any of the Eco Team or FSRE classes with an active rescue boat, if I did I wouldn't do it. I spent a full ECO day taking photos and following the least stable boats trying to get exciting photos of boats in the air on a day that was pretty rough and there was probably 4 hours of constant racing during that day and the best air I saw was this Mini Eco during practice on Friday which got 3-4 inches of air, when a rescue boat has 2 feet of freeboard I see it as safe for the submerged drive classes.

[martin]

Paul whats your opinion on the Tenshock Scord 111 that I believe their were a few racing, assuming you did see some of these of course. I know the Scord 4 is coming but no one seems to know quite when. Regards Martin.

[Gromov]

Hi guys
This 15 minutes race FSR E. Final WC in Belgium..

I winn....

And this F1E. Not 9,6 sec, but fast...

And fotoset from WC in Belgium....

[martin]

Evgeniy your thoughts on the Tenshock Scord 111, are they any good. This wont be used for competition racing but fast Mono 1 fun. Regards Martin.

[NativePaul]

I was very impressed with the Scord 3s, very fast as it is small and light, I heard it is based on an ETTI Sabre but modified not to dive, and the mods definitely seem to have worked, Chan Kwai Cheung's one was decimating the competition in its (very rough) heat on the first day.

and while the highest lap score was 29 only 1 person got that in one heat, 28 was the next best score and Bart Van Geyt's was the only boat to get 28 laps in all 3 heats which shows how little it was effected by the conditions.

If you look at my Mono1 final video on page 2 it is Bart's Scord3 that I am following most of the time, he takes the lead about 2m30s into the video. unfortunately I think he must have stopped for some reason shortly after the video ends as he only got 24 laps in the final.

[Erik Aa]

Hi Paul.
Which hulls were competitive in H2? I'm thinking about testing something in this class.

Best,
Erik

[NativePaul]

Mainly the competitive H2s were home made or small volume local manufacturers, I think the only easily obtainable glass Hydro2s that were competitive stock were H&M Mr Krabs/Dr Super Evils and Lindeau Bathlets, my JAE.21 is heavily modified and with better luck I could have made the finals so was competitive in the conditions but had it been flat water it would not have been near competitive and even in the conditions there were a few modified super evils and home brews that I couldn't hope to get close to.

[Erik Aa]

Interesting. I was actually considering a JAE21 FE, but it sounds like a glass hull is perhaps the better way to go?

[twissted]

hor racing has some fast ones

[NativePaul]

Good glass hydros are a lot lighter than the stock JAE, but I know 2 racers in the UK that have built JAEs much lighter than stock, one to the stock JAE design but thinner ply and one with their own shape and thickness tub but to JAE dimensions, and both are a good advantage, if I was to build another wood one it would have thinner ply and be lighter, I won't though as I am working on plugs for a new series of hydros based on a JAE sponson now, and that may or may not be available at a small volume under the Greased Weasel Racing name at a later date depending if I am happy with them. I hope that they will be faster than the JAE, but they will still be predominately rough water boats and while they will close the gap, there will still be faster boats on flat water. One of the fastest flat water boats I have seen is the Mongoose (no relation) series which have been a homebrew low volume group of riggers that look a bit Dr Evil at first glance but I know a lot of R&D and improvements have gone on from there, Heath's RC Models have just bought the rights to them and are having them made by Raush in Germany, I have not seen a production version yet but I have been impressed with the design and finish of the originals, and the layup of the Rausch Essenze Monos so I expect they will be good, I was actually offered a sponsored drive a little to late, had it been last year I would have snapped his hand off to get it as I nearly bought one of each, but I was too heavily invested both time and money in my own boats to take it, still I may end up buying them, as I believe dedicated rough water and flat water boats have a big advantage over 1 boat that is a compromise.

Having said that I saw a couple of French low volume H1 hulls that look like a good compromise between rough and smooth water (and VERY fast starts too), one was the blue and white Belgian boat in post 41, I didn't take contact details to get one as may be gathered by my preferances above but I know the designer speaks English so if you searched for a French FE forum and posted that pic there he would come forward or someone would pass you on to him.

twissted do you have a link? I haven't seen any.

[Erik Aa]

Very interesting. Please let us know how your hulls perform eventually. Sounds like a glass hull is the way to go. Do you run offset wire/flex drives in H2? If so, about 6 mm?

Best,
Erik

[NativePaul]

Glass could well be the way to go it is light and they have much better aero, but wood has its advantages, it is cheap and easy to modify/repair, while a stock thickness JAE is too heavy to be really competitive at the highest level it is fine for club racing, and the weight brings strength with it. While I think it is far too heavy now when I first switched to riggers I was very glad that it was built far too strong, as it is faster and drives very differently to the cats I was used to and I hit a lot of bouys in the first couple of years, we had another racer in the club that went to a rigger first at the same time with a Lindeneau Bathlet and he also hit several buoys in his first couple of years, every time he hit a buoy he broke the boat, split sponson, torn tub, ripped out boom mounts, etc, but every time I hit a buoy I snapped the booms and replaced them with no damage to the boat and often in time for the next heat. I switched to solid 8mm booms and then only broke booms every other time I hit a buoy, the added stresses passed on meant that I did rip out my boom mountings once splitting a sponson but the nature of the wood over foam construction meant it was a 5 minute repair in the field and ready for the next heat rather than the race day being over and a long repair at home.

I run a 1.6mm wire in my H2 (I have used 1.6mm for 2 years but have broken 1 and it ruined my race day, so 2mm may be more appropriate) with 2-3mm offset as there is not that much prop walk from the 34mm props I am running these days. The new boats will be fully offset with the drive on the right side of the tub, and the tub will be offset to the left bringing it back closer to the centreline, it is an unusual setup that I have not used or even seen before, so I would guess a little less than now, but I have no real idea how much offset it will need.

[Erik Aa]

Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Now I am actually leaning towards the JAE21. I think I need to crawl before I can run. Would you run a stock JAE with an offset wiredrive or not?