New boat Recovery

[Tbauer]

I finally bought a cool little tug boat.

Tug Boat.jpg

[Beniki]

Very nice! What is it? Where is it from? How much?

[lenny]

I believe that is the Southampton tug,
But I have never seen one painted white like that.
And it also reads Atlantic on the hatch but on the stand it reads Southampton,
Hears some more info about them.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1387454

http://www.walmart.com/ip/ARCTIC-Aqua-Rider-703-Southampton-Radio-Controlled-Twin-Screw-Tug-Boat/20606546

http://rcscalemodelstore.com/ships-and-boats/rc-wyeforce-southampton-tug-boat-ready-to-run/

http://www.jason-webb.com/rc-radiocontrolled/hobby_engine_southampton_tug.html

[Dangerous_Toys]

Looks like the aquacraft Atlantic Harbor Tug to me

[Tbauer]

I got it from realscalemodels.com

the boat is an Atlantic Wyeforce $280.00

on the site the Wyeforce is made by another manufacturer, but Atlantic was what they had in stock. Same boat, different colors

[FastWayne]

Me too! probably common theme, tug to rescue fast boats; )

Mine Is a Seaport Work Boat. $67 I upgraded the electronics with Futaba FM, esc and lead ballast. I like the boat and will be painting it to look painted rather than colored plastic.

[Tbauer]

I saw that one, how do you like it?

[FastWayne]

The Sea Port Work boat out of the box is a joke, however with a little work it can be made seaworthy. It comes with a water ballast tank and very rudimentary radio system that is not proportional with a range of 30 feet. The water ballast on mine never worked and it would capsize. I sealed the ballast tank and filled it with lead weight and added a decent esc and radio system. The superstructure was very top heavy, all 3 decks and tower are plastic secured with many metal screws. I cut out the decks removed the crane and life boat and all the many screws that held it all together. I glued everything into one piece to save weight. I'm going to give it a coat of flat paint to lose the shiny plastic toy look. I also removed the exhaust stacks, the boat has cleaner lines without the stacks, crane, life boat and tower. It now is hobby grade and works very well; ) you can see the simple upgrades below. Also I found on another forum that many have been upgraded and detailed.

[Tbauer]

For the price, you can't go wrong tho...........

[skeeler]

I'm just chiming in to say I have the Hobby Engine Shouthampton Tug in the tan color scheme. The stock electronics are rather puny, but I replaced the ESC with a dual-channel model that has "tank steering" built in, put in a Spektrum Rx for use with my normal Tx, and run the boat on 3S LiFePO4. The tank steering makes it extremely maneuverable, and the 9.9-V power system gives it usable speed. It's a fun little boat, but in a very different way from my offshore powerboats. I've done some test rescues with it, but haven't had to use for any real rescues yet.

[skeeler]

Since this seems to be a tug-for-recovery thread, I thought I'd post my recent use of my Southampton for that purpose.

First, a practice rescue of my Revolt 30:


Then a real rescue of the same boat. You can see that the rescue hook consists of the hooks from two plastic hangers epoxied together.


This shot shows how I use a carabiner to attach the rescue hook:

[petej]

My Southhampton Tug rescuing a capsized race boat.

Purchased the tug from Wal-Mart, online, for $130. Put a Tactic receiver, a Traxxas water-proof brushed ESC and use a 7.4V, 1500mAh LiPo battery. Encircle the stranded boat, wrapping the floating string around the antennae tube or rudder, pull her in. Very reliable, maneuverable.

folsom-10.jpg