Finally got a chance to wet Albert on the weekend, but my hesitations about the brushless motor turned out to be well founded.
At low, and probably scale speed he toddles along nicely, but when you give him a few more amps he runs a short while then the speed control cuts out and he goes no further. Turn the power off, then on again and all back to normal until it gets a bit warm again and same result.
So there's a couple of options here, and that's get a bigger than the current 30amp controller, or gut him and go back to a brushed motor system.
We'll give him another run on the new found Billabong tomorrow and see what happens, but I'm guessing it'll be a repeat of Saturday.
We spoke to a local farmer who I know quite well, and he has a natural watercourse on his 1200 acres that he's given us permission to run on. It's a bit reedy on one side and probably not suitable for the big boats, but it's close to home ( 11 kms ) and private! This pond is constantly replenished by underground bore water, as it's used as a surface reservoir for his travelling irrigator which is currently watering 360 acres of maize, to be used as silage for the cattle feedlot next door. At the end of the maize crop there is a small plot of sweet corn which we are allowed to raid tomorrow, which is when it's ready for picking!
Unlike you lucky poms, we don't have many council managed model ponds in Australia, and in the country where I live there is little accessible water of any kind, particulary due to the 4th year of drought.
I might just mention here also, that I think the suggested waterline of 35mm up from the bottom is not quite enough, as that's what I've used on my Albert, and with a 6v x 4.5ah battery he sits lower in the water than ideal. Changing to a LiPo probably wouldn't make that much difference!
Ian.