Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length.

[Martin (Admin)]

Afternoon All !

I'm looking for ideas for next years Mayhem at Wicksteed.

I was chatting to sir Ron the Dean a few weeks ago and he points out that most 'steer through the buoys' courses heavily disadvantage long narrow boats, warships, etc.

I'm looking for steering course elements that disadvantage  long and short vessels alike.

Ideas please? 

Martin

[unbuiltnautilus]

I have given this some deep thought...

.....this just clears the way for sensible comments from now on

[jimmy2310]

Ah Eh, UBN

 I was going to suggest downhill slalom.

Jimmy

[roycv]

Here is an idea we used at a steering course regatta many years ago.
It is 2 canals (each a length of timber) but mounted as a VEE of about 60 degrees.  They point into the bank.  At the bank there is a soft point on the bank, length of soft foam etc.
The idea is to sail in through one canal nuzzle up to the bank with bow on soft part.  Then using forward on the motor and the rudder over until the boat has swung over and orientated itself to go in reverse and back down the other canal.
The inner lengths of the canals need adjusting for the lengths of the boats running.
This is an advantage to longer boats.
good luck, Roy

[Colin Bishop]

The problem with reversing is that some models steer and others don't! There is always the issue that in seeking to overcome one problem you inadvertently create another.

A lot of work was done on this by the MPBA back in the 1970s which showed that courses could be made fair to different sized boats within certain limits. A key factor was to make the gates wide enough for all vessels but to place the competitor in a position where the width was not immediately apparent and which required nerve to negotiate successfully. The competitors could look at the course from all angles before their run so they knew that they could get round it easiliy enough but many were subsequently caught out when it came to the crunch.

Colin

[boatmadman]

Crunch being the operative word?

[essex2visuvesi]

a little off topic but what about a straight line drag race for us POWEEEEEER boys? nothing serious just head to heads

I will be trying very hard to make it to Wickstead next year

[colin-d]

here in Germany we run hundreds of Steering courses....

the three main rules when creating a course

1. all the gates are 1 meter apart
2. no long reversing
3. all the gates must be far enough apart from each other

all of these courses can be Steered with a long or short ship...

[Bob K]

Afternoon All !
I was chatting to sir Ron the Dean a few weeks ago and he points out that most 'steer through the buoys' courses heavily disadvantage long narrow boats, warships, etc.
Martin

I managed to negotiate the Wicksteed course with both of my long narrow twin screw warships, but it was challenging.  Whatever you do will remain harder for such scale ships, whilst Kort nozzle springer tugs can almost negotiate an egg crate PacMan maze.  As long you you don't make turns too tight we'll have a go !
Tip:  Get an Action P94 dual esc with integral mixer   

[longshanks]

I would suggest its impossible to cater for both on the same course.

Perhaps a small  separate section on the way round thats very tight for the small/maneuverable boats.

[Stavros]

Just make sure there is enough room for the Happy Hunter all 5feet and 18ins beam of her just in case it demolishes hte course trying to go around it


Dave

[knoby]

Designing courses that are fair to all models has always been a difficult task & has been discussed in length on various threads here previously. Have a look at this thread:
http://www.modelboatmayhem.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=27982.0
In reply 17 roycv came up with, what I thought, was a good suggestion which may work well for a Wicksteed.