So enough of that nonsense! There are one or two things I forgot to weave into my story. I don't have a scale to weigh the whole assemblage complete, but the parts (painted) came out at 8Lbs 9 ozs - near perfect, but no credit to me, merely fortuitous. So I have no ballast in the boat.
I rushed to meet the deadline for our annual steering competition, and so ran (first time in the water!) with the deck merely screwed on but not sealed and the batteries loose for trimming. You may imagine what happened, since the competition was in part a time trial. Put in the water, she sat just right with the batteries as far back as I had allowed for (again, fortuitous). But of course when I took off the power to maneovre round an obstacle, the batteries slid forward and she ran bow down, shipping water over the bow, so I headed fast for shore!
I suppose I really should acknowledge that though things may seem fortuitous to me, since I was not conscious of having an assuredly good end-product, it really is testimony to the skill of the designers that merely following their guidelines led to such satisfying results.
The batteries have now been stabilised and she runs slightly head up, which is what we want. She is very maneuverable (where DO the e and the o and the u fit?) in forward motion, but hates to go in reverse. This was very evident in the reversing sections of the course we had to run in the steering competition and has not improved since then.
So I have a question. Is reverse commonly uncontrollable, or is there some solution? I would really appreciate any tips on how to correct this one fault if anyone has suggestions to offer.
And a regret - at the moment I don't have anyone to play with! But I have one taker for a build next winter and I hope others will get bitten by the Springer bug. I'm sure they would if they could see the amazing work of some of the contributors around here as displayed, for instance, in the Rogues Gallery - you folks are a real inspiration - many thanks.
Meantime, thanks for the kind words - really undeserved because quite the contrary of being a master builder, I merely tried hard, but really I didn't know what the hxxx I was doing! I hope that my story will give some encouragement to others who hesitate - things really can work out even if you don't have any experience to fall back on! I learned a lot along the way and really appreciate the wealth of shared information in places like this - thanks again folks!
And if I can remember, I'll post a few snaps of her in the water later next week.