Although it doesn't look much different from the last set of photos, a lot of painting and finishing have been done. The deck and waterline needed repainting, and the RC gear has been reinstalled and tested. I now have the throttle and steering working quite well, though as always some further fettling will be needed with settings on the Futaba T6EX 2.4 gHz Tx, as it is originally designed for aircraft and there are all sorts of end point settings and the like that need to be adjusted. I gave it a further test in the bath last night and now have found reverse. When at a constant throttle setting the motor does oscillate a bit in tone, a cycle taking several seconds. This might be down to the fact I have not yet earthed the battery black wire. However, it is nothing major.
As you can see after doing some paint touch-ups I applied the BECC RN-type pennant numbers. The number '718' is actually the MM plans number that can be seen at the bottom right of the Slalome plan. As it is a fictitious craft I felt that was in keeping, and the RN numbers make it look a bit more like a naval vessel, especially before I build the missiles and install them on the rear of the superstructure. I prefer the RN style numbers over the US-style shaded italic types.
The batteries, ESC and so on in the rear compartment are all mounted to a single ply 'deck', with the wiring held down by cable ties. I elected to use a separate receiver battery so that the it can still be steered if power is running low, and for weight distribution reasons. The deck is removable by unplugging the 2 motor wires and undoing the rudder servo linkage and a single screw that secures the deck to a captive nut just forward of the rudder post. In this way minimal strain is put on the wiring and the whole thing can be removed for adjustment or maintenance. It is also easier to work on building the deck and installing/adjusting gear outside the boat. Because the deck opening is slightly narrower than the original, there isn't a great deal of room and mounting the RC gear in this way makes things a bit more convenient. The batteries still need something to secure them to the deck, so that they do not move about.
A single removable box for the battery and RC gear was actually part of Vic Smeed's concept for the design.