Morning Norry,
Glad that someone agrees with me! This really come to light when we had the tug towing finals down in Southchurch park Southend a number of years back, we had two judges one being my dad and one being a close Friend and also member of the model club, between them they had over 100 years of experience as tug or vessel masters and all as I kept hearing them mutter is “you would never seen that being done like that!”
Here needs to be some sort of ‘realistic use’ mark brought into things. The bow thruster on a normal harbour tug is normally in the 150-450 horse power area and as you correctly say for moving the tug not the tow, this business of falling alongside the tow and pushing it round with a scale bow thruster of about 5000 horse power is nonsense.
Another item which in my opinion should be raised is tug positions and connections to the tows, we sea some weird and wonderful connections or bridles, cross bridles, towing on chains etc. This again is nonsense, 99% or harbour towage (which we are supposed to be replicating) is done on a single rope, this should be the same in our hobby.
With regards to tug positioning how often have I seen an omni directional tug on the bow of the tow and an old single screw boat being dragged round the course gogged down, again nonsense. Points should in my opinion be deducted for all non realistic acts weather it be with the set up or maneuvers on the course.
I agree with the single screw class, this will show who really can drive a boat but this needs to be kept simple with it single open or in a nozzle (fixed or steering) allowed.
The only way that this situation will ever be controlled is with a bollard pull limit being set. Some years ago I built a Wyeforce (named her Flying Breeze) and she pulled 7.5 lb at the time that was a huge amount, the biggest in the club (my regular boat for tug towing and adapted Yorkshireman pulled only 3.5 lb) now my friend Ray is building Canadian style logging tugs pulling 15-17 lb’s abate he has the sense not to use them for tug towing!
Again another mail which is food for thought. Our hobby is sadly mostly enjoyed by wonderful gentlemen in there more senior of years and the idea of humping a 40” model about with a 200 a/hr batter in it is not a realistic proposition, just getting these things in and out of the water is an effort for the younger chaps, a smaller more limited class would I am sure open this wonderful area of our hobby up to more people, and by Christ does it need that!
Cheers.
Darren.
(From a very cold and snowy Aktau, Kazakhstan. Most certainly not boating weather today).