Since this boat is built solely for fun and to retrieve our fast boats when they flip, I went through a couple of trials before I made a system that works very well. The string and ping-pong ball took a little longer to capture the stranded vessel, and was trickey when the boat was more than 100meters from shore.
Came up with a drag-net type of system which mounts to the boat with a swivel to allow for variations of roll, pitch, and yaw. Bent up and TIG welded some 3/16" (4.7mm) steel rod for the frame. Floats are plastic soda bottles. Heavy duty nylon line acts as the catch system, I ran several lengths of it to improve the entanglement. The whole thing folds flat for storage and takes about 2 minutes to install. All I do is pass alongside the capsized craft, and this snags it and makes for a simple retrieval.
At this point there isnt much left to do. It works perfectly. All I need is to make it move faster to the rescue...might need to build a bigger tug next!
My Aquacraft Lucas Oil cat served as the test subject
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