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[Plastic - RIP]

How does sailing your boats make you feel?

Do you find relaxation in letting your yacht sail gently on the lake or are you paranoid that it'll hook-up on submerged obstacles?   

   
Do you worry about turning your top-heavy, super-detailed battleship at full speed in case it capsizes or if it might be rammed and damaged by a careless colleague?       Do you trust your fellow boaters?   


Do you back off the throttle when there's loads of chaotic sailors randomly driving their boats across your path?    Does it make you annoyed?

Are you always waiting for another mechanical failure to strand your boat?

I'm just wondering how people really view their time at the lake?      Does it lower your blood pressure or raise it?

Do you really enjoy it or is it actually stressful?   

[Buccaneer]

If it is that stressful I suggest you give it up. Stick to Skydiving and Motorcycle racing.
John

[modboat]

Hi all Hope you are keeping safe.


Very strange one this, but the question was asked.


Watford I suppose is a bit different to Spalding, numbers at pondside traffic etc.


We are only a small gathering at the pond side, we are not rivet counters, and do this hobby for one reason, to get in our own perfect world and chill when work allows. I can however see where you are coming from, as I have seen this at other clubs. We are not all fast and furious on the pond but do have a rule, Scale is scale and fast is for a session where we are all kids again. We manage this so the two do not meet. If this awkwardness is in your club then maybe it needs management to ensure all happy. Sometimes I like a quiet sale sometimes I like to let my hair down and I do do both, but not when an 80 year old has his pond yacht on the pond its called respect.


That being said I get more frustrated more on the building bench when things don't go right.
At the moment building the trumpeter Hood. but the paint reference to Tamiya colour I feel is totally wrong the superstructure grey looks more of a green. Is it me? or is it the reference in the kit. Don't know but its got me BLOODY FRUSTRATED and now lost the excitement to finish.


Is that what you where looking for LOL


Keep safe all


Modboat 

[Andyn]

Depends. I wholeheartedly trust my guys down the lake with fast ic powered craft, as they're always going the same course and I know they're excellent drivers. The electric boaters less so, and the people with sailing boats may as well leave the controller at home 

[Plastic - RIP]

Depends. I wholeheartedly trust my guys down the lake with fast ic powered craft, as they're always going the same course and I know they're excellent drivers. The electric boaters less so, and the people with sailing boats may as well leave the controller at home 

Great answer.   

[john44]

How does sailing your boats make you feel?

Do you find relaxation in letting your yacht sail gently on the lake or are you paranoid that it'll hook-up on submerged obstacles?   

   
Do you worry about turning your top-heavy, super-detailed battleship at full speed in case it capsizes or if it might be rammed and damaged by a careless colleague?       Do you trust your fellow boaters?   


Do you back off the throttle when there's loads of chaotic sailors randomly driving their boats across your path?    Does it make you annoyed?

Are you always waiting for another mechanical failure to strand your boat?

I'm just wondering how people really view their time at the lake?      Does it lower your blood pressure or raise it?

Do you really enjoy it or is it actually stressful?   

And I thought it was just our lake that was like that.


John

[Plastic - RIP]

If it is that stressful I suggest you give it up. Stick to Skydiving and Motorcycle racing.
John

I don't find it stressful - It's just my observations from many years watching people and their boats.    I'm always surprised by the number of boats that get all the way to the water's edge before being checked for operation - and then don't work.          I can understand IC boats being a pain to test in the living room, but it's a doddle with electrics.   

[Colin Bishop]

I'm always surprised by the number of boats that get all the way to the water's edge before being checked for operation - and then don't work. 

Yes, it happens all the time and is usually down to being disorganised. I always try to make it a practice with my scale boats to have everything set up and tested at home and never open up the model at the pondside under normal circumstances - just switch on from concealed external switches and go. The only exceptions are my two SLEC Faireys where the cabin simply lifts off.

I find that delving into a model at the pond is a recipe for breaking things. Back home I will open up the model and check for any water ingress etc.

Colin

[dougal99]

All well and good Colin and in the main I agree, but have you never experienced everything hunky dory on the bench but get to the lake nada. Happened to one of our members this afternoon, with his wife there watching.  Gremlins is the technical term 

[Colin Bishop]

Gremlins are always possible but good preparation will usually banish them and the fallback is having a second model to run.

Works for me. 

Colin

[Andyn]

  I'm always surprised by the number of boats that get all the way to the water's edge before being checked for operation - and then don't work.          I can understand IC boats being a pain to test in the living room, but it's a doddle with electrics.   

I tend to decide which boat is going to the lake Sunday morning on Saturday afternoon, then charge it and test the radio. I'll give the important bits a wiggle to make sure things aren't loose but other than that my stuff is generally good to go. If I have no drama with an engine the last time it ran then generally speaking it'll be fine again the next time. I do see people building boats lakeside with varying degrees of success, but like Colin says it's all in the preparation.

[malcolmfrary]

I took up boats to get rid of stress, and it mostly works, but that does depend on the type of boat involved. 
I recall  early on seeing a guy driving an infernal combustion boat biting through the stem of his pipe.  Also at Fleetwood, spotting a guy trying to start his boat, checking that my radio would not clash with his, switching on and going walkabout round the lake.  Hearing his starting attempts all the way.  His good lady was sitting alongside him, arms thoroughly folded and one foot going up and down.  I nodded a greeting and did my reverse lap.  When I packed up to go he was still trying to achieve a start.  From that day on I knew that "Electric is good".
Yachts are more soothing, but addictive.


Top heavy battleship??  Should never happen.  On a scale model, there is so much downstairs and so little upstairs that making one top heavy takes real effort. Other warships can be different, but not all warships are battleships, are they?

[Subculture]

No matter how well you prepare, things can and do go wrong.

A good example, one of my subs would intermittently fail to operate it's ballast pump, usually when the boat was submerged. Would work perfectly on the bench, I checked all the usually issues, dodgy connector, no issues.

Eventually I got it to fail on the bench after exhaustive testing, and it turned out to be a bad wire for the pulse/signal feed from the RX where it joined onto the ESC/pump controllers board- this was a new controller too.

[Tug Fanatic]

If you think that it is a problem with model boats never consider taking up model flying.

I have known guys who spent the entire afternoon building up for a flight that they got in as the rest of us were packing to go home. In the old days a fag before & after was also quite common. Thank goodness the old days of dry batteries with dicey contacts that resulted in fly aways are long gone. ...........and then there is the doom laden "one last flight before I go".

Boats are often what flyers take up when they can no longer cope with the stresses of flying!

I agree with what is posted above - being prepared and knowing that your model is ready to go helps enormously.

[raflaunches]

I actually took a boat last weekend to the lake hoping it would fail! Well that’s not 100% true but I did need to find out why it kept blowing fuses. A fellow club member had his trusty clamp digital voltmeter and soon found the problem- one motor was pulling 23amp with no load on it!


To be honest we have tested out boats on the bench and 9 times out of 10 it works at the lakeside but we always take a tool kit for any eventuality.


I find sailing with fellow club members quite relaxing, it’s only when the wind gets up and the yachts can sweep across in front almost taking off the superstructure of our scale model but that’s part of mixed sailing and I know that it’s nothing intentional.

[Plastic - RIP]

If you think that it is a problem with model boats never consider taking up model flying.

I've done RC cars and planes too - I gave up on planes because of the speed of converting £££ into matchwood.    That whole 'silhouette dot in the distance' makes it too difficult to work out which way round it is - and one wrong move and there's another crater in the field.      


I'd like to have a go with an FPV RC aircraft - flying the model from the pilot's seat.

[Subculture]

Less of a problem if you make them from foam, especially if you use EPP foam- that really bounces. Didn't really get into R/C aero until electric became a sensible alternative with the advent of lithium batteries- dislike all the mess, smell, noise and fussiness of small scale IC engines. I like flying aeroplanes but enjoy marine when it comes to building. A lot of regulation is tainting the hobby now- big corporations like Amazon and DHL wanting to muscle in on the lower airspace, but need to provide a better safety case, i just keep under the 250gram rule, and the CAA can take a hike.

[Plastic - RIP]

Back in the day I had no money so I had to design and build my own RC planes - sticks of balsa and tissue/dope - it's even more heart-breaking to watch all that effort disintegrate.   

Boats are so much simpler - like an RC car that can sink.         I always have loads of foam built in my boats so they can't fully sink.        The only thing that bothers me on the water are the others who can't naturally reverse their spatial thinking when the boat is coming towards them - they change direction towards the danger momentarily before steering away.   

[nemesis]

If you are on a converging course, change direction and make it Obvious. When the danger has passed resume your original course. nemesis