So what is the consensus on features that make a pond bueno for battle. The one I have floods a lot of our field so I will be digging out the perimeter and banking the sides higher. At the same time I can do a little sculpting. Its spring fed, and the spring is actually 10 feet away from the pond with a narrow, deep channel connecting the two. Reminds me of a drydock when its flooded. You could set a boat into it from either side and just drive it out. Would it be worth adding a few more spots like that? Overall depth is 9 to 10 feet. Previous owner said the last fish he pulled out of there was a 12lbs bass. If they take offense to your boat there may be a built in subsurface threat. Ideas/recommendations?
9 to 10 feet is pretty deep for my sinking tastes. Are there any shallow areas? An island is always primo battling fun, with a channel about 6-9 feet wide between the island and the shore, with a little bridge over it.
With a 9 to 10 foot pond make sure you have a back up "float" system in case your initial float gets caught up. One of our guys was running his boat in a non-combat day and it collided with another boat rolled over wrapping the float around the hull and sunk in about 5' of water, took him a couple of weeks to find and retrieve it. An Island is always fun. You can make a floating one you can move around to different locations and anchor it using line and a weight. The only thing about this way of doing it is in windy conditions the island can become a moving one and hit ships adding to its potential danger value >
Depending on amount of fighting that goes on I might score one of those "hooka" dive rigs. They are fairly inexpensive when you figure what a full dive rig costs. Plus the water in this thing is so clear you can see all the way to the bottom. Soon as I can kill all these damned lilly pads! Sadly I dont't think I could do the island thing, I need more volume to deal with what the spring puts out to prevent flooding.
It has been my experience that clarity of water is closely related to the amount of plant growth on the bottom. Those lily pads are probably keeping the silt down and improving visibility. If you clear too much of the plants away, visibility may drop. Fish tend to steer clear of model boats, so no worries there. 9 to 10 feet is fine for a battling pond, if you have experienced swimmers to recover the ships. Make sure you have the proper equipment, too. mask, fins, and snorkel are the basics, but also make sure you have a life guard rescue tube. It makes the job MUCH easier and safer. As far as features go, I remember visiting some fly-casting ponds that had about a four-foot deep pit right next to the water. You could walk down a few stairs into the pit, and your boat would float at almost perfect workbench height. Much better than crouching over your boat pondside if you need to ballast, or adjust stuff, etc. Apparently the Aussies have a nice setup at one of their ponds, with the spillway from a dam providing the same effect.
I will be ripping out the old wood one and getting a metal one in its place. I like the "pit" idea, but it is pretty flat out there and anything that can collect water, will when the summer storms get here. I won't be able to keep it dry. I applied some herbicide yesterday and the Mrs. told me it's already starting to knock the lilly pads down. I don't care if they are in the water I just don't want to have to drive through a mat of them to get from A to B. Seems they are dying/shriviling up to be a few feet below the water but not dying all the way off so hopefully thats enough to keep the fish happy and the water clear. Has anyone ever tried a camera on a stick? Troll around with that under and once you spot the mark, get a hook or some other kinda recovery aid to get a hold of the line to haul the boat up. I was also looking at deep water recovery ideas, and thought about getting a standard issue sea dye marker, taking a small portion of the dye and putting it in a small bit of water soluable bag. Put it in a place that shouldn't get wet unless the boat sinks. (High in the SS). If she does go sinker the bag will disolve after a little bit and the small dye packet should let you at least find the general spot where the boat went down. Best case you follow the dye trail all the way to the bottom and hook right up. One bag and one marker should last you a while... depending on how many trips to the bottom you take.
Yeah I thought about that, but you are right too short lived. If you could find something that would last 10-15 mins you'd have a winner. Or, I was looking at pond dye. Non-toxic and easy to get. I think I saw it in pellet form. One pellet won't taint a whole pond. If you use black you get a nice "oil slick" effect.
you could still do an Island just make it out of foam so it is light weight and floats. that way you dont lose any water volume.
One ship recovery device you could use is get about 30ft if heavy fishing twine. Make a loop out of the twine and connect the two ends securely to the boat. On the other end of the loop, put two large bobbers about 2 feet apart. To help recover the float line, you can make a small grappling hook out of some light but strong steel. Now when the boat sinks, the float line will deploy. Instead of swimming out to the boat, you can just throw out the hook, catch the line, which hopefully has spread apart far enough to make it easy to catch, and pull in the boat. After you pull the boat for a little while, she should start to rise off the bottom so you won't have to worry about scraping everything up, I hope. Beaver
IIRC, some of our Australian brothers-in-arms battle at the base of a dam with depths in excess of 50 ft. While a 3-5 ft depth is much easier, 10 ft or deeper is acceptable IF you are prepared to deal with it. Honestly, ship recovery is worth a whole topic on its own (I can tell you about some alka-seltzer experiments I performed). Emergency marker floats are just the basics. Just bear in mind that Murpy's Law always applies: systems will fail and you will have to go swimming for a wreck with no float and only an approximate location. The good news is that whether or not systems fail, the vast majority of wrecks are easily recovered within 5-10 minutes. In nearly a decade recovering ships for the WWCC, only a handful have taken me more than 30 minutes, and only one was ever lost (the owner either didn't want to or wasn't allowed to go swimming in a different pond than usual). A mask and fins really help, as does a life guard rescue tube. The rescue tube has a tether that keeps it out of the way when swimming and allows you to dive, but still keeps the float handy. underwater photo collection view from above a wreck video with some underwater wrecks and typical salvage Swimming and diving for wrecks has its risks: one WWCC member needed to be rescued in about 5 ft of water while wearing a life jacket because it wasn't adjusted properly. Only allow strong, skilled swimmers and ALWAYS have a rescue-ready lookout standing by on shore (they can also help direct the swimmer to the approximate wreck site). Also consider your liability for allowing people to swim in your pond. Kotori mentioned that weeds help keep silt down. The Santa Clara Valley Water District would periodically treat the percolation pond we battled at to clear out the weeds. With the weeds gone, the pond became very silty and had zero visibility. I had to find many ships by listening for the pump noise underwater or by feeling the bottom for masts and superstructure sticking out of the muck. As the weeds grew back, they mostly stayed a few feet beneath the surface and safely away from propellers. With the silt gone, it was much easier to spot ships visually as soon as you got within 10-15 ft of the wreck and they look so beautiful on the bottom. In a few cases the weeds covered up the wreck, and one time a destroyer became stuck straight vertical in the weeds like HMS Victoria. Mostly the weeds caused no problems until they grew enough to come to the surface and entangle propellers. I know you said you can't do an island with a channel, but you may still be able to make an interesting shoreline to battle at. The WWCC's main pond was 500 ft wide and 300 ft to the opposite shore, although most battling was done in a 200 ft wide by 150 ft area. It had two bays separated by a short, wide peninsula that had a shade tree in the middle. The two bays were used as the Axis and Allied harbors, and formed a playground for smaller, more maneuverable boats. The peninsula kept anyone from shooting from one port to the other and formed a natural choke point for ships returning home, a favorite spot for faster ships to run and gun or ambush cripples running for safety. A small tree and bush helped divide the sides and limited visibility while rounding the bend. The pond then opened up to provide a huge expanse of ocean for ships to cruise at long range. The bays were affected differently by the wind, so the afternoon wind became a tactical consideration. The battle areas had plenty of space for large fleets. The larger fleets had a higher density of ships/targets, which made for exciting battles. This was somewhat lost on days with low attendance because the combatants were more spread out. The shoreline slowly eroded during my time there. In one spot on the Allied side we installed a wooden step after a captain slipped while trying to launch his boat. panorama from opposite side Axis port viewed from tip of peninsula Axis port viewed from outside the battle area Allied port viewed from the peninsula Allied port viewed from outside the battle area Work area and shade tree Wide ranging battles viewed from tip of peninsula Ambush rounding the peninsula artificial island with targets small step in Allied port Cool little dock from SFMY at Spreckels Lake In 2005 the WWCC had to battle at an alternate pond for the season. The pond was huge, but we used an area boxed in by a small island to form a channel about 70-80 ft off shore, 150 ft wide, and 4 ft deep at max. The shallow depth was very nice for ship recovery. The shoreline was mostly straight, but a tree split the shoreline into two areas for captains to stand. There also was a fallen branch that left a 5 ft channel between the two standing areas. Even though the tree split the standing room, battles tended to be a single melee near the branch, with transports running the channel while pursuers and escorts alike ran aground on the branch. The island meant that battles tended to be tight turning furballs at much closer range than the regular pond. Dreadnoughts had a ball in the dogfights, while faster battleships had to be careful to stick to the run and gun game. The small battle area worked well with the number of members that year, with a high density of combatants and therefore higher intensity combat. When we got back to the regular pond, it took a couple years for membership to grow and raise the intensity to match 2005. tree and branch on a low water day tree branch channel battle area view of Allied port and the island from the work benches Dividing tree with shore battery at choke point captains on the shoreline One of the key things at both locations was a division between the two ports. The temporary pond had the sunken branch, the regular pond had a large peninsula. If you could shape your pond like a lima bean or a painter's pallet, I think you could get a very interesting battle location. I liked how the bush at the tip of the peninsula was both a navigation hazard and made ambushes and surprises easier, whichever way you were going. The bush also helped resist erosion at that point, helping to maintain the peninsula while the bays eroded and became larger and larger. Have you considered a launching crane (like the NTXBG) or a launching ramp? What are your plans for the work area/benches? Is wind an issue, either for the boats on the water or for the people and tables and canopies in the work area? Will restrooms and electricity be available? How many boats are you expecting at an average event over the next few years? Sorry if I rambled too long. You really got me thinking on this one. I don't know if I 'll be able to study tomorrow because I may be too busy designing artificial battle ponds... Its all your fault!
I did some experimenting with alka-seltzer tablets inside a film canister in my kiddy pool. I drilled two 3/16" holes in the top so that the water can only come in at a slow rate. With 4 tablets inside and at a depth of 18" it produced a steady stream of bubbles for 15 minutes and kept letting out sporadic bubbles (several a second) for another 20 minutes and then it slowed to one every second or two for another 30 minutes when I got bored and called the experiment off. I will do some more testing in deeper water this summer if anyone manages to sink my new boat.
You'd need to fit the canister to the outside somewhere, perhaps in a smokestack; the residue from the alka seltzer might not be friendly to electrical stuff. More of a longer-term hazard but still... shorting out one's batteries would be uncool.
The canister could be mounted anywhere so long as the canister is venting to the outside, under a deck or inside the super would work well. Again it would have to vent outside or your bubbles might get trapped inside the ship which kinda makes the whole idea pointless. Alka-seltzer is primarily sodium bicarbonate and citric acid, so baking soda and lemon juice. That shouldn't be a major issue for corrosion as a flooded ship will severely dilute the weak acid and base. The container really helps to control the mess so it shouldnt be an issue anyway. I would not recommend placing loose tablets inside your hull though.
Well, when it comes time I will post up the show that is the flood control of the pond. I am looking around for the most economical ways to git her dun. Shown below is the approx. 10X20 ft shed that is on skids about 150ft west of the pond. I will haul that over be used as the pond shed. Once I get it in place I will run power to it.
@Ian nice shed! @Hovey - i was more concerned with ions potentially shorting stuff than with corrosion
Ok, so the yellow outline at the top is the property itself. Blown up below is the pond area. The blue oval is the spring itself and the small tie in channel which would be perfect to launch boats in. The yellow area below is where the shed is now, the red where I want to move it to. The shaded area is where the pond floods out due to a very shallow grade when it rains. I am going to be digging out the banks to get them deeper and use the dirt to bank them up to prevent overflow. The shed also has a 20X20 overhead on the front of it which could be used to shelter tables and boats. For the moment we are using it as a feed room and the roof to shelter some horses. Once we get the big barn built this will become surplus and I can use it for whatever I want.
Ian, your pond is far too small. In the top picture, that structure marked with the "A" should be razed & the pond expanded to cover that area as well. Just kidding (obviously). Looks like a great property & will be a nice battle site once you have it set up. I plan on buying some land & building a battle pond myself in the next year or two, so I will be monitoring this thread closely..... Jeff
