Being the person who started this post it is surprising I am not receiving these conversations. I guess it's because I'm in China now. Plain and simple. One can not shoot air pellet or air projectile guns in public or private property in any of the greater San Francisco Bay Area counties. Gary is asking what was done at Maker Fair to allow R/C ship combat there? Right now it has to be a gun range designation. That means all guns can use it. I could bring my Civil War Enfield gun there and shoot it which would be ridiculous. So it is a simple question. What was changed in the local ordinances to supersede the ordinances in place now. It would help to maybe secure a pond in the SF Bay Area. After all. We all want this hobby to succeed as Rob said. Cooperation is a must
Or its because you didn't watch the thread. Or you un-watched it. There is a link the upper right. It says "Watch Thread". Click it and follow the easy to use selection system for how you would like to watch this thread. If you want to auto-watch threads that you create you can set that up in your profile settings.
Maybe your right Nick. Although China has a big censorship here. I can not use Messenger or Facebook here. So what ever if I made the mistake of not going through proper procedures in this forum my fault. My private talk with you was posted and you have not answered it. Wonder if that was censored to as I went to it and there was no response by you.
So its a state law? That is governing the counties? Is this what you guys are referring to?: Police declare air guns illegal; S.F. public defender, D.A., and state law disagree | Sucka Free City | San Francisco | San Francisco News and Events | SF Weekly
Namba has a guy in charge of insurance, he would be the best person to answer that. Al Waters has answered my questions in the past and I believe is the one that handles insurance for Namba. Contact info below. ::: The Official Site of the North American Model Boat Association :::
Depends on where you are shooting these air projectile guns. I have been to many of the cities here in the SF Bay Area and every city I visited there is an ordnance banning the use of these guns. That is just part of it In just about every city or county water municipality one can not run Radio Control Boats or any models that are Radio Control. Each park has a sign up stating no use. Some do not as I found out one day. A home owner tipped me off to get my model out of the water. A water way known as the Lake, now one could not run boats or again anything R/C. The police verified that when I went to the station So in SF Bay Area one is fighting two city ordinances.
As far as I know, in Texas, Laws are at the state level and ordinances are at the city level. (I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong) If the City gives you an exemption from an ordinance to hold an event, like the do for festivals, parades, and any other type of event, then I am CERTAIN Insurance will cover you. I don't think there is any way around State law (ask the GOVNR) but there ARE ways around ordinances.. and that means working with your local city reps. My mind was blown with how amenable the Parks and Rec Dept was in getting permission to use the park we just got today... (yeeeha) and at one point we had 7 different reps from different departments involved. So I don't know if you have discussed it with the local authority or not, or are just slamming the door shut before you get started. I say give it a try ... so far every municipal entity I have approached has been happy to have us. 3/3 .. haha not saying they will KEEP us.. but at least we got started.
You got your foot in the door congratulations. Up here there are very few options. We are in a terrible drought. The pond that was used in the Bay Area has no water in it at all. There is something that might work but, it needs the cooperation of all involved and I do not see that happening. The old saying " United we stand. Devided we fall" is so true here in NOCAL. Sigh!!!!!! It is what it is. Again congrats.
How was the NAMBA NATS EVENT? Combat was a week before the NAMBA speed boat event. Any pictures? Any reports?
Word gets out fast. After attending a great Queen's Own event in Oregon, I drove down and made it to the second day of Western Warships combat event at the NAMBA Nationals, Lake Minden CA. WOW, NAMBA can sure put on an event and it was just their day of testing. It wasn't even a race day. It was really neat to see a Combat event taking place, with electric speed boats running in the background. Neither one interfered with the other. They had some protective screening set up that looked like it would do it's job of keeping the large number NAMBA spectators safe. As for the combat, I always love watching it which is why I came by on my way home. I was somewhat disappointed at the number of competitors after hearing about the recruiting successes from the Maker Fairs over the past few years. There was about a half dozen warships and four convoy ships. Hardly the 12 to 18 warships we have been hearing are attending regularly. While this was a small event, the combat was great with lots of sinks!
That blows my mind. I thought they had recruited 50 or 60 new members from the last few years, based on the comments on the forum.
My experience is that if your event is less than 30min from where your members live, turnout is good. The further you go the more people find that they have schedule conflicts.
I talked with some of the power boat guys and they indicated that Saturday's numbers were about the same. In fact participation is about the same as when many of us moved on to 1/72 (between 6 and 8, just more cargo boats now). Being their first event since Maker Fair, I had expected to see at least 20 combat ships or more, which is one of the reasons I stopped by. I also had some questions for our NAMBA Combat Representative, but he was not in attendance or I just missed him. I also got a chance to see the 3D printed guns in the Roma work. They appeared to work well, but the last sortie I watched I know he shot at the USS Iowa several times and it sounded like he hit him several times, but there were no holes. Must have been near misses. Note the great below the waterline hits in the Roma in the background. Veteran, long time Captain Joe Moore talking with several kids that were operating the cargo ships. . Tables appear to outnumber the captains... Just kidding. Turnout was low considering recent reports of recruiting successes. Kids are enjoying the event. Lots of interest from NAMBA members.
Nick and all. This is their pond now. Lake Minden has become Western Warship Combat's pond because of the ordinace problems and water problems down in the Greater SF Bay Area. So, some members will spend maybe 2-4 hours traveling to this site. This is no 30 minute drive for anyone as most, though not all, members are located in the SF Bay Area. I don't know. If your heart is to play in this hobby you plan ahead. This was semi talked about here vaguely on a post which Nick found. Still would have thought all members would be excited to go. It was held by NAMBA at a National event.
We had a great time at the event. I went with my son and three of his friends. The number of experienced captains and expert builders is limited at this point, but we are focusing our efforts on gameplay and having fun. The only way to be successful is to make it as easy as possible for new members to join and start battling immediately. To this point, we are working on making 7 additional ships set up as torpedo cruisers based on the HMS Kent. These are very simple, with single shot torpedo guns. They will have only two servos (steering and fire control) along with a speed controller. Nothing else is required, so they should be fairly easy to keep running. We worked on the hulls last weekend, and are hoping to have them ready for an event in October.
It was obvious that those that attended were having a lot of fun. When I review an event, I try to be totally fair and honest with what I share on the forum. It's nice to finally hear some sincere information being shared by a member of WWCC regarding event participation. I applaud your clubs efforts to build loaner combat ships to give prospective new members a better taste of what combat is all about. Being a cargo ship captain does have it's limits. You say these new ships are "based" on the Kent Class of ships. Does this mean that the ships will be fictional like the your club cargo ships are?
