Actually, you can walk across without your head going under in most places. There are some places where the water is only 2-3 feet deep and really clear. There are also some places where the water is way over your head, but there aren't too many of those. Thanks for the test idea, I try it out before I get too far from shore.
Still safer than our local battle pond which is 14-17ft deep in the middle, and blacker than a black hole.
I forgot to mention that the deep spots aren't anywhere near where I'll be running Suffren. There's one about 500ft upstream and one 400ft downstream of the landing. Wouldn't want to sink there anyway, there are Carp that are almost, if not as long as Suffren in those holes, and I'm not kidding. I did that test that Steve mentioned. I filled the hull up to the top of the stern step and then turned the pump on. Without a restrictor, it pumped the whole hull out in 35 seconds! I don't think I'll have to worry about sinking tomorrow.
Well, yesterday was different. That beautiful, shallow, and crystal clear creek I was talking about was the complete opposite yesterday. The area had just had a heavy rain before I went and the creek level was high and the water was brown with mud. So I decided that this place was not the place to do any boating, especially since I had no float system in case I sank. The family has a cabin not far from the creek I was planning on running Suffren in, and along side of the cabin runs a smaller creek about 10ft wide. I decided that with a little work, I could have a nice little pool to run Suffren around in. After about an hour, with the help of my siblings, the pool was finished. The water supply came over a natural waterfall and left after going through a makeshift dam to help raise the water level. The pool wasn't quite wide enough to turn Suffren around completely and the esc wasn't going into reverse, so driving around was..lets say..different. I would drive up to the waterfall, trying to turn as much as possible, and then let the current push me backwards while I had the rudders hard over. Also got to try the pump out some. Driving the front of the ship into the waterfall let some water in, but the deck seal was keeping a good bit of the water out. At one point, Suffren somehow got sideways in the waterfall and really got drenched. After all of this the family packed up and drove to a different creek where the water was clear and not flowing as fast as the last creek. Didn't drive Suffren around until later in the day, too much other stuff to do. This is where the day started to go down hill. I put Suffren in a waist high deep area and started to drive her around. The gears were making sounds that just had to mean something was wrong, so in I went in to retrieve her. After a close inspection, I found that the drive gear was wore down to the point where it barely had nubbins left of what used to be teeth. My only idea of how this happened was that I hit some rocks back at the little pool. I wonder if that busted the teeth off, and I just found out at the creek. I figured that the gear was beyond saving, so I wanted to see if I could at least drive around in the creek. I could drive, but I was going about as fast as I was in that first video I posted. After I while, the nubbins wore smooth and I didn't have any propulsion at all, so I comenced to play with the pump. I actually found out that pointing the pump stream towards the stern actually pushed Suffren fairly fast, much faster than I had been going with the junk gear. -------- Well, that is the complete retelling of yesterday,. Enjoy,
Here are some photos of the other day. Suffren running up the pool. Testing the pump in the waterfall. REALLY testing the pump in the waterfall. Driving at the creek. Suffren had just missed a massive rock slide before this picture was taken. Just kidding. Posing for some beauty shots. Love this shot.
Which ESC are you using? Can't see pics thru Army firewall, I'll revel in your exploits when I get home.
Thanks, Swiss. I think she did fairly well in the waterfall. Didn't seem to affect her too much. The force of the water made her roll back and forth a good bit, but she stayed upright and definitely wasn't about to capsize. @Tug: The ESC is the 45A car ESC from HK. Yesterday, I got a chance to run Suffren in a proper pond. It's a man-made pond that is about 150ft long and about 75ft wide. It also has a little inlet that is about 50 by 50ft that is a really nice place to boat in. I didn't bring a camera with me, so no photos. After I had stripped the one gear out the other day, I needed some way to drive around. So...I hooked the motor up direct drive. I had been considering direct drive for a while since the gears were SO noisy. Yesterday I finally figured out how to do it without a dogbone assembly. I put two collars with setscrews about an eighth of an inch apart on both the motor shaft and the drive shaft, then I ran a piece of 1/4" ID tubing from the collars on the motor to the collars on the shaft. After testing at home, the assembly seemed to work very well and I was quite pleased, so off to the pond I went. I knew that I'd have to turn down the motor quite a bit, so for starters, I went to 30%. After arriving at the pond, I noticed that there was a good breeze blowing over the pond, so I made a mental note to add the extra weight to get get Suffren down to 11 pounds that way she wouldn't be very prone to be blown around by the wind. Not long after the extra weight was added I was ready to stick Suffren in the pond. When I went to flick the switch to give the ship power I noticed that the switch was missing. Grrr. Looking through my toolbox full of extra stuff, I realized that I didn't have an extra switch. What I did have though was a extra cord that goes from the ESC to the receiver. Plugging one plug into the one pin and other plug in the other pin worked rather nicely. So finally I'm ready to launch. After putting Suffren in the water, I started throttling up and driving her away from shore. I had an instant smile on my face. She was handling so nicely. And the best thing of all... she was QUIET. So quiet I couldn't tell if the motor was running or not. The only way to tell was to look at the prop wave coming from the stern. Of course, the fun can only last a little while. When I was about in the middle of the 50 by 50 section, I lost propulsion. After repeated attempts to get propulsion, a decided that I wasn't going to be able to drive Suffren back to shore. The only option was to get a boat and fetch my ship. I had two options for a recovery boat, a pedal boat and a rowboat...I went for the rowboat. Unfortunately, the rowboat only had one oar so I had to use the oar as a paddle. After getting Suffren in the boat and the deck taken off I could easily see that the tubing had come off the shaft. After putting the tubing back on I launched again. Like before, she was handling nicely, I could turn in about two shiplengths. After driving around for a little while I decided that she was going to hold together and I drove her to the middle again. I don't know why it had to choose to die there, but it did. So back into the rowboat for the second time to retrieve my ship. I figured the hose had slipped off like before, and when I lifted the deck I found out that I guessed right. I knew that I would need to do something to keep this from happening and the only thing that came to mind was to wrap a piece of wire in-between the collars. The only wire I had was electrical wire. So my dad stripped the wire and took two or three strands and then twisted them together. I then wrapped it around the tubing and twisted it tight with a pair of pliers. It looked like it would work, so back into the water Suffren goes. For once, I could make it out to the middle of the pond without the ship dying. I was about to move the speed up to 40% when all of a sudden, she died. I had absolutely no propulsion. The pump worked so I thought the tubing had come off. So for the third time I got back into the rowboat and retrieved my ship. After taking off the deck I saw that the tubing was still in place. Not being able to find out what was wrong, I rowed..err..I mean paddled, back to shore. After inspecting all the components, I couldn't find anything wrong. My dad suggested that the battery might be dead, but the pump ran fine so I didn't think it could be that. After looking over everything closely I still couldn't find what was wrong. Again my dad suggested that the battery was probably dead, so I turned the pump on just to make sure. The pump ran fine for about a second and then started to slowly slow down. Dad was right after all. Since I didn't have another battery, we decided it was time to head home. All in all, I had a nice time. Even though I spent more time fixing stuff that I did driving around. And I'm really liking direct drive, and I think I'm going to keep it this way. I really like how Suffren seemed to glide around the pond and not sound like a kitchen mixer with the bearings going out.
Did some touching up to Suffren's paint job yesterday. This better not be your view. Failed attempt to make some windows on the deckhouse. Here is my direct drive setup. Them guns look mean. The guns aren't mounted to the ship yet. Just there for the looks.
Caleb, I've got to say that I'm totally impressed with your efforts so far. I had lost all hope in today's newest generations in being able to accomplish a scratch build anything, and not only that. But to learn from your mistakes and make corrections and improvements where required. Great job!
Beav, Are you bringing a boat to the Battle for Ming's Moat in Coxsackie NY on Aug 22nd? Should be lot of fun! Barry
