I think I can finally state the the hull is finished.....for the moment. Now I am working on reinstalling all the the internals. Also bought everything I need for sheeting in town today, so that will take place soon. 6 days till Suffren's first battle. WOOT!!!
Suffren is sheeted. Installed 1.5 pounds of lead in the water channel to add weight and increase stability. Hopefully all systems will be go for Sunday.
Took Suffren up to the pond for a try out. Went pretty well. Speed was more than adequate. She's a little tippy in the turns, and bobs back and forth when you quickly swing the helm over from one side to the other. Turning was pretty good. On a good turn, she could fully reverse direction in only a six foot wide patch of water. The only problem I had with the turning was when she did a drift like turn and slammed her side on to a firmly mounted stick, good thing I had my pump. After that, I lost radio control of the throttle and had to call it trip.
I'm not sure. When powered up, the ESC makes two alternating beeps and then beeps once, then twice, and keeps increasing in the number of beeps till like the fifth time and then starts over. I can't get any response out of it.
It looks glorious! Do you have the all of the superstructure completed(i.e. conning tower, smokestacks, crane, turrets)?
Thanks! I have the conning tower built, plus smokestack ready to install. No cranes or turrets right now, they'll have to come later. I would like to make her fairly detailed, but she's pretty tippy as it is and I'm worried about putting more weight topside.
Finally had time to write. All in all, yesterday was a good day. Showed up at the battle around nine thirty and brought the boat down to the pit area. I didn't have time to put in internal armor before I went, so the guys grabbed some extra pieces of shower pan liner and quickly got it installed. Everybody wanted to see it run, so I put it on the pond. Everybody was commenting about how nice it looked and how well it drove. Back in the pit area we all got ready for battle. Once I got my Co2 bottle filled, screwed it into my regulator, and cracked the valve, I could here a leak from the solenoids. Thankfully Steve Andrews has worked with these solenoids before and knew the problem. I had the hoses in the wrong ports. Bummer! Within about five minutes though I had the hoses reversed and was ready for battle. Before I put Suffren in the water, I started to tweak the guns. Unfortunately, the one cannon wasn't firing. I wasn't sure why it wasn't shooting, but I didn't have time to figure it out. Steve helped me tweak the other gun, and I was ready to go shoot somebody. On the water were three German dreadnoughts and one German battlecruiser versus a WeVe, a NC, a I boat, and of course, ME. Steve, (since his ship wasn't working) was showing me how to line up and shoot the enemy. After a couple of failed passes, I finally got lined up on an enemy battleship. I was all ready to start pounding this ship, but my one remaining cannon wouldn't shoot. Errg. So with no more cannons left, I just ran from everybody for the rest of the sortie and practiced lining up shots. After getting off five, Steve tried to help me get my guns going. He decided that is was probably a feeding problem and would be hard to fix on the field. Shooting for me was out for this event. The next sortie was just sort of a free for all since the Allied fleet was reduced to just me and the I boat. Right before I got off five, I lost pump control while I was trying to bring Suffren to shore. She started to settle as she came in, and everybody was shouting for me to turn on my pump, but I couldn't. Just as she reached shore, Suffren's stern slipped beneath the waves, and thus became Suffren's first combat sink. After the battle, Nate offered for me to come up to his shop and he would help me get my ship working better. Since I had no plans for the afternoon, I opted to go. What a learning experience! Nate helped my tear apart my guns and go through each part till they worked. Now my guns are firing consistently. YAY! He also pointed out all sorts of little things that could help with stability and turning. Unfortunately, it was time to go home. I didn't get to really battle, but I learned so much that it was worth the going.
Nate is one (of the many) super-nice guy. And very knowledgeable about what makes a combat boat work.
