Simon.O.

I had the cat out with a different ESC in it for a trial. Hot tip: Do NOT use a 30A plane ESC to run 2 550’s direct dive to 38mm props.
As you can imagine this was all going well for about 3 mins and then it thermalled, even with water cooling.
With no chance of it cooling out there I decided to send out the tug for a tow.
All was going well until I had just rounded the cat ready to snag it with the trailing towline. The rudder on the tug jammed hard over to port.
With a little prop walking in fwd and reverse I managed to get the tug to move slowly my way until it caught the towline in the prop.
Oh great now I have 2 disabled boats tied together.
Not keen to send out the tunnel to join the mess I decided that the onshore breeze was now my friend. 10mins later they arrived within throwline range and both were retrieved with no further drama.
Lessons learnt.
1. Plane esc’s and boats are not friends.
2. Floating towlines are much better than ones that sink.
3. My tugs rudder linkage needs some attention.
4. I need a bigger coffee flask, I nearly ran out while waiting for the wind to do its thing.

LtDoc

Simon,
Yeah, it's an immediate P.I.T.A., but later... maybe much later, it'll be one of the things you enjoy remembering and telling people about. As in, "You think that's bad, why I remember when...", sort'a thingys. You've never heard that before, right?
- 'Doc

slogan

i'm only telling this as a please,no don't ever think of doing this.out on the water ,upgrade a $75 rc boat,almost $300 new everything.boat running great,then suddenly stop dead in the water and started drifting to water weeds,i called for another boat ,hook a wire and sent him in.hooked the first boat,but not enough power to pull it free,so both boat stuck.next step don't ever,ever are you stupid? do this.go in swimming for those easily replaceable boat.i went in and almost drown fist,the water was cold i got those boat,but almost got a heart attack after getting back to shore,i serious not in good shape.the boat next time in water problem again,was left and evenually sunk.lesson learnt.

slivic003

I was driving my real boat and my friend was running my 56" gas boat . Some how something went wrong somewhere . The r/c boat went from the side of us to the front of the real boat , under the real boat and then in peices behind the real boat . Lets just say my friend misjudged when he cut in front of us ! recovered most of the boat but the hull was trash !

pompebled

Hi Simon,

Sorry to hear about your mishap, it happens to all of us eventually...
It make for nice reading every time though.

I have to disagree on your statement above, as I've been running a (watercooled) Jeti 350 ESC in my 12 cell 700 neodym motor, turning a 45K surface drive prop.
The JES 350 is a flight ESC and I've never had any problems, as long as I stayed within the ESC's parameters (and that's probably what went wrong in your case).

Regards, Jan.