rpmsurf

I had the Kyosho version many years ago, but after a month or so of constant use and lack of a good seal, saltwater eventually got the best of the electronics and I never replaced them. I'm not much of an RC guy, my dad is a big RC plane guy and he put the Kyosho version together for me. I am an avid surfer though, but the poor / small waves in central Florida where I live make it hard to surf much, but they are perfect size for an RC Surfer. I've actually gone through two of the new Boardsharks RC Surfers from Walmart already in the past two months. I found it to be too slow as well, but I replaced the prop with an Octura X432 copper prop, which is one size bigger than the cheap plastic prop it comes with. I also got two new battery packs, a 8.4v 4200 Nimh and a 8.4v 3500 Nimh pack. The combination of the bigger prop and the bigger battery made it much faster and plenty fast for me. I also was getting close to 30 minute run times, about double what I was getting out of the battery it came with. The Boardsharks Surfer looks much more realistic surfing the waves with the moving body. This thing absolutley looks real!! The Kyosho version always looked kind of stiff and a bit unrealistic to me. I've been able to pull off some way better maneuvers that look much more realistic than the Kyosho version.

Now for the bad news. At first, the seal was really good and for the first 10 or so uses, hardly a drop of water got inside the compartment. One time I noticed the foam tape was peeling up a little bit at the front of the compartment, but I didn't really think anything of it because I had just used it and no water got in. Next use, that's all she wrote. A good amount of salt water flooded the compartment and some of the circuits on the back of the engine completey coroded and fell off the engine. I tried to fix it, but like I said, I'm not much of an RC guy, and the electronics on this thing are just too complicated and frustrating to me. At this point, I was addicted to the thing, so I went out and bought another one. This time I sent in the warranty to the company that makes it. The new one I bought worked great for two times, then out of the blue, the compartment flooded with water again. The seal looked fine and I know I screwed in the bolts good, so I cannot figure out how it flooded. Anyway, I went home and immediately rinsed the compartment out with fresh water (at least it is better than salt water I thought). I tested it to see if it still worked, and it was fine. Then we had rideble waves here for two weeks (too big for RC guy). When it finally got small again a couple of days ago, I tried to take the RC Surfer back out, but no go, he's dead again. This time the engine still works, but the servo is fried. Damn saltwater. Any tips from you guys for keeping water out / making the seal better??

I called the company today to claim the warranty and they told me to fax a copy of the receipt to them with my name, address and phone # and they would send out a new one to me right away, no questions asked. They said I didn't even have to send mine back to them. Today was killing me, this morning had perfect 2-3 foot peelers with offshore winds, perfect for RC guy........ I envy you guys that can modify and fix these things.

By the way, a friend of mine that lives in Rhode Island knows the guy who came up with this version of the RC surfer and sold it to the toy company (Planet Toys) apparently for a good sum of money. Supposedly he is doing a skateboard and snowboard version as well under the Boardsharks name.