Life boats
 

Hi my brother wants to get into the r/c boat hobby and wants to get a RNLI style life boat but he needs a beginer boat that is pre built or 90%built if any one has any ideas on a boat like that from England it would be greatly appreciated.(not to expensive either)

RE: Life boats
 

NKOK makes a cheap 1-25 scale USCB 44 RC that can be repainted to RNLI colors It is really more of a "toy" than scale modeling though.
http://seagifts.com/seagifts/remconboatco.html

You just have to find one in the UK.;)

http://www.toyzone.co.uk/rcboats.asp

Also bottom of this page
http://www.galaxymodels.co.uk/new/re...ady%20to%20Run


Billings makes a 44ft coast guard that can be painted in RNLI colors.
http://www.westbourne-model.co.uk/bi...odel-boats.htm
hmmm, £29.99 ?
http://www.sussex-model-centre.co.uk...FGuard-520.htm

Model Slipway advertises a kit for a Trent Class Lifeboat.
But it is a bit spendy...
http://www.westbourne-model.co.uk/model-Slipway.htm
You might check around your local hobby shops or boat clubs to see if any one has built this or any other kit from Model Slipway.

RE: Life boats
 

Thanks for the help

RE: Life boats
 

Someone pointed out another NKOK rtr model on tower hobbies.

http://www2.towerhobbies.com/cgi-bin...?&I=LXDUP5&P=0

Again, if you can find it locally, it looks pretty nice.

RE: Life boats
 

i have this Nkok coast guard Island Class boat and it looks great, runs good right out of the box. big hit everytime run it in pond at local park. it's not quite scale, but nice enough.

watch out for keeping motors dry however. i've had to replace one (it CAN be done, but Nkok won't help, their cust service is...not interested in you beyond 90 days) and the other one is a now bit stiff too (rusty i think). the twin motors are in nacells that are submerged. make sure you put some vaseline on the shaft entry, and even that doesn't seem to have kept mine perfectly dry. this is an annoyance for me...

excellent candidate for conversion to "real" rc control.

motors on this are either full on or off (does do reverse) so to approximate a leisurely patrol, need to keep giving it little flicks of throttle. weighs enough that you can get away with it. full power cruising does seem to be a bit more than scale would suggest so one doesn't tend to tear around with it much.

what has turned out to be a nice benefit is that when the whole rc boat club descends upon the pond, it can still 'patrol' as it is in the 'toy' freq range (mine is 27mhz) and there are no conflicts with the serious scale folks. :-)

RE: Life boats
 

I'm finding that these conversions are not so cheap!
For the Hen Long/Dickie tug I mentioned in another thread- only US$50 landed at my door, then:

$40, used TQ3 27 MHz radio (proportional, 2 1/2 ch)
$20 NiMh battaeries
$12 new washer pump
$40 Mtroniks ESC
$10 steering servo
$15 servo & relay for pump
$20 paint & decals
$20 various wiring plugs, terminals

Total add- $177, on top of the original $50!