meowy84

I just picked this up from a very nice older gentleman getting out of rc. According to the manual/paperwork it came with, it's a George Campbell designed fiberglass Prather 31" Deep Vee #1042. It's never been run and the engine has never seen fuel. Needs finishing and setup. Has servos (garden variety Futaba) already installed but no tx and no rx.

I think the pearl in the proverbial oyster is the virgin OS Max .21XM VI (I also have the engine box and engine manual). I can't believe Tower and others listed these engines north of the $500 mark new (crazy if you ask me). Not sure what the hull usually sold for.

Anyhow, can someone put a current value on this combo? Cheers!

Hydro Junkie

I would contact Jerry Dunlap here in the forum on the engine. He's designed, built and raced outboard hulls for decades and, if anyone knows about that engine, he would. As far as the hull, Prather has pretty much gone out of business so it would be best guess though one thing I can tell you is that hull was designed for an inboard 21.

meowy84

Hi HJ and thanks for the info. Yikes on the engine. I thought it might still be somewhat current since Tower et al. still list an OS Max .21XM VII. I assume the VII means version 2 which again I assume is just an update of this engine. In fact externally the two engines look identical other than typical water cooled head on mine and an air cooled head on the VII (a feature which in itself I found strange and a bit of a throwback to the days when you actually had no choice but to run airplane engines in boats). As for the hull being for inboards I am again mystified since the Prather catalog that came with the boat shows a picture of the same hull with both an inboard and an outboard engine. I could be wrong though, I got to dig that catalog out again.

Hydro Junkie

I contacted Jerry for you and he gave me his thoughts which I cut and pasted below:
If you want to let the guy know my thoughts, he should sell the boat and motor separately. The Prather Deep Vee is a good inboard, not so much a good outboard. The O.S. 21 is the water cooled version. It is worth probably around $400 since it is new. I don't see much, if any, demand for the boat. Maybe $100 + cost of shipping.

Jerry is thinking along the same lines as I was but, knowing the subjects better, he gave a higher price than I was thinking. I was thinking $300-$350 for the motor and $50-$75 for the boat. If you want to sell them, that gives you a ballpark for pricing. I wouldn't go any lower than $350 for the motor as, knowing what Jerry said and the way boaters think, someone will be looking to try to score a new motor for next to nothing. As for the hull, I'd start at $125 but plan on coming down. Again, just don't give it away as someone will probably want it and be willing to give you a decent offer. In both cases, have the buyer cover the shipping costs or you will end up getting little to nothing out of either one

meowy84

Thank you ever so much for going through the bother in contacting Jerry. (I also went ahead and sent him a PM last night after your suggestion but alas I think there might be something wrong with my PM functions because the message is nowhere to be seen in my sent box as having been sent.) Anyhow my humble thanks to both of you gentlemen for your assistance. I'll be adding the boat to my collection of assorted rc models for now but was still curious about current expert opinions on these items. Cheers.

Ron Olson

My Feedback: (1)

That's an older OS .21 but they are going for insane money as they were cheaper when they had competition from K&B and Thunder Tiger. the newer version they added an extension to the muffler.
Prather is still more or less still in business as Hyperformance Products, Inc. Online Catalog .

meowy84

Hello Ron. Thank you kindly for the additional info and link. As for the prices, I've always found the prices of model outboards to be rather inflated to put it mildly.

Ron Olson

My Feedback: (1)

The K&B was the old workhorse standard back in the day. The Thunder Tiger was dud unless people knew how to modify them and only one guy was good at that before he died. My first K&B 3.5 OB cost $115.00 through Tower Hobbies when they sold a lot of boat stuff..A hull was about the same price then.
The .21 OB tunnel classes have all but died in competition unfortunately. One district race drew 13 of them one year, the next they couldn't fill the class with 3 boats.
Your boat is one of the few mono's made for outboards as many others have tried over the years. At one point AquaCraft was ready to roll out a larger version of their Super-Vee 27 for inboards also but it never made it to production. Jerry Dunlap raced it a few times in competition.

meowy84

What is your perception as to why the OB scene is pretty dead currently? I ask because when I track the prices of these OB powerplants (the old KB 3.5 in particular) on ebay they still do bring decent prices/hold their value so it would seem that people still enjoy building them, just not for competition it seems.

Ron Olson

My Feedback: (1)

As far as racing goes, it's almost a dead class. One year here the .21 OB tunnel class went from 13 entries at one race to only 2 entered the next year. Other district races have completely dropped the class. There is an OB race only on the east coast which does well and the national events. Unfortunately it's not just the OB classes but nitro is losing traction all over with gas and electric (yuck) taking over.