Friday, July 07, 2006

Going round in circles


Props
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.
With battery fully charged, the white speedboat hit the water. It raced off towards the buoys in a reasonably straight line. After a bit of racing around – with the battery giving am impressive length of run – things seemed to be pretty good. Perhaps the lubrication on the shafts was smearing itself around a bit but the running seemed to improve over time. Hoping around the lake, including over several buoys and being shoved off the bank a couple of times – it’s a fast boat after all – things were looking good. This is a very impressive boat on the water.

Then it all went wrong. The motor noise changed and the boat starting going around in tight circles. We assumed one of the shafts had worked lose but had to wait until the light wind blew it into the side (can’t steer a bot like this with only one motor working !). A propeller was missing !

The retaining nut had obviously worked lose and spin off. This and the prop are now at the bottom of the lake. Good job we have spares from the spares boat. A little superglue will be helping the grip next time we sail I think.

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