NEWS

Elmbridge report

Thu, 8 Oct 2009 18:54:48 +0100

A blessing was cast over us as we had another beautiful day weather for the last Circuit race of the 2009. Having been to the British Records weekend at Burton ,where the lake was unfortunatley weeded over, I had to set my boat back to a racing setup. That meant putting head shims back in the engine, getting my lower nitro fuel out of the garage and changing the angles on the boat.

I won the first race but the boat would not get on pipe after i throttled. I then remembered i had not pulled the exhaust pipe out from last weekend! Second i was leading when my cowl came loose and flew off, thats OK i thought, until i saw the fuel tank starting to lift and then the boat took a dive at the end of the back straight. Luckily the rescue crew managed to recover my tank whilst it was still floating, cheers guys! So some repairs for lunch.

Phill had been nagging me all year if he could have a go of my Hydro so lunch time came and this was to be his chance. With the tank taped back in using what i thought was stronger tape (turned out it wasn't), a quick briefing for Phill and a quick systems check, i started and launched the boat. He was going around cautiously but nicely, using the throttle very carefully for a couple of laps gradually increasing his speed until... the tank started to lift. Phill cut the throttle and abandoned his run. After a quick fix, the tank was now extremely secure and not going anywhere, phill then went and hit bouy 3. Nice one mate! OK, third and final run went brilliantly. He drove well and completed a good 10 laps and brought the boat back to the pits, amazing!

So after lunch I now had the tank secure but no protection for the carburettor and, you guessed it, the inevitable happened. Paul, driving very cleverly having observed my lack of protection, cut from the inside line to the outside forcing me to hang back or be smacked in to the pits and then, whilst catching him into the first corner I got a washed down in his rooster and the engine died!
Last race, with a lightweight cowl properly taped on the front, i comfortably got the start and just controlled the race to the chequered flag.

STOP PRESS... I have now taken collection of my new Eagle SGX-2 which will be built over the winter months in readiness for Hungary next year. AND... Phill will be buying my current model... Yeah another 15cc Hydro racer... whoop, whoop!

Massive update

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:26:35 +0100

We’ve got a huge update for you, new pics, new races and new results sections. Everything you’ll need to keep up-to-date with the circuit racing season.

Leon has a hydro

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:17:35 +0100

After nearly 7 years since my Senior 3.5cc FSR-H 5th place at Poland 2002 and almost 9 years since my 2 Junior FSR-H medals in Slovenia 2000, I had been thinking about racing Hydro’s again. Along came my chance, when a friend and I struck a deal for an un-built Eagle SG 90. Ok so it is not the latest SGX-2 from Competition Marine Designs but hopefully will still be very competitive with a driver of my capabilities!
As I will be sharing my results of my races here on the LMRacing website I thought I would also share the build of the boat. With thanks to Keith Burgess who kindly saved me the time and built the boat to a first class quality as well as taking photos along the way.
So here’s a guide to the build...

So first the slot is cut in the tub situated in the radio box for the shaft to pass through.

The engine is then mounted using the supplied engine mounts, in the predrilled holes.

The strut is then fixed to the transom of the boat and the brass tube is then aligned from the strut, through the boat to the engine.

With the shaft aligned we then glued the rear centre sponson into position followed by the rear outer sponsons and rear side winglets.
The shaft tube was then glued in using epoxy and fibre glass cloth and while we are doing that we also seal and strengthen the entire radio compartment and rest of the boat with epoxy and fibre glass cloth.

Following this the servo mounts can then be glued into place. The smaller sponson tubes are then glued into the sponsons and the turn fin mounts also fitted.
With most of the messy part complete the sponsons, winglets and radio box lids are all painted while the rest of the tub is sprayed with a lacquer which seals the wood ply and also gives the boat a really good look.
Now was time for the assembly of all the parts. Rudder was positioned then fitted, sponson booms aligned with the sponsons and then fixed into place, servos and control linkages fitted, fuel tank placed in and all the little bits finished off.