Stupid moments in R/C Boating.....

[MarkScott]

EMS, I think you took the prize so far!

 

[[email protected]]

Let me clear my throat...........That's child's play! Here is a real embarrasing but true story. We race boats at Spreckels lake in San Francisco. It's a man made CEMENT pond. The kind Jethro Bowden had! LOL Anyways, back in the late 80's I had a HEAVY old Prather or Dumas Deep Vee w/an OPS .80 in it. I'm doing full speed towards the infield and I have no radio. The boat hits the cement lip, flips, crashes into three tables and knocked them all down dropping boats, tool boxes and everything in it's path. I spilled over three gallons of fuel, broke a persons radio, spilled coffee, chips, hit a chair and made everybody pissed off.

Guess what, I had no damage at all to my boat w/the exception of my prop that was stll spinning on the shore. I can laugh now but man did I pack my stuff up quick that day.

 

[Don McMurchy]

We use foam balls for bouy's ay our pond. Heres what happens when you get to close!

http://www.midmad.com/dirtdummy/video/Rigger Prototype med.wmv

 

[ClayGlover]

rofl!! that thing was handling the bouy pretty well!! i think your on to something big!! ;D

 

[Don McMurchy]

I was surprised how it handled.

 

[Propjockey]

Hey, at least it won't dig in the corners!

 

[Don Templeton]

Now, thats what I call anti-trip sponsons! ;D

 

[TimD]

Hmmmmmmm, are those "hammerhead sharks" on that bouy?

Hammer cut sponsons MK2! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

 

[EatMyShortsRacing]

And I almost forgot....

I was on the receiving end of another stupid moment. At Edwards lake I was out in the inflatable rescue craft getting my boat when another racer (I use that term EXTREMELY loosely) put his 3.5 rigger on the water. I was way off the course and paddling the long way to avoid getting in his way. Dunno how but despite all efforts to avoid it this rigger torpedoed my floatation leaving me swimming for the bank.

Now winter in Melbourne can be cold - read hypothermia so 2/3 of the way to the bank my swim just stopped. Lucky another guy was a good swimmer and dragged me in the rest of the way or I would be at the bottom of the lake. Well at least I would have had a great prop collection down there!!!

Moral to this story? Indestructable rescue boats!!!!

EMS Racing cement shoes available

 

[Ian Inverarity]

Well in the Adelaide club ther was a similar incident combining elements of both of Craigs stories. I didn't see this one, but there was once a multi race where two people had red boats. During the race one of the drivers got confused as to which boat he was driving, and despite the shouting of the people in the rescue dingy on boat smacked into it at full noise and holed the aluminium hull. Fortunately the boat was not far from sure and they made it back before sinking!!

Nitrocrazed racing: I have a very distinctive paint scheme on my boats....

 

[EatMyShortsRacing]

That leads me to.....

The first day out with the Stinger/CMB racing team. All beautifully presented boats with the classic white tub and flouro red sponsons. First heat of 90 hydro and Tony Ricciotti, Scott Evans, Tony Uniacke and myself are all drawn in the first heat. All four boats pretty much nailed the start with another boat sitting in lane 1. We all go around the outside of the slower lane 1 boat.... but after 2 seconds of blindly holding right rudder to see where the boat comes out of the turn (as the inside boat threw up a wall of water similar to the berlin wall) you then had 4 drivers with identical boats and identical paint schemes not knowing which boat was which. What do you do in that situation? Wiggle the rudder to see which boat is yours of course...

End result??? 4 boats going down the back straight wiggling their rudders!!!! So of course the next thing to do is drop the throttle a bit... you guessed it.. 4 boats go off song!!!

We did finally sort out whose boat was whose by the end of the back straight...

My boats immediately had the tubs painted yellow after that.

EMS Racing confused? so are we.

 

[Ian Inverarity]

LOL

For group stupidity that would have to take the cake!!! How could ALL FOUR of you paint your boats the same and NOT expect to get confused!

Nitrocrazed racing: We work as a team, and we do it MY way!

 

[EatMyShortsRacing]

Well Ferrari do it... we had an Italian team boss...

need I say more???

EMS Racing veni vidi vicci????

 

[Ian Inverarity]

Yeah,

And Michael Schumacher changed his helmet paint scheme so that his fans would not confuse him with Rubens! ;D

You silly boys.... :

Nitrocrazed racing: Black boats would look cool until they stop....

 

[EatMyShortsRacing]

Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined!!!

Needless to say we were very experienced!!!

EMS Racing we even had the same race shirts!!!

 

[Propjockey]

Well, this isn't R/C...but it qualifies for STUPID!!

 

[Rick Raffaelli]

WOW

 

[MarkScott]

The boat's name says it all!

Mark

OB Nut Racing: Team Insane!

 

[CySlyde]

LOL hopefully i'll have a few good stories of my own soon. You guys with the rescue boats should consider kyacks (read white water) I cant count how many times i wrapped mine into rocks and branches other kyacks ect... only once did i ever have to repair it and that was when i flipped it on a hydrolic.

most bone head thing i ever did so far was think a mother swan was sleeping on the shore with her little ones, i guess when i tacked she thought my sailboat was a rival swan or something... and well to make a long story short swans can really move.... parts of the boat are still at the bottom of that pond

 

[MarkScott]

Cy, LOL.. If you are still doing the sail, might want to install ep backup system ;D ;D

Mark

OB Nut Racing: Where's the wind when ya really need it ;D ;D