My first motorboat! But just a little rc version

I remember my dad, in the 80's, racing these amazing model boats.  The sights, sounds and smells are etched into my memory and in spite of no real desire to own a real boat, I've always loved them. 
 

Ive been taking my kids, one at a time, kayaking in the ocean and it's always so smooth and pretty in the mornings but I started thinking that would be fun to have an RC boat to run around on the rollers with.

So I started looking in all the usual places for a used one and they were either slow cheap toys are super expensive nitro boats. But I finally found one that sounds promising

It's called a supervee 27 and it can apparently get going pretty good.  
 

I got it for $60 and thought it was in great shape as the nose looked great and it was pretty clean. 
 

but I'm discovering more damage that was very obvious if I had just looked a little better. 
 

so I will be replacing a few torn and missing items but mostly repairing broken wooden supports inside the hull  

I need to get batteries and a charger and am open to any and all suggestions on these any any other observations/suvgestions. 
 

missing the radio antenna

torn boot   Whats it called??

Need some sort of water-sealing grommet here


pin is broken off of hatch cover

this mount has broken off the hull a bit

this is where the mount has broken

one of the trays has come out

And the other is broken

going to go to the hobby shop on Monday and see what they say and get some stuff. Hobby stores aren't what they used to be!  Several are close but they just have potpourri and yarn. 
 

The very  best epoxy I have found, T-88.  Comes from Aircraft Spruce.  They have a web site.

I wax nostalgic right along with you!  This should be fun and not too hard to patch up and have running.  

Thanks Ted! Found it on amazon.  Ordering it up.

Any suggestions on good, affordable batteries? what about chargers... they have changed a lot in the years since I last had a little buggy.   Are quick chargers a horrible idea? 

  I don't know about batteries, my experience is with control line, using glow / nitro powered engines.

     Batteries have gotten a lot better, some have been using them for control line with great success.  They use a timer and power controller, can sometimes make more than on 8 minute flight on one charge.

take a peek at offshore electrics for replacement parts https://www.offshoreelectrics.com/categories.php?cat=Propellers he might have the boots you need for the steering.

i get LIPOs from amazon, got a charger there too.  looks like yours has Traxxas TRX type plugs currently

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071RNHXQ6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06ZYRCPS3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and if you're charging LIPOs, you should have one of these https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HVVJH1N/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It looks like there may be a different ESC required if you're running LIPOs, though.  I can't quite tell which is in yours, but judging by the older radio setup, I would bet it's the older type.  The specs I saw online says they come from the factory set up for 2 7.2V 6 cell packs.  You could run 2 2s 7.4V Lipo packs and it would work just fine, as long as the ESC can handle it.  There are replacement ESCs for boats like this one https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-rc-boat-esc-70a.html?countrycode=US&gclid=Cj0KCQjwoub3BRC6ARIsABGhnyYwo-kIXmW8mMBpy9MfjeHl5dyO6_-jLMy8L8GMcpjDUpwvQJGw92IaAsi2EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds that may work.  

Many new radio sets are waterproof these days.  Try finding one as a pull-out/part-out from places like DollarHobbyz online.  $50 or so would get you a pretty nice 2.4GHZ for long range and no interference.  https://www.dollarhobbyz.com/collections/radio-systems/products/hpi-racing-1-10-rs4-sport-3-drift-tf-11-radio-transmitter-rf-11-receiver-aa-batteries

In reply to stylngle2003 :

I ordered that radio - seemed like a good deal and worth it.  They gave me a link to share and you'll get $15 off your next purchase. Anyone I guess could use it, although maybe it would just be the first so hopefully you'll save some money:

http://i.refs.cc/aEl1SABQ?smile_ref=eyJzbWlsZV9zb3VyY2UiOiJzbWlsZV91aSIsInNtaWxlX21lZGl1bSI6IiIsInNtaWxlX2NhbXBhaWduIjoicmVmZXJyYWxfcHJvZ3JhbSIsInNtaWxlX2N1c3RvbWVyX2lkIjpudWxsfQ%3D%3D

good deal.  can't wait to see how this comes together.  

Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised but it looks like I need a new motor for it.   Hoping Sty or Toyman or someone might be able to help me find a good, affordable replacement motor.

It is the Aquacraft B36-56.    not having luck finding the same motor. 

Some guys turned the prop and said it was way too hard, and it would pop as it turned. It felt to me like it was magnets but the guys thought it was a mechanical thing.

So I finally decided to tear it apart. I knew I had to anyway to do some repair, but I need to make another parts order. I should keep a list of what i'm spending on my cheap boat.   argh.

anyway, The prop shaft came out fine. it wasn't swimming in grease but was lubed and not messed up.  Got the motor out and eventually managed to get it apart (it doesn't seem like it was designed to be serviceable - small pins hold the caps on the ends that were not easy to drive out) and the bearings are good, but one of the magnet strips on the rotor is broken and the silver coating on the magnet is coming off a little.  I'll get a pic if i take it apart again.  I made sure everything was clean and nothing touching anything and it is still not super easy to turn, but doesn't seem to feel as bad.  But I can't really tell which means if it is better it isn't by much. It definitely feels like magnets making it tough to turn, and not a mechanical interference.

So I figure I should just get a new motor to be safe (to go along with my new radio, receiver, battery trays, cleats, driveshaft, batteries, charger, epoxy, fiberglass, brushes, grease, plywood.....)

suggestions??

Here is the damaged part of the rotor:

In reply to jfryjfry (Forum Supporter) :

I'd love to be able to tell you exactly what you need but it's been 20 years since I was a IMPBA member or ran a hobby shop. Electric boats have changed an enormous amount in that time. 

What I can say is that's a brushless motor. They hadn't been invented for RC use when I got out of the hobby business. It will need to be replaced with another brushless motor to continue using the same speed control. Where it gets tricky is the speed controls are rated to a maximum amperage. If the new motor exceeds that, it could burn up the speed control. I do think there is a industry standard for wiring. They all seem to use the same 3 wire colors and connectors. 

Parts are getting pretty cheap these days so it may not be too expensive to just buy a set with a matching motor and speed control. I've looked at a lot of stuff on the Hobby King website, but never ordered from them. They have a pretty good assortment of electric boat stuff. 

Hobby King Boat Section.

You might also try Tower Hobbies. They were the go to mail order company when I was in the industry. 

As for repairs, epoxy is your friend. I used to use Devcon but again that was a long time ago. Even adhesives have changed a lot since then. 

Good luck and have fun. I wish I could be more help. I had a lot of fun racing RC boats in the 80s and 90s. If you were local or even close, I'd tell you to stop by and get all my hulls and engines. Unfortunately shipping on a 40" to 55" hull gets expensive in a hurry.

you may be able to have it rebuilt.  give Rotor Ron a shout, he would be the best person to answer whether it's salvageable or not.  https://www.rotorron.com/  but it's probably trashed, since you said it was hard to disassemble that tells me they weren't meant for service.

I saw a few motors on OSE that could work.  Not what i would call cheap, but this one is on sale $65 https://www.offshoreelectrics.com/proddetail.php?prod=hh-dynm3831 .  It and this one are both https://www.offshoreelectrics.com/proddetail.php?prod=leo-3650 6mm shorter than your current motor (which is 36mm diameter, 56mm long).   Also this one https://www.offshoreelectrics.com/proddetail.php?prod=leo-3660 which is a few bucks cheaper, but you need to add on the water jacket.  it's 4mm longer than your stock motor. 

40A was the peak current of the stock motor.  5mm shaft too.  so either of these should work, if the dimensional differences don't cause interference somewhere else.  

With brushless motors, the KV rating is how many RPM it spins per volt of input.  The stock motor is ~1900KV so anything in the 1900-2200 ballpark should be fine. 

 Very helpful.  I bought one of the kotors you recommended and will contact rotor Ron!

how did you figure out the kv of the orig motor?  I only found guesses from early 2000's that it was around 1600kv

In reply to jfryjfry (Forum Supporter) :

i think it was some google-fu, to a forum about the boat when it was new.  i would say it is probably directionally accurate, but take the exact numbers with a grain of salt.

So in typical fashion things got a little out of hand. 
 

the boat needed some work before I could even try it out.  
i ordered the radio listed above so I'd have better range, a new motor because the old one had a damaged rotor and didn't turn easily, a new rubber boot kit because the current one was torn, two batteries, one battery charger, two battery trays because the original wood holders were broken and stick-on Velcro seemed like a weak solution to keeping batteries in place, and finally some plywood, t88 epoxy recommended above, waterproof resin, fiberglass and micro bubbles to repair some broken bits: busted motor mounts, busted hatch cover pin, and two cracks down both sides.  It looks like a kid stood on it or something, flexing and cracking both sides. 
 

so at this point I am $60 purchase, $15 gas to drive across Los Angeles county to get it, and about $260in parts.  All for a boat that I could have bought a perfect example of for about $140.  But it was only $60 so I'm obviously way ahead.  Not to mention the 20 hours I have into it. 
 

so, in the middle of this, my kids say they like my boat.  So I buy them each a little $20 boat they get to earn via daddy points.   I give points for doing good things, being helpful, showing the fruit of the spirit, etc.   

then, while in the middle of working on the boat, I get a call to work in Atlanta.  So of course I hit up the local craigslist and end up bringing home two additional little quick boats. 
 

at this point I've amassed 6 radio controlled boats and have yet to put a single one on the water!

but that all changes when I finally get to run the one of my three that run.  One of them came with two lipo batteries that were swollen and old and I was told they were potentially dangerous so I disposed before I left georgia. I've ordered replacement batteries but am waiting for them so that little boat currently sits. 
 

the kids also earn their boats so I finally get to the local lake with one small boat for me and three little boats for the kids.   I took our neighbor's kid too. It was great!

I ended up going about 5 times with some combination of my kids, all the while bringing my one small boat. 
 

it was fun and not super fast but not super slow either. But I really wanted to see what the supervee27 would do!   So I finally got it finished.  Had to paint the sides to cover the repair.  It's a pretty poor quality job but I just wanted it done. 
 

I don't have a pic showing the whole boat but I'll take one. 

getting the new radio set up was a bit of a challenge for someone with no experience with modern rc stuff and no manual came with the radio - pairing the receiver, getting the esc to work, etc   But I finally triumphed and it worked, but it frankly didn't sound great   I didn't think it was spinning the prop fast enough   Oh well, figured I might as well try  

I went on Tuesday after finishing it and was nervous and excited to put it in the water.  It floated. That was a big victory. It moved. A huge victory!   But no matter what I did, it would not plane.  It would jump from a rest and then just cavitate and push a bunch of water. 
 

So I did what I historically did when I'm stuck - I called my dad.   He said it sounded like I had the wrong prop.  It should probably have a surface-piercing prop and it acted like it didn't.  
 

which was weird because the boat seemed basically stock and not used too much so I was a bit doubtful but had nothing else to go off. 
 

so I went back the next day when a small group of old-timers bring their boats and showed them what it was doing.  One of them looked at the prop and said, pretty unconvincingly, that it looked like the wrong prop. 
 

but he didn't stop there - he dug in his bag and said "here, try this one."  He then put it on, and I put it back in the water.  At first it seemed different but basically the same.  But it quickly climbed out of the water and on plane!

so I brought it back and started to take it off to return and he said not to - keep running it!  And when I wore out the batteries he insisted that I keep it.   Such a nice gesture. 
 

I'll get some pics of the boat finished and on the water.  I'll be taking it back there in a few days.  
 

now I'm looking everywhere for a couple of larger faster electric boats.  Ideally self-righting. 
 

I'll outline our rescue efforts soon.  I enjoy saving the stranded boats as much as I like running them at speed!

  It's great you found a good club, all these hobbies have little tricks and it is great to have the right help.  Club members typically want any new guy to have success.

   With the control line flying group that I used to be active with, we would do anything to get a plane in the air and working properly.  Didn't matter what was needed...  

      These boats look like a lot of fun!

Everyone loves motorboating.

Awesome update, glad you're getting some mileage out of them!  I too am tempted to get a self righting one for kid #1, you know....for science and stuff.  to go with the 1/10 SCT and 1/28  SCT and micro heli he has already  

Well, these things are like rabbits. 
I started with my first, a sv27. 
Then I got the kids each one 

total: 4

then I bought two used small ones in atlanta

total: 6

but all the guys at the pond have these recoil 26's that are self-righting so I found one on Craigslist and the guy was willing to ship

total: 7

two of the guys have these cool 36" self-righting Sonicwakes   Found one local that was missing some parts so I bought it current total: 8

the recoil sucks   Well, I thought it did   I got it in the water and it was so sloooow     After 5 minutes of just trying to drain out the battery I realized there was a little switch that said 50-75-100   It was on 50   As in percent  

switched to 100 and problem solved   
 

I have a lot of fun with my little 17" barbwire   It is so fast but too twitchy   So I redrilled the servo arm where the rudder wire connects to slow it down   It helped but I'd like to make the wheel on the radio a little larger as well  

I also now have about 15 batteries   I found a guy selling some cheap and made a deal for 5 for $50   I asked if I could double it and he said yes but for the same price: $50 for 10   Turns out he just found a box of these brand new batteries  at a client's who was going to toss them   He was happy I was doing this with my kids and just wanted me to have them   I gave him the $50 plus an extra $20 because - get this - he delivered them too!