This is an old kit that is no longer in production by Robbe. I bought this kit used from a private party. The original box is long gone, a few unimportant pieces are missing and work had been done to the hull that I will undo. I liked the styling of the boat and the price was good so I had to have it.
The boat is designed for a three channel system, one channel to control the servo of the mechanical speed controller, another for steering and the third to adjust the angle of the outboard motor. I did not get the speed controller and would not have used it anyway as electronic ones are so cheap anyway.
I really like the styling of the hull. It is no race boat as it is to heavy but it does look the part.
The boat came with the outboard. The lower leg is made from metal. The motor cover is made from plastic. The power from the electric motor reaches the propeller by using tiny metal gears to connect the motor driven shaft to the propeller shaft.
You must be careful when installing the motor into the outboard. The motor shaft fits inside of the gear shaft and is held together with a collar. The collar should be just tight enough to prevent any rotational slipping but should be loose enough so that the motor can move up and down within the gear shaft. You should be able to slide the motor out of the shaft without having to loosen the collar.
If you tighten the collar so that the motor cannot move up and down, the bearing on top of the motor overheats because it is receiving the thrust load of the gears. The thrust loading should be absorbed by the bearings in the outboard leg which are much larger then the motor bearings and are also water cooled.
I did not get the original electric motor but judging from the instructions, it may have been a 540 or a 400 size motor.
I am concerned about the gears. They look to be fragile because they are so small. I do not want to damage them as replacement parts are probably unavailable. I need to find a low power motor to protect them.
The original plans call for running the control rods for steering and outdrive angle though the side of the body. The hull had slots already cut out for this.
I thought this looked odd and decided to change it so that the control arms ran though the back of the boat.
Fitting the servos in side by side is tight and the servo arms must be fairly short. I did not get the servo mounting box that was suppose to come with the kit so I made one out of wood. I positioned it much farther back in the hull then the plans call for. This helps with running the control arms out the back and gives me more flexibility in positioning the batteries to get a better center of gravity.
I drilled two holes for the control arms in the back of the hull. I will use the seals shown to keep water out of the hull. The seals are made by Traxxas and are used on their Villain boat.
I glued a piece of 3mm plastic to the inside of the transom to support the outboard. The support piece was cut so that is did not interfere with the lip of the seals.
I don't know why but the hull had an extra set of slots cut into the back of the hull. I glued a piece of wood to the inside of the hull to cover all of the slots and will fill them in so they are flush. A coat of paint will hide the repair work.
Here is my layout. The speed controller is a waterproof unit and is mounted in the rear most part of the boat. The servos are next. The speed controller is mounted on the wall of the hull off the floor incase a little water gets in. The battery goes immediately in front of the speed controller. This layout gave me a good center of gravity at 30% from the rear transom.
The RC antenna is mounted in the drivers cockpit. I secured it with some Stabilit glue.
The outboard motor wires are routed though a hole in the hull. I will seal the hole with some silicon.
The linkage for the outboard angle is pretty straightforward. I had to cut off the top part of the red arm to prevent binding when the motor was turned. I was not able to get the full range of motion due to the angle of the control rod but it is pretty good. I ended up building another arm that bends down to engage the red arm in a lower hole.
The steering control arm required some fancy bends to get it to work. I put a collar on the rod to hold it in place.
The final step of construction was to paint the cockpit figure and add the decals. Since this boat had been around the mill, the decals where not in perfect shape but they were good enough. I applied them by applying soapy water to the hull and the decal itself. This gave me time to position them correctly. After the decals had dried, I clear coated the hull to prevent them from pealing off.
