| Finally, after sitting on my shelf for a month, I have enough time to try out the Paula. With batteries charged, I headed out to my local pond. From the get-go, the Paula worked well. It sat nicely in the water without leaning to either side. I guess I got the ballast in the correct spot. |  |
| The Paula took off well and had pretty good scale speed. It's no fast electric but it's fast enough for a work boat. |  |
| It left a pretty good wake as can be seen here. For a direct drive boat, it does ok. A gear drive would make it slightly better as the motor is bogging down at full throttle but it's not necessary. |  |
| The dog thought the Paula looked interesting and decided to take a closer look. |  |
| I must admit that while building the boat I thought it looked pretty ugly and unrealistic but now that I see it in the water it I have a different opinion. It really looks much more realistic and something I would expect to see out in a harbor. (If Atlanta had a harbor!) |  |
| The crane uses two channels, one channel controls whether the winch is drawing in line or letting it out. The other channel controls the latch for the crane arm. In one position the latch will catch in either of the three positions, in the other position the latch will release and not catch. The crane worked well. It automatically picked up the central most buoy from it's stand while the crane was latched in the most forward position. Once the buoy is lifted off the deck, it's time to release the crane latch. |  |
| While setting the latch in the release position, the crane arm will spring toward the rear most position. More line is let out and the buoy is lowered into the water. |  |
| The winch line is let out until the hook drops below the buoy and releases. After successfully deploying the buoy, the Paula reels in the hook and can go about it's other duties. Unfortunately, the second buoy can not be automatically picked up because it is positioned too far off center. |  |
| The Paula has pretty good run time even if you run the boat at full throttle. I got about 45 minutes of run time, half of which was spent running at full throttle, the other half spent chasing down buoys. |  |
| The boat handled well and was easy to steer going forward. In reverse, steering is practically nonexistent. |  |
| Obviously the camera man was drunk.... |  |
| ...had blurred vision... |  |
| ...and no sense of balance. |  |
| I'm kind of fond of the looks of the finished product. I plan on adding a few more items to add a little detail but I think it looks pretty good as is. |  |
| Retrieving buoys is rather sporting since the boat doesn't steer in reverse. You must carefully line up the stern of the boat while going forward and then back straight into the buoy. It takes a while to get the hang of it making it challenging and fun. Fortunately the boat steers very sharply at low forward speeds. A bow thruster should would simplify things! You may want to consider adding one if you plan on building this boat. |  |
| Once you manage to back the boat up to the buoy, the magnet on the buoy and stern keep the buoy firmly in place. It's now a simple matter of releasing the crane so that it locks into the center position and then lowering the hook. The hook catches the buoy guard and then it can be hoisted in. |  |
| Here the buoy is being hoisted in. The winch is really geared down low so it does take some time to reel the buoy in. The low gearing also means that the winch has a good amount of torque. |  |
| As the buoy is reeled in, the crane is pulled forward and locks into the forward most position. Then the buoy can be lowered onto the deck. |  |
| This is a nice kit and I highly recommend it. It goes together easy and works well. |  |
| I believe that the crane on this boat will allow it to be an effective rescue boat to recover other dead boats. The crane and motor seem to be strong enough for the task. |  |
All in all, I am very pleased with this kit. As usual, Robbe has a winner on it's hands. Happy sailing! | 
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