She performed very nicely for me today and I'm rapped to the back teeth. (Haven't got many)
I put her in and found her floating at deck level so she came out and I put some foam blocks in both front and rear under the brass decks. The next launch had her about the right height. I tested the static dive which went well but she went down stern first. I pulled her out again and added a bit more foam aft and tried again. This time she went down level or close to it. Slightly bow down which suits what I want! The test went well and she got up and went pretty fast. The turning radius is huge unfortanately. I can live with that. In tight spots I back and fill like parking a big car in a small spot. I found I can do crazy slide in parking like on the movies by driving the bow under near the edge and powering the stern around. It pretty well jumps around into the edge (reeds). It's on the video clip as I did it a few times to parctice much to other people's amazement. It was a really fun day's boating and I'm hooked on subs for sure. I had a sail of one of my yachts afterwards and I got bored quickley and longed for some more subbing! The depth controller wasn't tested today as I forgot to turn it on when I closed her up at home. I have the radio on a magnet switch and I didn't wish to re-open the WTC as I was having too much fun and didn't want to push my luck. BTW she didn't leak a drop after 1 1/2 hrs in the water. I didn't motor for the whole time but would have done an hour I reckon. The batteries tested at 6.75 V when I got home. I think my receiver being hooked up to the the main power might be a problem. I had a few instances of servos refusing to work and then working and at one stage she wouldn't blow the ballast and I tried turning of the radio to try the failsafe and she still wouldn't. On wading out for her (only shallow where she was) I found the batteries wern't flat and she went OK. It might be the problem you guys spoke of a while ago of the receiver shuddering the servos and going mad when you lose signal. I did notice it doing a bit of that when testing on shore. It's an 8 ch Hitec receiver that came with the Eclipse 7 Hitec radio. All in all I'm very happy with the sub and looking forward to finishing her off and detailing her.
More soon.
Jason
PS Here's a link to the vid. It has a few short bits of yachting along with my sub as I was tackling them and diving to hide etc. Note the last pic shows my 'cheat' bubble float where I was hiding.
http://www.magpieyachts.com/files/4march06CherryLakesubtestssailing.MPG
Or for a larger 36 MB edited version:
http://www.magpieyachts.com/files/Ub...erryLakeAU.wmv