AGGRESSOR 3 CHANNEL FM INCLUDES 1 X HS 755HB 1/4" SCALE SERVO & 1 X STD SERVO

VEN1504

VEN1503

• 3 Channel Pistol Grip
• Available Frequency 40 Mhz
• All Channel Servo Reversing Channels 1 & 2 
• 3rd Channel for gear change
• Steering & Throttle end Adjustments
• External Charging Jack 
• 1 X HS 755HB 1/4" Scale Servo
• 1 x HS 311 Standard Servo

The Venom 1600mah Flat and Hump Receiver Battery Packs are built for superior strength and optimum power performance. Packs feature 5 Cell, 6 Volt 1600mah NiMH power with a high quality universal receiver plug connector.

The Venom 1600mah Flat and Hump Receiver Battery Packs are built for superior strength and optimum power performance. Packs feature 5 Cell, 6 Volt 1600mah NiMH power with a high quality universal receiver plug connector.

$230.00

$39.00

$39.00

Peter in his workshop preparing for a Hydro Regatta.

1. QWhen did you start rc boating?

AIn 1977, help that is 30 years ago, I had just finished university study so had free time and the money to finance doing some model boating, I would have started several years earlier otherwise. My younger brother was already involved in the scene and I was only too eager to build and race boats as well.

2. QWhat was it that got you interested in the hobby?

AIt was seeing full size hydroplanes in action from as young as I can remember. I grew up around speedboats and used to spend summer holidays at Lake Rotoiti (South Island) where full size regattas were held. That was in the halcyon days of powerboating when Tru-Jen, Elray and Air New Zealand were running and a younger Peter Knight was working his way up through the limited classes. Those days left a lasting impression on me and the idea of having a model boat (and it had to be a hydro) had firmly taken hold even before I knew it was an established hobby to pursue. It was only a matter of time before I found out where it was all happening and a couple of visits to Blenheim’s Queens Birthday regatta in the early 70’s answered that question. Interestingly enough there was only one hydroplane running there amongst 20 to 30 monos and it turned to be driven by none other than a much younger Tony Rutledge.

Sport 45 “The Boss”

Deep Vee

3. QWhat was your first boat?

AWell funnily enough it wasn’t a hydro the smarter people around me succeeded in talking me out of having one of them with mostly negative comments about how difficult they were to get going. So it was a 40 mono, actually a John Belworthy Dart 40 MkII powered by a humble OS40R/C. I first ran it on the OMES (Dunedin) RTP pond, a very small pond and one had to learn how to drive fast/quickly otherwise you were up the bank and as a result I learnt how to drive in a very short time. The first regatta I entered was Blenheim’s Rothmans Regatta (1977) and I managed to qualify 8^th for the Challenge Trophy Final with only a 40 up against 60’s. Needless to say I finished 5^th and last, but the experience had me convinced I would be boating for quite a while. The hydroplane was the next boat to hit the water, an old shovel nose based on the Lauterbach design and powered by a 40. It went tolerably well but as I succeeded in getting it going faster and faster new handling problems showed up that needed fixing to the point where the hull had served it usefulness and was retired. By this time I had moved to Wellington and was flatting with Tony Rutledge, so many evenings were spent talking boats especially hydroplanes and it was time for me to move into outriggers.

C Hydro race 1980

 4.       QYou were at the World championships in Indianapolis in 1981, tell us about that. It must have been a fantastic experience.

AYes very memorable. The world championships in those days were more of a challenge between countries with each country permitted one competitor per event in 2 hour endurance races for A, B and C classes. Those entered were Australia, England, Northern Ireland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, South Africa, USA, Wales and New Zealand all in the one heat for each class. The WC endurance races were part of the larger IMPBA Internats, which ran in the days afterwards and involved 150 competitors from US, Canada and the international competitors.

 Nigel Wong and I were the NZ team, Nigel ran the B class and I ran A and C. The hulls we used were all John Belworthy designed Dart hulls, John had attended the 1978 WC event in England and made quite an impression with the speed and handling of his own design hulls that were already well established on the NZ circuit. The engines we used were all OS FSR motors 21, 40 and 90 for the A, B and C classes and being of aircraft origin they were marinised, fitted with RPM rods and hotted-up to match the performance of the OPS and CMB motors we would be up against at the WC.

Our experience with motors was with OS max engines and we felt that we would stand a better chance at a WC event if we stayed with what we knew rather than change to more powerful motors that we did not have much experience with. Reliability was going to be the biggest factor in a 2 hour event and we certainly had plenty of experience running 1 hour endurance in NZ and we felt that with the work we had done on porting motors, high compression exponential heads, own design tune pipes and propeller tuning we were up to the task. Our odd choices of motors were a source of interest among the other competitors although I suspect they didn’t give us much of a chance. 

The quality of the competition was apparent from the first start with the entire field on the water between bouys 1 and 3 in the first lap of the A class 2 hour race. My OS21FSR powered Dart settled into a groove while the field sorted itself out and it soon became apparent that I would get some tough competition from Italy and there were two of them racing, one being the official entrant and the other a defending world champion as I into 2^nd place between the two of them. A fast improving South Africa was also in the hunt after an early flip followed by Wales and West Germany. In the second hour casualties began to occur with retirements by West Germany and Italy(2) leaving SA, NZ and Italy(1) to battle out the placings. In the final ½ hour my flexi broke putting me into 3rd behind South Africa in 1st and Italy 2nd. That result gave Nigel and myself a boost of confidence that we could actually be competitive in this event. 

In Nigel’s event, the B class race, a similar pattern emerged, his OS40FSR Dart was running fast enough and consistently to take it to the two Italian entrants both running OPS40s. The big surprise at the beginning was Sweden bolting into the front ahead of all others but that challenge was short lived after the 15 min mark when the K&B 6.5 started act up. Thereafter NZ, SA and Italy(1) swapped the first three positions up till the 1hr mark when SA fell back with a motor problem only to be replaced by a fast improving Italy(2). NZ proving equal to the pace suffered a couple of mishaps in the final 30 mins with a collision and a bent prop resulted in a slow lap to pit and replace the prop and top the fuel up for the run home. But then a flip as a result of another collision meant a 3^rd place finish behind Italy (1 and 2). Another job well done and we were getting noticed now, who were these kiwi guys?

 The following day was the C class race and I was fortunate to be driving John Belworthy’s newly designed prototype Dart 90 powered with a hotted-up OS90FSR. The boat was performing and handling well but nowhere as fast as Mauro Braghieri’s CMB 90 powered Dolphin hull. The Dart and the Dolphin appeared very similar both incorporating the dead flat ride pad on the bottom that was unseen up until that time. NZ didn’t have the best of starts running hard in the first 15 minutes a collision with the England boat caused a loss of rudder and a rescue, the popped rudder clevis was soon reattached and it was back into the action trailing Italy and SA by 11 and 9 laps respectively.  For the next 1½ hours I was able to stay out of trouble and work up to a comfortable 2^nd place, Italy though had surged ahead and was just cruising at this stage. The final result was Italy, NZ, SA and I knew I had been in a race with the same three countries taking the placings in all 3 events.

 At that stage Nigel and I were well satisfied with our efforts so far and looked ahead to the IMPBA internats over the next 6½ days. We had entered our monos in the 30 minute endurance on the oval course and this time we were up against the best outdrive monos.  The same pattern emerged with the our tight turning monos hugging the buoys inside the faster outdrives deep vees with the occasional outrigger lapping us on the outside on the outside for 5 minutes and then stopping to refuel for 3 minutes. Nigel and I managed a 2^nd and 3^rd in these events with SA and Italy taking out class wins.

Peter’s 21 mono and 65 hydro that went to Indianapolis in 1981

Now was the time to change pace and enjoy the oval racing, we had entered two hydro classes each with our own NZ designed and built outriggers up against the best in the USA, truly a dream come true. All of the big names in the 1980’s were there and it surprised our hosts that we had brought outriggers to run.

Fair to say we had some tuning problems and perhaps the biggest mistake we made was to attempt to run on 40% nitro, since it was available, when we were used to running on straight methanol/castor back in NZ. The 90^oF temperature and 90% humidity didn’t help either when our preparation had been in our winter at below 10^oC. Eventually I solved the tuning problems by removing my high compression exponential heads and fitting standard heads, but the performance was only as good as previously on straight gas, but at least we had reliability again and no handling problems on the flat calm water.

Dee Hughey and Peter before start and during a hydro heat

 The events were “straightaway speed”/”oval time trials”/”heat racing” and although out classed in the timed events our “super quiet” hydros were turning heads. The locals were impressed by the quietness of our rubber mounted and silenced pipes, compared with their ear-splitting solid mounted unsilenced pipe and sometimes mini-pipe rigs. In the heat racing we were up with the action and I think some drivers were un-nerved by silent boats stalking them. As the racing progressed I was able to improve my motor performance so that by the time the last heats were run I was competitive. This was helped throughout the heats by my pitman Dee Hughey who talked me through the starts on the full course mill (we were used to circulating the right hand end only in NZ) and I was making good starts. I am forever grateful to Dee for that advice and subsequently we adopted the full course mill in NZ and I have never had any problems getting a good start since. In the final heat of 3.5cc hydro I was drawn with two famous names from Indianapolis, Ed Hughey (of Hughey Boats the current class title and record holder) and Bill Lefeber. Dee got me through the mill start into a strong position on right on Ed’s tail and ahead of Bill and that is the way we finished, the heat win for Ed completed a perfect 4 from 4 and 1600 points for the class win. After the race Ed came over to congratulate me when he found out I was driving the green boat that was on his tail throughout the entire race. We chatted for a while, Ed was quite impressed that someone could come from an unknown place like NZ with his own design hydro and run so close to him. Ed Hughey is also the inventor of the Hughey pitch gauge and is now very active in electric hydros and is still wining.

Nigel and I had made quite an impression with our own design hydros it being unheard of for anyone outside of North America to be running them competitively back in the 1980’s. That of course has all changed now with hydros being raced worldwide. We were fortunate to have made the trip at such a time when the standard of boating in NZ was at a peak, it was an opportunity taken at the right time.

All places received Olympic style medals.

 5.  Q What is the biggest difference between the hobby then and now?

AThe biggest difference is in the ease of getting model boat gear and supplies. Prior to 1986 imported goods were subject to sales tax and duty and before credit cards sending money overseas was a problem. The NZMMA (now NZMPBA) used to run an import licence to make things easier for us, but the gear we needed was still more expensive and harder to get. I would say today that the range of gear available today has never been better and at prices (in inflation adjusted terms) that have never been cheaper.

6. QWhat else do you remember from boating in those days?

AThey were days of incredible learning over the space of 3 to 4 years leading up to the trip to the USA in 1981 and it continued afterwards. We used to make our own hardware because it was just not available in NZ and importing was reserved for motors and radio gear. On the technical side I was designing my own hydros, learning how to hot-up motors and making tune pipes. The path followed in hydro design was started with a Tony Rutledge 40 outrigger which because of the way it was assembled the essential parts such as sponsons and outdrive were adjustable so with much experimentation I was able to learn very quickly what worked well and what didn’t in making a faster better handling boat. If the wrong combination was tried it was easy to revert to what had worked before and then try something else.  Once a hull had been developed to its limit a new one would be build incorporating the lessons learnt and the process would continue.

 I learnt a great deal from Nigel Wong about hotting up motors, Nigel is a manufacturing jeweller so had the tools and skill to work with small components and of course he was trying some pretty radical modifications, which most of the time produced good results but occasionally too good resulting in nasty blow ups and the odd extreme mod that went beyond the ideal setup. It was a good thing that Dave Richardson was able to provide RPM rods to keep the motors together, these days Nigel prefers to leave his motors in standard condition. But I have continued to work on my motors to get that little bit extra.

 John Belworthy was churning out a range of mono hulls under the Dart banner, with the majority of competitors running fibreglass versions. John was and continues to be a ‘fountain of knowledge’ in things mono. I remember one known as the Delta designed to take out the mono speed records and it succeeded in doing so many times with various different boaters in all glow classes those records lasted many years until the outdrive DV’s bettered them all.

 Left - Nationals Competitors 1987

7. QWhat club do you belong to?

AThe Wellington Model Power Boat Club (WMPBC) we have been active for about 20 years and before that we belonged to Wainuomata Associated Modellers that included aircraft and cars r/c model activities.  I have also been involved with aircraft as long as boats and fly at the local model aero club (WMAC). Flying aeroplanes is a pleasant change from boating, there is not the pressure of always preparing race boats and getting top performance, you can just go out and fly and it is easier on gear, provided you don’t crash. Having said that I confess that I prefer fast planes with tunepipes that perform on the edge, if nothing else it keeps the reflexes sharp for the next boating regatta. 

8. QHow many times do you get to race in a month?

AWe have a club day once a month and we try to hold some offshore racing or speed runs to structure the club days rather than just having a tune up session. Last year I travelled away to 6 race meetings, but things have been a bit quieter this year with only 3 trips away and of course our own offshore regatta on Wellington harbour.

 9. QWhat classes do you race in?

AMono, hydro and tunnel in the glow classes B(7.5cc), C1(10cc), C2(15cc) plus a Cigarette Deep Vee for offshore and when it is rough..

 10. QWhich do you enjoy the most.?

AI have always preferred the hydroplane classes especially the boats that I have designed and built myself.  Outriggers have always been tops but I have recently designed and built a Sport 45 semi scale hydro, they look real and are almost as quick as the outriggers so we run them against the riggers too. The big challenge is getting them to stay on the water at those speeds without blowing off.

 11. Q How many boats have you owned or built over the years?

AOver 25 and I have about 7 at the moment that get raced regularly, with 2 others that are being prepared. I have registered a C scale hydro to build but haven’t made a start yet and I might have a go at a bigger offshore style tunnel, both of these will be own design and build. Just to show I am not totally committed to own design and build I am preparing an ARF Seawing (flyingboat), but that could end up being flown with a piped 60 engine, no surprise!

 12.  QWhat is your most memorable boating experience?

ABreaking the C hydro record at 115 kph in 1981. May not sound like much but a group of us had been inspired by the reports of records coming out of USA where 80 mph had been broken about 4 years earlier and 90 mph had just been exceeded. With the help of Dave Richardson on a visit to NZ earlier that year several motor and prop modifications had been implemented for the next round of speed runs. The result was a huge increase in speed coupled with smoother running such that at first I didn’t believe there had actually been an increase in speed. That was a quantum leap forward for us that day. That speed was increased to 125 kph over the next two years, where it was to stand for 17 years until Tony Rutledge bettered it with his Kiwi 3. On reflection what was most satisfying was that I did it with a ‘boat and propeller combination’ that I had designed and built myself.

13. QWhat do you see for the future of model boating in New Zealand?

AThe scene has changed over the years as have New Zealanders, largely gone is the do it yourself (DIY) generation, well we are getting older. We used to make most of our gear where we could (No.8 wire technology) it was a necessity with the import restrictions back then. Nowadays it is so much easier to get good gear and bolt it on. Also there has been shift away from the traditional submerged drive mono’s that have been the boat of choice for so many years. There are increasing numbers of outdrive deep vees and tunnels entered at race meetings, because that is what is available for sale and they appeal to an increasing majority. The events offered will have to be tailored to accommodate them if we want to grow as a hobby.  A suitable format could be altering the scale hydro meetings to include more offshore style racing as the feature event where everybody has a boat to run and some hydro races are included as the support events. This way travelling to events is more worthwhile as everyone will get more time on the water.

Finally I would like to say thanks for the opportunity to talk about a pastime that has given me a great of pleasure and at times frustration over the years.

Thank you Peter for your interesting profile