PS Bellarine

[derekwarner_decoy]

Hey ...congratulations Doonie........ ...great water first trial...& we see from the smoke that there was a fair southerly blowing 

This naturally indicated near ZERO steerage..........however this is prototypical of our OZ paddlers...is the barn door rudder to scale?

What were your thoughts?........Derek

[Doonie]

Thanks Derek, very kind.   She's a slug, don't you worry about that.   First up, the twin electric motors, geared to 1:148 then geared up a bit with a slightly larger driven pulley delivers almost scale speed. I had to back the throttle off to about four fifths to get what looked about right.   The rudder is useless but is to scale.   It'd turn around on a footy oval with the rudder.   Yes, a stiff breeze was blowing and it did take control of the boat.   However, with a fair bit of space, as shown about half way through, I was able to utilise the bulldozer steering to good effect.   It steers well, slowly, with the bulldozer steering.   It's been a long project, almost five years but I am very satisfied.   Some small detail work now.   A bit of paint but I'm going to go with the mostly timber thing because I like it like that.   The boat, to me, is a model of the Dispatch but also a piece of woodworking art.   I'll post some more pics when it's done and maybe some more video in a good setting with a few pans.

Doonie.