This coming Sunday sees the unique annnual rocket boat competition At the Darlington Model boat club. ( Home of Walter, Eddy and Bob Golder) and is a pre Christmas knees up and a bit of fun. The rules are simple (as is everytrhing we do in this club). I provide a batch of identical cheap FIREWORK rockets, minus sticks and exploding heads and members design and build a model round the rocket. The aim is to get as far across the club lake WITHOUT LEAVING THE WATER. Have you ever seen a rocket powered submarine or a boat which just refuses to move?. We have them all! Remember these rockets only burn for about 2 seconds and the initial thrust is extremely high. The results are hilarious!! As long as there is no ice it will be a great morning. Hopefully Eddy will post some photos. I know its not paddlers, but you have to be serious sometime!!!. regards, Walter.

Quote from: Walter SnowdonHopefully Eddy will post some photos. I know its not paddlers, but you have to be serious sometime!!!. regards, Walter.

Eddy will post some photos if he remembers to take his camera!!

Bob will remind Eddy to take his camera - if he remembers to that is :!:

Forget it you two old jerryhattricks- I will take a pencil and draw pictures! Regards, walter.

You must be really good friends at the D&DMBC

Regards Hans

Quote from: scotfriendYou must be really good friends at the D&DMBC

Regards Hans

The problem is we know each other too well  :nah

You CAN go off some people you know :x

Well, despite freezing temperatures the rocket boat competition went ahead.

The first job was to clear a channel of ice which took almost two hours! The ice was more than 1.5" thick, and it needed a 14Lb sledgehammer to break it!

Considering the freezing conditions, the turnout was pretty good, though the usual spectators were a bit thin on the ground - Probably staying indoors in front of the fire!

There was the usual mix of good attempts and total failures, but it's all done in a very lighthearted manner, so everyone enjoyed it. Photos of the event can be seen in the photo gallery at: http://www.paddleducks.co.uk/forum/album_cat.php?cat_id=52 Sadly some are a little blurred as my camera lens kept steaming up with the cold, but it should give a flavour of what happened.

Looks like it was fun. Here we would have 2 feet or more of snow to move before we found the ice.
Regards,
Gerald

I bet our Oz friends wish they had that much FREE ice to cool their tinnies in the middle of their hot season! It was as usual a quite hilarious morning with the usual mayhem and the odd boat which thought it was an aircraft!. I am hoping to have a rerun when the ice melts as I have a few rockets left over as some COWARDS never turned up.!!!!!. I may even persuade (shame) Eddy in resurecting PLANK

or SON OF PLANK. Yes, one year Eddy stated that anyone could make a rocket boat as the initial thrust would move anything. So..... Eddy arrived with a piece of rock hard half inch balsa 12 inches long and 4 inches wide with a ski front  (I think he used a chopping axe for the finely shaped bow) and a rocket glued onto the back. THE DAMNED THING WORKED  and he certainly wasnt last!
Now, i wonder if you glued blades to two Catherine Wheels and nailed them onto PLANK would you have the worlds first rocket powered paddler?. the mind boggles!!!   I must start getting out more and mixing with golfers or footballers in the REAL world.   Regards, Walter.

Walter
Have you ever seen any photos of the North British paddle steamer "LUCY ASHTON" when she was fitted with jet engines at the end of her career?

Alex Thomson

There is a photo in my book "Steamers of the Clyde: NBR & LNER" published by Tempus Publishing in 2000 and still in print

Alistair Deayton

Quote----- Original Message -----
From: sandystrone (chat@paddleducks.co.uk)
To: chat@paddleducks.co.uk (chat@paddleducks.co.uk)
Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2007 10:42 PM
Subject: Re: Rocket Boats.


Walter
Have you ever seen any photos of the North British paddle steamer "LUCY ASHTON" when she was fitted with jet engines at the end of her career?

Alex Thomson

Post generated using Mail2Forum

Alistair's post reminded me that the CPAY thread faltered after only two entries.  There should be enough material for one per week for a few years.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Quote from: sandystroneWalter
Have you ever seen any photos of the North British paddle steamer "LUCY ASHTON" when she was fitted with jet engines at the end of her career?

Alex Thomson

There's one here - http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/TRANSPORT/lucyasht/lucyasht.htm

Sorry, my scanner, which was part of an all-in-one printer-cum-scanner has given up the ghost, and I have replace it with a simple printer. I have a number of images on my hard drive, and will post some soon

Alistair

Quote----- Original Message -----
From: Roderick Smith (chat@paddleducks.co.uk)
To: chat@paddleducks.co.uk (chat@paddleducks.co.uk)
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2007 5:55 AM
Subject: Re: Rocket Boats.


Alistair's post reminded me that the CPAY thread faltered after only two entries. There should be enough material for one per week for a few years.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

Post generated using Mail2Forum