Re: ccc 2014

Posted by Dennis A on
URL: http://uk-hbbr-forum.61.s1.nabble.com/ccc-2014-tp4026878p4027694.html

Adventures at this years races

I had a good weekend winning on both days. On Saturday I got through the heats & won the final as well.  I had not practiced with a passenger and was surprised to find that Wendy made virtually no difference to the trimarans speed ( but I did bring a light passenger).

There were 7 entries with Simon in a shorter Pagan to meet the 10 ft. rule being my only real challenge. His boat was sporting a clever long tail drive system but the 4 bladed propeller and his lovely 36V drill were not compatible and it burnt out. Pagan reappeared for the final with a 18V  drill and a modified propeller with only 2 blades. This showed potential but made me think that if he had used the 36V drill with the 2 bladed propeller it would have been a much tighter race.

For the Sunday races there was only 5 entices so the management decided to run 2 races with all the participants starting together and a points system awarded to the finishers. The highest score from the summation of the points from both of the 2 races would be the overall winner.
My boat was stripped down to the lightest that I could get by removing the centre float and floor boards making it now a catamaran.
The entery from Southamptom University, Chicken Nugget was a open Canadian type canoe with 3 drills coupled by chain.The beautiful propeller was about 150 mm diameter multi bladed,  made from solid aluminium and milled on a CNC machine.
Toby on Canute was also racing using a 36 V drill and a slightly reduced propeller size.
In race 1, myself, Toby and the Chicken Nugget went off together and I proved to be slightly faster. I won this race but actually coasted across the line with no power. Chicken Nugget was 2nd with battery problems and Toby failed to finish having burnt out his drill but his boat still has the best turning circle.

For race 2  I decided that 2nd place would do and make me joint first on overall points but I had to finish.  I reduced the drills to low speed and hoped that Chicken Nugget would run out of battery power and I would catch him up.  Unfortunately I was outsmarted by the clever graduates who had a spare set of batteries did a good racing change and therefore did not slow down. Second place for me, which meant a draw for first on overall points. I did a racing gear change on the final run in leg and achieved 6.4. mph across the finish line but this was much much to late to catch them.

Sorry if I did not give any of the other enties a mention but it is difficult to see what is going on when racing. Ayrspeed set a record of finishing all the races that  it has entered

I was disappointed to see so few entries but felt that this years competition was not advertised as well as earlier years, but I did like the Tender race. I hope that our sponsors will give us the opportunity to compete next year.

Makita Drills

I was using 2 of their current drills model DHP456 and found these very suitable for this type of event. In most of the races one or both drills over heated and cut out, but after about 1 hour they reset themselves. Likewise the batteries tripped out but no damage was done. The batteries then take about 1 1/4 hours to recharge as the fan in the charger unit has to cool the battery down.

Dennis