2016 Amigo's Legg Lake NAMBA SAW Nov 11-13th-2016 Results, and end of an Era.

[Darin Jordan]

The Legg Lake SAWs are in the books for 2016, with some fun results... Tyler posted this on OSE.com:

The official results from the recent Legg Lake SAW.

A big congrats to Brian Buaas for smashing the NAMBA P hydro record! Also a big congrats to Mark Grim who holds all the NAMBA gas hydro records.

Brian Buaas
P- Hydro. 138.03MPH 2-way average with a fast pass at 141.05 Not bad for a 32" heat racing boat!

Bill Costner/Mark Grim
Open Cracker Box. 58.563MPH 2-way average with a fast pass at 59.57

Mark Grim/Howard Welch
G-2 Sport Hydro. 97.550MPH 2-way average with a fast pass of 98.771

Mark Grim
G-1 Hydro. 109.27MPH 2-way average with a fast pass of 109.32

Mark Grim
GX-1 Hydro. 110.670MPH 2-way average with a fast pass of 111.22

Additionally, Mark and Kim Grim have announced that they are leaving the LA area, and making a well earned move back to Alabama, near Huntsville, and so this may have well been the very LAST Legg Lake SAW event that we have here for NAMBA. Mark did make mention of holding NAMBA SAW events back in Huntsville, so opportunities will likely still be there, just with a plane flight as opposed to a 19-hour drive.

Thank you to Mark and Kim for ALL you have done for us nutty SAW competitors. Memories that will last a lifetime!

I'll post some links to video and some pictures below.

[Darin Jordan]

Brian Buaas bumping his P-Hydro record later in the day, AFTER having run 141mph!

[Darin Jordan]

Brian Buaas with his P-Hydro
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Brian's Raptor P-Hydro. Same boat, and motor, he set to the 16.xxx second NAMBA 2-Lap record with, just without the rear shoes and with SAW sponsons.
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Brian Neal Photo-Bomb!
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Hmmmm... which prop should Brian use this pass???
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[Darin Jordan]

My personal report:

First, I competed in our NAMBA N1-Hydro class, which requires the use of a ROAR Stock 17.5T Brushless on 2S. Current record is 56mph. I was given an older hydro that Pat McDonald used to use for the NAMBA M2-Hydro class, back when it required Brushed motors and 4-NiMH cells. Ran a little over 50 during the event, but at the cost of two motor systems. I got WAY too agressive too soon, and frankly, the hull wasn't the right one for the task. Simply no lift, so it ran way to loaded for the power available. Made a pair of "air fresheners" for the trip home...

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[Darin Jordan]

I also competed in our M2-Hydro class, our 1-Cell class.

After analyzing the data from last season, I was CERTAIN that I was suffering from some voltage suppression issues and that better cells would help.

Well, I suspect now that I may have simply been saturating the motor to the point where it was being pushed well beyond what it's design capacity. RPMs were pulling down into the 32,000RPM range, when I was expecting 40,000+. Amps were up in the 320-350A range.

As a result of this, I met, but never exceeded my last years speeds of right in the 81-82mph range.

I tried backing down on prop load to let the motor wind up, and while the motor DID wind up, the speeds remained the same. Brian cut down a specially made ABC 3-Blade from 35mm to 31.5mm, which helped, but was still proving to be too much load to get the estimated 40,000 Loaded RPM I was expecting. That change bumped the loaded RPMs from 32,000 to around 35,000, and dropped the amp load from 350 to around 300. Dropping back to a 2-Blade version of the prop netted 37,000, and the amps dropped to around 260. Still no more speed, however.

I also did some work to the boat to free it up some more by adding lift to the front end, which significantly flew the boat more, but all to no avail. I'm sure some more work on the hull itself might have yielded some slightly better results, but I think I may have pushed this system as far as it can be and it's time for a bigger power system.

Some details on the setup, for some of you who have asked:

Hull - My own design. Finished RTR weight is 1lb 10oz (including 5000mAh 1S Cell)
Motor - Lehner 1535/2
ESC - Modified Castle ICE200 with custom controller board (to allow 1-Cell operation)

Time to get to work on updating the system to see if I can up our record here!

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The business end...
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Wondering what magic Brian did to that tiny prop!??
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One of my many attempts.... after accidentally bumping the rudder trim to the right... NOT HELPING!

[Darin Jordan]

Our resident personality, Tony "ProperChopper" Heller, with Brian's Post-SAW History making P-Hydro run....

[GunnarH]

Thank You for sharing the imformation and the pictures and Videos Darin!
And Congratulations to all record setters!
The P-Hydro record of Brian is great with such a small boat!
Also around 110mph with Gas is a really good result of Mark, I remeber not too long ago the 100mph still was a challenge.
A pity there will be no more LA-SAW, but already after Tyler leaving the L.A. area to me it appeared questionable anyway for how long Mark can continue setting up the events over there.
But Alabama is nice and Huntsville has a good lake for SAW too, only not that suitable in Winter time like L.A.

Regards
Gunnar

[racemechanix]

While Los Angeles is a fantastic site to run, Alabama is a close second. The lake is quite nice with a good shape. They have an oval course as well so it is possible to run for multiple records, not just SAW. Maybe this is not so important, but I always recommend to bring an oval boat in case the water is a little too rough for SAW. The organizers can remove the balloons easily if the water is ideal for SAW. The Good Thing about Huntsville is a must have 3 or 4 SAW events next year, including one in the middle of summer which has traditionally been an electric only event due to the warm weather. Mark's older brother Rick runs this event and does an excellent job.

The weather in Huntsville is actually not too bad. It is in the Southern part of the US, so the winters are not too bad.

I will post the schedule for Huntsville as soon as it is finalized. I also want to post if Legg Lake will have any SAW's.

Here is some drone footage of a prior event.

[Darin Jordan]

Mark Grim G-2 Gas Sport Hydro Hydro Record - 97.55mph

[Darin Jordan]

A Tour of the Pits (Forgive the quality... this was taken from a Facebook "Live" post, so the quality isn't that great):

[axel]

Darin thanks for all your footage

I personally saw most of it allready at OSE but there are a lot which don´t look over there.

So they get a bit closer to your regulations and get an impression of your running places.

Cheers
Axel

[Ch.Lucas]

Hi Darin, Tyler ,

thanks for all your know how sharing with other modelboaters around the world . Good to see that have all,fun with our modelboat hobby .

But now i know the secret of Brians boats . The "eys" give us a new way of sight how and wy .

Great job !

Happy Amps Christian Lucas

[Johnnie Water]

Very nice Scene, Thx