I have been very pleased with my copy of a Sea Commander, but it does exhibit a strange desire to “dive” if it should turn RIGHT into choppy water or the wake of another boat.

Ken Mears took a lovely picture of my “Kopy Kommander”. (the name I gave to my copy of a Sea Commander) when he visited our Southport Club open day earlier this month, but he also took another picture that I had not seen before that shows the boat about to enter its nose down attitude.

The next stage after this is for the nose to push itself down into the water as if it was trying to submarinate, when the water covers the front cabin top and the wave deflector is called into action.

I do wonder if all Sea Commanders exhibit this same trait after being sharply turned RIGHT into a wake or choppy water - and maybe that is why Les Rowell included a wave breaker to the front cabin of his Sea Commander design?

If that was the case, I wonder why he omitted it from the enlarged (Sea Queen) version of the same boat?

I have not been able to do too much with my model boats this year following an accident that has left my right arm short of power and movement, but I have enjoyed helping (mainly advising) Adam to get his Sea Commander kit put together and I am looking forward to seeing it on the water alongside my Kopy Kommander in the not too distant future .

I have brought the Kopy Kommander with me to the caravan and hope to get it wet sometime in the next few days on the Southport Club lake.

Adam will no doubt come along and hopefully we can get a short video of the boat running again for Boatshed to see.

Bob.

We ran the Kopy Komander today in beautiful but windy weather - perfect conditions for Classic Model Power Boats IMHO.

The water had a nice ‘surface texture” that I really enjoy seeing the boats running over, and the boat ran very well.

A short video was taken by Adam today as promised for Boatshed.

Bob.

I followed this unusually painted orange Perkasa for a while so I could run across its wake.

This was good fun and again I found the boat to handle it nicely enough, but not in the same league as any of my other boats that have the benefit of deep vee hulls……although as always, the Vic Smeed designed Remora performed flawlessly - without a deep vee hull !
Bob.

The Wedge.

Hi Boatshed,

During the many experiments that were tested on the Kopy Kommander to try to correct its strange desire to dive when turning right into a wake (or rough choppy water), the good old fashioned technique of sticking a wedge on the rear of the hulls underside was tested.

This idea came from the time of ic engines and was used to counter the torque that these engine developed, and as the “dive” was thought to be caused by torque - the idea was tested on the Kopy Kommander.

No obvious gains were noted, but since I had made too good a job of fixing it to the hull, no easy way of removing it without a lot of work came to mind, so I filed a round slot in it to make it look nicer (and maybe just a little bit curious) and left it fixed to the hull as part of the boats long development history.

Bob.

Water Cooled ESC Conversion.

Over the last 3 months of so I have noticed that the throttle on my Kopy Kommander tended to open and close to vary the speed when I was driving it - with no input from myself!

This sounds a lot worse than it was as it was only momentary “pulse” but none the less it was a bit annoying so I have been trying to locate the cause so that it can be fixed.

I am using the same transmitter on several of my boats but only the Kopy Kommander has this strange “speed pulse” so I started by changing the receiver to see if that made any difference .

It made no difference at all, so the next thing I looked at was the Surpass air cooled ESC.

All my other Classic Model Power Boats uses water-cooled ESC - usually Sea King or the re-branded Turningy types.

I had a new boxed Turnigy 120amp ESC in my workshop waiting to be fitted into my slow build (very slow build) Swordsman, so I decided to re-purpose it for this experiment.

The air cooled 120amp Surpass ESC was removed and the water-cooled Turnigy 120amp ESC was installed.

Being a water-cooled ESC, I needed to add some more silicone tubing to direct the water into it. I already had a water-cooled motor mount, so the tubing was re-routed and extended to run from the motor mount into and out of the ESC and from there into the exit nozzle in the hull side.

A couple of extra holes had to be bored into some bulkheads to accommodate the extra tubing and to hold it neatly in place.

Despite an evening spent trying to program this ESC to give me a reverse function, I failed to achieve it, so I tested it today as a forwards only (as specified) ESC.

The boat ran beautifully, much more smoothly that it had done with the air cooled Surpass ESC, and the un-demanded variable speed “pulsing” was gone.

Overall an excellent result…….so all I need to do now is to try again to get this ESC to give me a reverse function and I will have found the perfect ESC for my Kopy Kommander.

………and I need to buy another one for my Swordsman!

Bob.

Wake Jumping.

Readers and followers of the trials and tribulations of my Sea Commander copy will know by now that the dreadful handling problems of this “Kopy Kommander” are now a thing of the past.

This boat now drives and steers beautifully - enough to cause a new wave of local interest in this old 1950’s design that was first penned all those years ago by Les Rowell for use as a “straight runner” that had enough stability to make a good boat choice for use with the “new” (back then) single channel “Galloping Ghost” single channel radio.

These old single channel radios needed a sequence of button pushing to select “left’ (one button push), “neutral” (two button pushes) and “right” that came after three button pushes to give the rudder a right hand deflection after passing through the left and neutral positions briefly to land on a “right”. (other button pushing sequences probably existed with different types of r/c).

This “rudder waggling” sequence benefitted greatly from having a hull like the Sea Commander that had some inherent stability to keep it stable until the final rudder position was finalised.

A deep keel provided this stability and was also the reason for its poor handling when used with a proportional radio control system.

Having chopped off the keel the boat now drives and handles beautifully and inspires confidence.

One of the club members who was inspired to buy a Sea Commander kit brought his lifeboat model with him today and this became the source of some good fun.

The heavy lifeboat model created a large wake as it powered its way around and I noticed this as I was passing on the other side of the lake.

The Kopy Kommander was steered towards this nice wake and crossed it several times, and provided a lot of fun…….and further confirmed the total change in handling that all the experiments had achieved.

From a single active Sea Commander in our club that originally did not handle at all well, I now know of another 5 that are about to join it and I am pleased to share the simple fix that will make them all able to drive as well as this one now does.

Bob.

Kopy Kommander with Sea King ESC and Reverse!

Following the “pulsing” problems with my air cooled Surpass 120amp ESC, it was replaced with a water cooled 120amp SeaKing ESC.

Since then, my Kopy Kommander has driven perfectly with this replacement ESC and it also seems to be running smoother and has more power as well.

However, getting this “forwards only” marine ESC to have a reverse function added has been disappointing so far as nothing has worked.

I have several Hobbywing program cards of different types and with various software updates etc - but not one of them will talk to this Hobbywing made SeaKing ESC.

When I tried to add reverse to the 150amp SeaKing ESC fitted in my LesRo Rapier I had the same problem, but succeeded in adding reverse after using the alternative method of programming it via the transmitter without the use of a program card.

Using the transmitter to program this 120amp SeaKing that I now have in my Kopy Kommander did not work and I am not sure why as I am using the same transmitter for both boats.

Today, Adam and myself tried again using this method of programming via the transmitter inputs without making any progress UNTILL we increased the throttle movement to +120% on the transmitter.

With this increased throttle movement, the ESC recognised the inputs that it received from the transmitter and we gained the REVERSE function that had defeated us for so long previously !

Once the reverse had been gained, the throttle response was turned back down to 100% for the forward movement and 40% for the reverse function.

Tomorrow we will take both the LesRo Rapier 1 and the Kopy Kommander, (fitted with their respective reversing SeaKing ESC’s) to the Southport Club lake to run them both for the first time with a reverse function.

Happy days………

Bob