P Limited hydro or cat??

[Don McKinney]

I have been getting my son involved in racing and while he is getting more comfortable with the idea of running the big gas boats that I run I was thinking P limited hydro would be a good class for him to get some laps in and develop as a racer.

I don't know much about the electric classes and the Namba rule book is not very specific about boats or motors that are allowed in this class.

I did some searching and while there are some examples in various posts I am still lost. What is a decent hydro or possibly cat that is compeditive on this class and what motors are the preferred set up?

The rulebook says no more than a 34 inch hull and no more than 10,000 MAh batteries.
-Limited Approved Motors i) Motors shall be of an inrunner design and shall not exceed the following dimensions: (a) Length: 60mm (2.362 in.), this includes any bearing protrusion (b) Diameter: 37 mm (1.457 ).

 

[RaceMechaniX]

Don,
I would recommend against a rigger if this is his first or second boat. A P-Ltd cat is a much better option to learn control and not be frustrated.
Also, there are very very few P hydro hulls available. The JAE is a great easy to build boat, but most others are converted nitro hulls or boats that are extremely hard to get.
There are a number of decent P-ltd cats from Aquacraft and Pro-boat plus some other brands.
A big plus of cats is they go left and right pretty easily and for a novice this helps builds confidence before moving onto to right turning only boats like sport hydros and riggers.
Take a look at the Motley Crue cat, Lucas oil cat, Veles 29" or blackjack.
There is another company who builds slightly more competitive cats, but I cannot recall their name.

 

[Don McKinney]

I have heard of the Veles and Blackjack but are the motor, battery and esc combos they come with them decent for compeditive racing and legal for Namba? I want to be sure I am in spec for the class but also compeditive with the other racers. My experience with the 'comes with' power set ups is for pond playing and not hard core racing.

Also my son has raced my 1/10 scale nitro car and races several races with the arrive and drive class my district has. So he is probably a bit more advanced than average. I want something he can grow into and I can also moderate the power with the radio if necessary.

 

[RaceMechaniX]

There was a recent rule change in NAMBA that opens up the limited motor list and this arguably allows more powerful motors than the "stock" motors that come with the RTR boats.
You can easily upgrade the motor later, but this will also require a speed control upgrade too. Fortunately there are several great options that are very reasonably priced.

I try to caution new boaters that even if you are Adam Drake, what applies to motor sizes, kv, speed controls and batteries in a car will not transfer over 1:1 with boats.
Boats have much much higher loading on the motor compared to cars, planes and helis. I have seen many guys try to run a 3000kv motor on 4S in a boat because it ran great in their 1/10 buggy and they cook the speed control 30 seconds.

I recommend the P-ltd class because you will burn up equipment as you learn what props and settings are possible. It's a lot easier to swallow a $90 speed controller loss then a $400 one.
In the P-ltd class, replacement motors and controllers are readily available under $100 each.

Even in the P-Ltd class 50% of the performance it down to set-up and driving.

 

[LohringMiller]

I second Tyler. P limited boats have become the most common classes in our club. Proboat has some great hulls that run very well out of the box. Their Shockwave mono and UL-19 hydro are examples. Unfortunately their cats don't fit the P limited rules. The Aquacraft Motly Crew was a good P limited cat.

Lohring Miller

 

[HTV Boats]

If you have run cars in ROAR you know $100 motors are bought like popcorn in whatever the flavor of the week is. The manufacturers love the hype game.
Good news is $50-$80 will buy a competitive P/lim motor. For ready to run the Veles and Aquacraft cats are hard to beat. Everyone has an opinion on what motor is best, the guys winning are doing it with PROPs and setup time.
Mic