Bandit Boats

[tony sparsis]

Are Bandit Boats (tunnels) competitive?

 

[Mike Hughes]

not really. They were a heavy tunnels

 

[tony sparsis]

Hi Mike
Mine is made of epoxy resin/cloth. A lot lighter than the glass fibre ones. I usually run F1 Class here in England. 4 class ABCD, 10-12 boats on a letter M circuit. Gets very interesting at times.

 

[Jerry Dunlap]

Is it competitive? Only way to find out is to stick an engine on it, enter it in a race, evaluate the results. FAST is not allways FIRST.

JD

 

[Bill Gibson]

So very, very true!!

 

[Brandon Atwell]

They handle well, but are on the heavier side.

 

[tony sparsis]

Is it competitive? Only way to find out is to stick an engine on it, enter it in a race, evaluate the results. FAST is not allways FIRST.

JD

Hi Jerry, thank you for your words of inspiration. Have followed you for years on the model boat scene. I purchased the Bandits Boat 30 some years ago. for some reason it got put in the loft and forgotten about. I have the OS outboard VII. Its been gas flowed but no change to port timings. I have also acquired a Jim Erwin pipe for that motor, also a number of years ago. Probably the reason I haven't built the boat is there are few people in the UK racing them. I have been racing the F1 Boats here. Mono hulled, tuned engines on pipes and a gear box. Great fun. My aim is to resurrect the Bandit but before going down that avenue I just wanted a few opinions on the hull. So I value your comments. There is a move here in the UK to expand the tunnel hull racing. I also build 1/5 scale warbirds. P40, P47, P51D.
Trust your keeping well in the present climate of things. Stay safe.
Kindest Regards
Tony
Cambridge UK

 

[Julio Almazan]

Hi:

Is it competitive? Only way to find out is to stick an engine on it, enter it in a race, evaluate the results. FAST is not allways FIRST.
JD

I agree. Completely agree.
Here in Malaga, Spain, we use the Bandit a lot as a very good training and learning boat ... even if you prepare it well, it can go a long way.

So very, very true!!

You can compete with it ... you will have to put many hours of work and tuning into it, but with a good engine and a good pipe, you can be able to compete ... remember, it is very stable, if you know how to tune it up

Both answers DO NOT MEAN that it is a tunnel with which you would achieve the World Championship or the national championship ... but you can scare more than one. Without great aspirations.
Sorry for my english, guys.-

 

[Jerry Dunlap]

Hi:

I agree. Completely agree.
Here in Malaga, Spain, we use the Bandit a lot as a very good training and learning boat ... even if you prepare it well, it can go a long way.

You can compete with it ... you will have to put many hours of work and tuning into it, but with a good engine and a good pipe, you can be able to compete ... remember, it is very stable, if you know how to tune it up

Both answers DO NOT MEAN that it is a tunnel with which you would achieve the World Championship or the national championship ... but you can scare more than one. Without great aspirations.
Sorry for my english, guys.-

Your English is 100% better than my Spanish. I should have taken Spanish in high school rather than Latin. The only time I have ever heard Latin spoken is at a Catholic funeral.

 

[Manuel Xavier]

So far as I know there were the bandit boats from Canada I think and there was also a bandit tunnel hull (version I and latter versionII) from Thunder Tiger. I saw for example in Spain people runuing the TT Bandit, but never saw a bandit boats tunnel runing there. Here in Portugal there are some TT bandits and there are at least 2 killer 33, from bandit boats. I have one and I am restoring it. It already in the past performed very well with a .21 geared outboard

 

[tony sparsis]

So far as I know there were the bandit boats from Canada I think and there was also a bandit tunnel hull (version I and latter versionII) from Thunder Tiger. I saw for example in Spain people runuing the TT Bandit, but never saw a bandit boats tunnel runing there. Here in Portugal there are some TT bandits and there are at least 2 killer 33, from bandit boats. I have one and I am restoring it. It already in the past performed very well with a .21 geared outboard

Hi:

I agree. Completely agree.
Here in Malaga, Spain, we use the Bandit a lot as a very good training and learning boat ... even if you prepare it well, it can go a long way.

You can compete with it ... you will have to put many hours of work and tuning into it, but with a good engine and a good pipe, you can be able to compete ... remember, it is very stable, if you know how to tune it up

Both answers DO NOT MEAN that it is a tunnel with which you would achieve the World Championship or the national championship ... but you can scare more than one. Without great aspirations.
Sorry for my english, guys.-

So far as I know there were the bandit boats from Canada I think and there was also a bandit tunnel hull (version I and latter versionII) from Thunder Tiger. I saw for example in Spain people runuing the TT Bandit, but never saw a bandit boats tunnel runing there. Here in Portugal there are some TT bandits and there are at least 2 killer 33, from bandit boats. I have one and I am restoring it. It already in the past performed very well with a .21 geared outboard

Please find original copy from Bandit Boats brochure showing the range of boats from Jim Garcia. Unfortunately BB are no longer trading

 

[Jerry Dunlap]

The Killer boats were designed by Jack Garcia. Another great model boater and gentleman that I miss. He worked for K&B and knew how to make a 20 Stock Tunnel run fast.
JD

 

[Julio Almazan]

Hi:

Please find original copy from Bandit Boats brochure showing the range of boats from Jim Garcia. Unfortunately BB are no longer trading

What a pity !! ... these were good tunnels boats

 

[LawlessMan]

My association with Bandit Boats and Dorrien Thompson, the owner and boat maker, came about when an employee of mine bought a Bandit 7.5 Killer Tunnel in about 1995, which came with a K&B outboard. My young employee was quite unhappy with the K&B drive after he accidentaly broke the skeg off by dropping it on his carpeted floor. He suggested that our shop could use cad-cam and our machines to make something more durable, so we set about doing that and came up wiith our own 7,5 outboard drive. The first person to see one was Dorrien, who immediately sent it to Jerry Dunlap, who proceeded to review it in an issue of Outboard Modeler magazine. Thanks to Dorrien and Jerry, we now ship our drives to over 30 counttries in the world and they continue to be used to set world records on outboard tunnels. Dorrien told me that he and a group of investors tried to buy K&B when it went on the market, but were outbid. I was very saddened when he, quite literally, totally and rather suddenly disappeared, not just from the boat scene but apparently also from Vancouver. We were long distance friends and he offered me a lot of encouragement when we were getting the drive business started. He suggested the "Lawless" name to complement his Bandit line and I ran with it. I was very impressed with his "Bandit Babe" logo, which he claimed was an original drawing by a friend. If anyone has a copy of that Bandit Babe drawing, I would really like to have one as a keepsake.

 

[tony sparsis]

Greetings Fred
I have the Set Up instructions for my Killer .21. There is not a logo on the instructions, just a short note from Dorrien.
On the boat its self he sticker inside the cowling only has Bandit Boats, Made by. No Logo. I have attached a photo of the front of the Killer .21 setup.

 

[Ron Olson]

I've got a Bandit mono that isn't on the list. I got it from the late Rick Reisinger's wife after his death.

 

[Jerry Dunlap]

My association with Bandit Boats and Dorrien Thompson, the owner and boat maker, came about when an employee of mine bought a Bandit 7.5 Killer Tunnel in about 1995, which came with a K&B outboard. My young employee was quite unhappy with the K&B drive after he accidentaly broke the skeg off by dropping it on his carpeted floor. He suggested that our shop could use cad-cam and our machines to make something more durable, so we set about doing that and came up wiith our own 7,5 outboard drive. The first person to see one was Dorrien, who immediately sent it to Jerry Dunlap, who proceeded to review it in an issue of Outboard Modeler magazine. Thanks to Dorrien and Jerry, we now ship our drives to over 30 counttries in the world and they continue to be used to set world records on outboard tunnels. Dorrien told me that he and a group of investors tried to buy K&B when it went on the market, but were outbid. I was very saddened when he, quite literally, totally and rather suddenly disappeared, not just from the boat scene but apparently also from Vancouver. We were long distance friends and he offered me a lot of encouragement when we were getting the drive business started. He suggested the "Lawless" name to complement his Bandit line and I ran with it. I was very impressed with his "Bandit Babe" logo, which he claimed was an original drawing by a friend. If anyone has a copy of that Bandit Babe drawing, I would really like to have one as a keepsake.

My wife and I went up to visit Dorrien and his wife in Canada probably around the mid 1990s. I had met him previously at an event held at Harrison Lake in British Columbia. They lived out in a rural area on what had previously been a chicken farm. Dorrien laid up the fiberglass boats in one of the old chicken coups. There were molds of different hulls stuck in the rafters. He was a very innovative guy.
JD