Okay History info! what year and first R/C boat!

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Bill Gibson

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What year did you get your first R/C boat and what boat was it? Im getting old, nosey, and VERY nostalgic 😅 👍 ! If you raced, what class did you race in and how did you do your first time out? BE HONEST NOW! lol!
Feel free to post any old pictures if you all have any!
 
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1988- Prather Lap Cat II. Put it together and painted it but didn’t know about the Cincinnati Model Boat Club and couldn’t find anywhere to run it so it sat on a shelf until 1994. Got heavy into hydros from there after joining the club and raced until 2000 or 2001. Then life got in the way for 20 years. Got back into boats last year with a Blazer Backlash.
 
1982-A sport 20 Dumas Pay'N Pak w/Dumas hardware and an HB-20 engine. When completed, it was overweight (over 8 pounds) and underpowered. Ended up wrecking it in Blackfoot Idaho in 1986 due to radio issues. Still have the engine and radio as reminders of what not to do

I'd post a picture, or three, but I haven't figured out how to get a scanned picture to post
 
1982-A sport 20 Dumas Pay'N Pak w/Dumas hardware and an HB-20 engine. When completed, it was overweight (over 8 pounds) and underpowered. Ended up wrecking it in Blackfoot Idaho in 1986 due to radio issues. Still have the engine and radio as reminders of what not to do

I'd post a picture, or three, but I haven't figured out how to get a scanned picture to post

I bet Dumas sold a ton of those little Pay n Paks.
 
In 1978, For me it was a Dumas Deep v 10 fiberglass hull with OSMax .10 FSR.
My friends laughed at it when it went dead in the water and sank to the bottom of our pond. I did finely get it running good. But by then no one was watching. Lol.
 
1 st boat was a Dumas atlas Van Lines with a 40 airplane engine and a Airplane radio, I ran it on the lake ,
where we lived at that time in Angola, In. I thought it was the fastest boat going, then I saw and add in the paper about a boat race in Ft Wayne In. and meet Steve Ball and he showed just how fast my boat was, the engine blew up
and I was happy, so I could buy a better engine, a 45 marine and it did help with the speed but the boat was built tooooo heavy and it would not finish a race before it ran out of fuel this all started when my wife did not me racing
circle cars on a paved track with my brother and when he got knocked out after being broadsided it was
, me or that Damm car, so the car was sold, but my brother kept racing cars, and the next winter I had nothing to do so my wife bought the boat radio and engine , for me at Christmas that was about 1975 or 1976 or so, and I'm still racing and still love it, and thanks to Steve for all the guidance that I needed to at least finish a race.
Walt Barney
 
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1969, scratch (own design) built 40 hydro, K&B 40 pylon engine with a Kool clamp. I don’t remember if I even finished a heat at the Mini Gold Cup. Radio was a Kraft 2 channel brick, what piece of ???? It spent more time in repair than in the boat.View attachment 303250
Wow John! You got about 9 or 10 years on me! I do remember the Kraft Brick systems! Thats a nice looking hydro! Isnt it amazing how far we've come from those great times??!!
1982-A sport 20 Dumas Pay'N Pak w/Dumas hardware and an HB-20 engine. When completed, it was overweight (over 8 pounds) and underpowered. Ended up wrecking it in Blackfoot Idaho in 1986 due to radio issues. Still have the engine and radio as reminders of what not to do

I'd post a picture, or three, but I haven't figured out how to get a scanned picture to post
HJ would love to see a pic of it if you figure out how to post!
I bet Dumas sold a ton of those little Pay n Paks.
I have several!
 
1 st boat was a Dumas atlas Van Lines with a 40 airplane engine and a Airplane radio, I ran it on the lake ,
where we lived at that time in Angola, In. I thought it was the fastest boat going, then I saw and add in the paper about a boat race in Ft Wayne In. and meet Steve Ball and he showed just how fast my boat was, the engine blew up
and I was happy, so I could buy a better engine, a 45 marine and it did help with the speed but the boat was built tooooo heavy and it would not finish a race before it ran out of fuel this all started when my wife did not me racing
circle cars on a paved track with my brother and when he got knocked out after being broadsided it was
, me or that Damm car, so the car was sold, but my brother kept racing cars, and the next winter I had nothing to do so my wife bought the boat radio and engine , for me at Christmas that was about 1975 or 1976 or so, and I'm still racing and still love it, and thanks to Steve for all the guidance that I needed to at least finish a race.
Walt Barney
Great story Walt! So i quess if your brother hadn't have gotten his bell rung, we wouldn't have those great fuel tanks you make!
 
lap cat 2 with a red head pro, 1999. spent more time up side down than running. had to have a driver back then so i found a gorilla and that was my driver. any long time member of dist 11 remembers the gorilla boat. my buddy still has the hull with an amps 46 on it. runs about 35mph and that great amps sound
 
Sorry Bill, I can upload, just can't upload the pictures themselves. I am able to open them with Adobe Acrobat Reader on my laptop so I'm hoping that will work in the forum as well. Just tried it, they open right up without going to any other programs. The picture is a newer build from 2011. It was patterned on the Dumas Pak but seriously modified. Needless to say, it was built much better than the original from 1982
 

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1974

ti25TyN.jpg
 
1989. Dumas Sport 40 with a K&B .45 running an exhaust throttle. I was fortunate enough to win my first ever race. I finished all heats in rough conditions. I was hooked.
 

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