Just a quick pic of the paint scheme on my PT. I started with a flat olive green and flat green, but they were a little too close in shade, so I took the flat green, added a bit of bright green and yellow, and shot some of the camo in that. I’ll add some black and details next.

Hi y’all. Paints done, guns are up and radios installed. She’s ready to run as is. I have a few more details to do but I’m going to wait till the maidens done and I have her sorted out. Might be this coming Sunday, or the next. She’s at 4 pounds 2 ounces, a little light but I’ll take some extra ballast with me.
Cash

Hi y’all. I’ve been a bit busy with inventory so I’ll keep this brief. I maidened the Higgins this past Sunday, ran into 2 issues. One, she was way too light, which resulted in a hard to handle and trim boat. She weighed in at 4 pounds 2 ounces, thought I could run her at that weight but she was squirrelly, would turn to port okay, but right was shaky, and at one point instead of turning right she dug her bow in and and continued straight with a 40 degree list🤔. What little water that got in the hull was from one of those escapades, and that she’d light on another problem. I had the receiver in the right rear corner of the hull, but low, as I wanted to make sure the servo wiring wouldn’t be fouled by the rudder tiller. Sure enough, when she rolled hard right that tablespoon of water would collect there and get the receiver just wet enough to be intermittent. By the time I would get pushed in the receiver would dry out enough to regain control. My buddy Fred used his Vacuboat Vacutow and pushed me in 3 times!! I thinks he’s sending me a bill for salvage🤣🤣 Anyway, I’ve made a few changes in the servo/esc leads routing, moved the rx higher up in the hull and sprayed it down with corrosionX. I’ve also ballasted her to 5 pounds. We’ll see how she does.
Cash

Oh..forgot to add that I can throw the rudder side to side, and she’ll rock side to side never changing course. Think I’m too light...( the boat, not me🤣)

Hi!! So...this morning I took the PT to my local test pond, conveniently located on our Church’s property. I looks as if I have the ballast about right, although with a 7 cell pack she rides a bit too bow high, but perfect on a 6 cell. Turns sharply to port, not quite so much to starboard, you have to be a little more careful with rudder and power than to port...but, quite acceptable😀 However, I could only do tests close in for a short period of time as I lost all range about 70 feet from the bank...and to make matters worse, the wind took her under the fountain 😱. She stayed dry enough for me to walk around the pond and picker back up in range and “walk” her back. I decided I had enough, upon inspection the receiver was relatively dry in spit if the fountain bath. I concluded that I was just going to try another receiver, as I uninstalled the rx I tugged on the antenna slightly and it came right out!! I’ve concluded that I had a sketchy intermittent signal the whole time. The receiver in question is a FlySky GR3C bound to a Radiomaster 16S multi-protocol transmitter. I’ve had no problems with another of these receivers mounted in my PBR. Anyway, I have other receivers to use, but I found a waterproof version of the same receiver for 14.00 shipped from Amazon, so that’s what’s going back in the PT. I will get that installed and do a proper range check and another pond test, once I’m satisfied with the range I can finalize my trim, but in spite of all the drama Saturday I fell that I have made progress in that regard. I’ll update as soon as I can.
Thanks for all the help and comments, especially concerning PT boats turning radius both full size and scale. It’s been a big help👍
Cash

Hi y’all. I had decided that after work today I’d go down to the Cottonwood Creek Baptist test pond (to be known hereafter as CCBTP) and run the PT. Sometime before I left for home, it started to rain..!!?##$$!!
It let up as I pulled in the driveway, so I ran in, said hi and bye to wife and daughter, grabbed said boat and TX and headed to the pond. I didn’t have the battery centered, but it’s started to rain again so I made a few passes, and she’s a lot better. I would lose signal about halfway to the fountain, this time it was good all the way there and back. It turns left well, turns right ok, I still have a hard roll to right at full power and hard rudder, but it’s manageable now. The wind was up and it was sprinkling heading to rain so I called it quits after 5 minutes but I’m on the right track. Now it’s a question of trim and balance, and I’m pretty sure I’ll have to adopt my handling of this boat to its idiosyncrasies. But, for now, I’m good. If we don’t get rained out I hope to have more progress made this Sunday at Josey Ranch.
Cash

Hi y’all. I’m posting a video from this weekend, first half is Larry’s big 50 inc KnK Jupiter, the second half is the PT212. I’m happy to say that even though she turns better port than starboard, I’m quite pleased with her. Now, I can have a bit of fun with her and concentrate on tweaking ballast/power/handling😊