1/8 Scale Hydroplanes and Classic Thunderboats

Nothing is more of a crowd pleaser than the realism watching the 1/8 scale hydros or classic thunderboats duke it out on the course. For those new to the hobby, or perhaps thinking about building an R/C boat, here's a short primer on these two boat classes.

1/8 Scale Hydroplanes are 1/8 size replicas of past or present unlimited hydroplanes. The rules permit small changes to the size and hull design to adapt them to R/C use, but overall, they must closely resemble the original boat on which they are modeled. They use a .67 cubic inch glow engine running on nitromethane/methanol fuel similar to what is used for R/C airplanes. These boats can be built from one of many available fiberglass hulls, from wood kits, or from scratch using plans from Newton Marine. District 12 is seeing growth in this class with good attendance at the races and several new boats being built.

The Classic Thunderboat class is new for 2008. These boats must be between 46 and 56 inches long, which is slightly larger than the 1/8 scale hydros, and use gasoline engines. Instead of being exact replicas of current and past full size hydroplanes, classic thunderboats use hull configurations from the "classic" era of boat racing, 1950 to 1970, and can use a paint scheme from a full size boat or one of the builders own imagination that follows the spirit of the boats of that era. This class is growing across the country and as with the 1/8 scales, can be built from fiberglass hulls, wood kits, or from plans.

If you have a boat in either of these classes, we encourage you to bring them out to the races. If you don't have a boat in one of these classes, have you thought of building one and joining the fun?

1/8 Scale

Classic Thunderboat

Driver Boat James Beasley 1975 U-74 Weisfield's Tim Clark Atlas Van Lines Tracy Dolphin 1972 Miss Timex 2 Newton plans Built by Bob Morton Rebuilt by Tracy Dolphin MAC .67 Don Ferrette 1968 Miss Eagle Electric . MHR- #6221 Newton plan- #106 MTO hull Chuck Gardiner Under construction 1978 Circus Circus MHR #7474 Newton plan #108 Steve Muck hull Greg Heffner . Charles Jones . Jeff Lee Under Construction Fred Lumb Sr . Fred Lumb Jr . Bob Morton .

Driver Boat Mike Butler . John Crouch Mac Tools Racing, U-007. . Aaeromarine U-40 Roundnose Zenoah engine John Finch Bacardi Express U-151 . Built by Don Ferrette ZippKits Rockett CY engine Trent Ghattas Miss Clay Smith Cams . Insane kit Zenoah F260 Bob Morton . Ray Sametz Carpenters and Joiners of America Local 608 Boat---ZippKits Rockett   Engine---Stock 260 Zen     Driver&Builder----Ray Sametz   Hardware---Speedmaster  Paint----Klass Kote  Prop---Dasboata  Graphics---Jim Gieger(Performance Graphix) Danny Weimer Aeromarine