Find out what powerboaters overseas are doing...
Before I
start this article, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Jerome Pasman,
and I live in the Netherlands, close to Amsterdam. Since I live in a country
with a lot of water, it was easy to make a choice to do something with boating.
I had some plans for a boat similar to a cracker box. I went searching on the
Internet for more information, and I soon found Jim's Boat Dock Page. I started
reading all the posts on the (old) forum; I became addicted immediately! This is
where the name Speakerboy was created and that's the name I use in all the
forums.
This
addiction started in February 2000, and I began building my first wooden cracker
box. I started
asking questions about the boat and how I should build it. In a few months I
found out that the hull was really too heavy. Jim Nissen did give me some
warnings about that, but since I was already building it, I wanted to finish the
project. I also started up my own web site with building pictures of this heavy
monster (http://topspeed.freeservers.com/). Within a few weeks my
e-mail box was full with questions about this boat. Most e-mails were from Dutch
people, who wanted more information on how to build such a boat. In a few
months, I started meeting more Dutch R/C boaters and found out that there were a
lot of Nitro powered hulls, but very few gas boaters. I already laid my hands on
a 37cc Robin engine so I made the decision to build a gas boat.
In April 2000 the fever went to a higher level. I found a Dutch address where I could buy fiberglass hulls. It was a light weight Apache style hull. It took 5 weeks to build this deep vee, and in six weeks I was running it on one of our local lakes.
I ordered a complete Warehouse Hobbies drive system, with rudder,
pick up, and trim tabs. I bought an electric start Homelite engine and the boat
was complete. The boat was running great, speed was 25 mph, and I was very happy
with that! In the meantime asked a lot of questions on Jim's forum and the guys
from the United States knew a lot about Homelite engines and how to setup the
deep vee. This was very helpful.
In June we had a Dutch open race day. There we met a lot of nitro boaters, and some of my e-mail friends were there also. This was the first time to see the faces behind the names.
I met Paul
Wijnstra and Edwin Mulkens, two Dutch powerboat freaks, who have a good
powerboa
t
web site(~http://www.scintilla.utwente.nl/~edwinm/index.html). We
discussed the posts that were on Jim's Forum and then decided to start our own
Dutch forum. This day was full of fun but also a day where we were kicked back
to the playground. Man, those nitro boats were fast! Even a good e-mail friend,
Ronald Koops (dutchboater), kicked butt. He showed us how a gas boat should run
(37 mph) with his Zenoah powered Daytona Beach. While our boats only run 25 mph,
our deep vees were nice on the stand but useless in the water and that was just
with the lower speeds we were running. In the car on the way back home, I had
already decided which engine would be next--a Zenoah!
So at the end of that summer I bought a Zenoah engine and the real power boating was born. This was so much faster than before; 34 to 37 mph was the top speed of my new hull and the great thing about a deep vee - it was a good rough water hull. Jumping, rolling, and 180 degree turns were no problem. This was the way I learned how to control a boat and how to react in critical situations, and I needed that!
At this time, the Dutch forum became a reality
and within a few months there were many posts. We meet a lot of guys here who
all had the same interest with all different kind of hulls and different power
sources. Just like the USA board, we started many discussions; how to build
boats, what drive to use, what prop, etc. Great thing was, there were some other
gas boaters in the country and the Dutch forum brought us together. Soon after
we had our first powerboat meeting, which was the start of the Dutch Xtreme R/C
Powerboats meetings.
It was a windy day and all kinds of boats were blown off the water! The only boats that could run were the gas deep vees and monos, so you can imagine what happened. In a few months the population of gas boaters started to grow, and grow FAST! I guess at that time there were maybe 5 gas boaters in our group. Presently we are about 25 to 30 strong.
The explosion of gas boats was big. My own web site was visited often and many other boats were built. Deep Vees, cracker boxes, mono hulls, and later on the catamarans would be introduced. But the speed was still slow and no one was reaching the 40 mph mark. Here in the Netherlands we were skeptical of the speed that all the "Yankees" were getting. We then discovered we were wrong; gas boats ARE fast!
Now
it's July 2002, and I am proud to be a member of the ~Dutch
Xtreme RC
Powerboats! This group is not a club with their own lake or
anything. No, this group is glued together by the Dutch beliefs and by Jim's
forum. We all live in different places spread around all over our small country
and meet once or twice a month at a predetermined lake somewhere in the
Netherlands. There we run our electric, nitro, and gas powered boats all
together and we do it with great big smiles on our faces. The speed of our boats
is important but more important is having a good time with fellow boaters, and
helping each other with some small problems.
The
biggest gas boats we have here are 50 to 55 inch Deep Vees and mono hulls that
are built by German or Belgium manufactures. Some of us have several hulls from
the United States but they are hard to get here. The cats we run are also from
Germany or Belgium. Paul Swaelen's monos and cats are great 
boats and a good alternative to the Stryker Cat and Seaducer mono.
Maybe even better but that's for you guys to find out! We are working our tails
off here to reach some decent speeds with our gas boats. Our gas-powered members
are running Zenoah G23PUM's and RC230 engines and recently, the QD powerhouses.
We also run 35cc Mathe engines. The QD guys are fast, real fast, somewhere
between 48 and 54 mph. I know its 5 to 10 mph short on the "Yankees", but it's a
performance to be proud of considering we have only been running this gas fever
for two years now. One good thing I hear a lot of you guys say is: "Wow those
European boats really look good, their hardware is much better, stronger, and
better looking".
Right now I am running a Paul Swaelen Mono and an Aeromarine Jesse James cat with a Paul Swaelen cowl on it. Both powered by Zenoah engines and the speed is good enough for me, but I will always be looking for more! The Mono is brand-new and the first test run was promising at 44 mph, and the cat is doing 46 mph, with a G23PUM engine in it.
I guess we Europeans have the advantage of the info we get from the people from the States. Especially with all the information on Jim's Boat Dock Page, which is a great source for us to learn from. I am happy that there are a lot of guys out there who are willing to help us, and help us reach higher speeds. Most are willing to give information about everything we need to know about this hobby.
I would like to take the chance to thank the members on Jim's Boat Dock Page, and all the people from the Dutch Xtreme Forum. I am sure that gas power boating will grow in the Netherlands, since a lot of people here are catching the gas-boating virus. Last Sunday, even Paul Wijnstra told me after he took control of Julius (Rohmodel) QD powered cat: "Wow! This is so cool… like its running on rails. I want one!!"
We got another one hooked on gas!!!
Jerome
Pasman
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Thank you
Jerome. It has been a pleasure to hear from you. Keep up the great work and
please keep us at MGB up to date on any new innovations that you long distant
friends my stumble across. This is a hobby tha has made the big pond just a
little smaller.
- Editors at ModelGasBoats.com