Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Jérôme - Gas "Kep's" rigger






I got these three pics from Jérôme - another French guy. He has scaled up my .21 sized Freebie drawings to fit his 26 cc Gas engine! Just about all I know is that its 1.2 meters long.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Philippe Boissy part 2


Philippe Boissy made Kep's 21 Freebie front sponsons. Looks good. :)


Left hand sponson ready.


Leading & trailing edge hard-wood pieces glued on.


Sponson deck glued on.


Sponson chamfered edge glued on.


The outer skin shaped for the chamfered top edge.


The outer skin glued on with the left over foam as support.


Front sponson plywood side epoxy glued on.


Cut out material for the support blocks in the PS foam.


As Phillipe use polystyrene foam he choose to reinforce the sponson tubes with some wooden blocks. No need for that if U get hold of Divinycell though.


Sponsons soon to be made... It looks like std type of polystyrene foam. I use Divinycell H60 and then you can CA glue everything. Philippe had to use epoxy when sheeting his Freebie sponsons.


His home made motor mount Freebie rails.




It looks like Philippe will use an STS engine in his Freebie.


Front hard-wood nose block glued on. Personally I just press it down on the table top with my "muscles" and body weight! (ZAP Green CA).





Philippe even made some support blocks out of the scrap material that is left over when cutting out the tub sides... The main reason (I think) is that he use epoxy to glue the bottom & deck on. I use CA glue and no need for these blocks when I glue my tubs. :)


All Freebie parts ready to be jigged up and glued...




Philippe built a jig to glue his Freebie tub true and straight.



While I was in Austria limping on my bad leg I got some new Freebie build pics from Philippe Boissy in France.

French boat forum with Kep's 21 Freebie


Another forum thread in French.

Skiing in Alpbach Austria



This day (tuesday) it fell about 40-50 cm (1.5 ft) of snow. Picture from our apartment at Haus Margit.

There was plenty of snow when we arrived and it fell even more when we where there... :)

Going down the lift is NO fun...

Melinda Håkansson - 7 years and with dog ear add-ons on her helmet. :)

The second day I fell and DNF'ed... I went to the local doc the day after and they XRAY'ed my right knee. No bones are broken... But no more skiing this year. :(

They will send me to an MRI scan later this week now when Im back in Uppsala to check exactly what is "broken". The orthopedist today said it was one of the ligaments that is broken and also maybe a miniscus injury... I will be back in the slopes next year though! :)

It was actually here I broke my knee - coming out of the woods middle/top left...

How about this guy. Alpine skiis and a huge prop rig on his back. He had kids hiking on for a ride... It was plenty fast!

None of these mountain is for skiing - the slopes are to the far right ->

Haus Margit where we stayed at.


I'm just back from a week of downhill skiing in Austria... Well, I hurt my knee so I just made it through the first two days... crap.

I was there third year in a row and its a small village called Alpbach and its in the Tyrol alps.

Alpbach link

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Scoop! DEML Marine Engine(s)


You didn't see this one coming did you... ;)

The motor is designed and made by Gerd Deml in Germany.

It was tested the first time last year by Joachim Ruess in one of his riggers. The boat was built by Jörgen Andersson and it was really fast the first time out. The top speed was almost 100 mph (160 kmh) - this particular motor was tested with ABC 2716 & H50 props by Mark Sholund...

To be continued...

All info from Jörgen Andersson.

JAP .45 Cowl










Jörgen Andersson (JAP) is offering his new 45 sized cowl. The base of the cowl is flat and it's design creates virtually no lift and is really light. Its made by a high quality Araldite epoxy matrix and available in either glass fiber or carbon fiber and molded by Jörgen himself with vacuum bagging technique.

The cowl shape (and volume) is also optimized to reduce the otherwise quiet noticeable choke effect that some other cowls have on the motor.

A/Elipse length: 356 mm
B/Max height: 62 mm
C/Max Elipse width: 58 mm
D/Max width: 127 mm
E/Max length of front lip: 70 mm

YAP .45 CF cowl -> USD59 / €48
YAP .45 GF cowl -> USD34 / €28

Email Jörgen

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Mikael Sundgren VS1 / K&B .21


There will be plenty of new VS1's on Swedish waters this season so you better come up with some unique designs of the decoration of your VS1. Wood and white isn't the most visible thats for shure. Do note his small hardwood sponson tip reinforcements!


Mikael Sundgren sent me a couple of pics of his new Aquacraft VS1 tunnel boat equipped with his trusty K&B outboard. Looks good!

Grossi Marine Engines























As we (Minicars Distributing) had our show booth at the recent Nürnberg show right next to the Italian Grossi engine manufacturer I just have to show you some pics of their new "revolutionary" marine engines... But I'm not so shure you should cry or laugh - or booth... I'll leave that up to you to judge! But one thing is clear though - it's unique! ;)

And before you even ask - No, Minicars wont distribute them... :)

Grossi Engines