No New Naviga Nitro Rule

There is NO New Naviga Nitro Rule
As you may have heard it's said that Naviga has "changed" the rule regarding how much nitro is allowed for the 2016 season... But there is some strange (and quite naive) interpretations of that info going around (according to me), including within the national federations, that I want to share some personal lights on.

Facts:

1. The former Naviga Vice President and FSR Section Leader sent out a letter by e-mail this past winter with some texts that said that they had decided to implement a restriction (he is no longer at that or any other Naviga position though if I have understood it correctly).
2. Naviga has not acknowledged that mail content afterwards (except for a short note on FB) and not made it into a rule and put it in to the rulebook.
3. This is a link on the Naviga site for the latest Naviga rules - click here for download. As you can see it's not updated with any information about this at all.
4. There is also no other information on the official Naviga website about this subject. At least I have not found any - if you have found some info about this matter on their website please send me an e-mail with a link.
5. So the only official info about this is a mail with a badly written text from a guy that no longer is within Naviga (there is a note from december 5 though on their Facebook page that links to a page on their webpage that does not exist).

Here is the quoted text that was sent out (the former Vice Presidents e-mail address is removed by me):

"Vice President    
Section Leader FSR
Schaft P.M.J.    
Wezenland  100               
1531 LR  Wormer       
The Netherlands

04-12-2015 Wormer                     

Subject.

News about Nitro-methane.

Dear all,

After diverend Diskussion how high can be the Level from Nitro-methane in the Fuel 30% ww of 40 % ww, we have decided that it must be 30% ww. Reason for this decision is that it will not give problems with the European law. To use 40 % ww the competitors need a Personal license and we think that not all countries in Europe will give a license on prived persons.

This mains after counting from Methanol,Oil,Nitro-methane, the result is maximum in the Fuel 23 % in volume Nitro-methane.

Motor fabricant CMB Italy make a Nitro-methane measure tool and in the Naviga we use only this measure tool. I now there are more measure tools but it is better to use only one measure tool so that we have not diverend results and discussions how much Nitro is in the fuel.

This CMB measure tool can be buy early in a short time, follow the information on the social mediums and CMB dealers.

With kindly regards

Peter Schaft"



My personal comments about that text:

• This is not a (the) new Naviga rule text - this is (at best) a letter of intend and quite badly written too boot. As in if they had "decided" about it but then failed to follow up and write the actual text that will go into the rule book as that text (that they have not made/written) needs to be way more complete then that text to go into the rulebook.

• If this would be a notification for the Naviga racers that the rule book "is now updated and changed", we would have seen the new 2016 Naviga Rules by now - wouldn't we?  And also see some documentations about it, maybe even see the meeting transcripts from the meeting when it was decided and see some information about it on their website or maybe even on their Facebook site...!? But No.

• The written text in the rules need to contain quite a lot more information about this quite complicated matter (if they decide to change it that is);  how to actually use the device, under what temperature range the device is meant to be used at, is the rest of the content in the fuel still free, information about if it is allowed to mix fuel with more nitro up until the device (floater) makes it "illegal" and what the fuel density is calculated at (as in what is the actual weight of the floater is etc). The quoted text doesn't say anything either about when or how the fuel checks should be done or what the consequences would be of you get caught "cheating". Are you warned? Are you disqualified from the heat, the complete race or are you maybe even banned from racing all together etc? None of that is written down as its not a rulebook text.

• It absolutely looks like a made-up mail from a guy that is no longer at that position within Naviga as Naviga has not made it public in any way shape or form after he "left" them.

The above quoted text from the former Vice President is also a bit "wrong" in a couple of places:

• It says that it is a nitro-methane measure tool (it should be "nitromethane" btw), but the device can never check how much nitro the fuel has as it's not a "smart" device - it's in fact a "dumb" device that simply measures the density of the complete fuel including everything you mix in it (based on a liquid density formula that is not made public). It's also quite important to write the actual rule text accordingly as there is for example a difference vs to allow a maximum nitromethane % per volume or % per weight compared to allowing any nitromethane level and allowing the rest of the fuel to be free as before and just check it with a density measuring device such as the CMB one. (Note, tests with the CMB device seems to "allow" for fuel with around 30% nitromethane at least at room temperature).

• The e-mailed text also says that you need a permit to use 40% fuel but that is not the correct way to write it if you want to be considered believable. The correct way is that within the EU you need, in most cases, a personal permit if you want to buy (and store etc) fuel or raw nitro that has a concentration of more then 30% per weight (that is roughly translated to 25% by volume). Note also that as an example in Sweden a registered company does not need a permit at all to buy and use nitromethane (they cant sell it though). FYI: that is how the full scale nitro top-fuel drag racing teams handle it - they don't have any extra licenses and they use huge amounts of nitro per year.

This is the only published and official Naviga rule regarding fuel:

"3.3.2. Fuel
(1) Free fuel is allowed except in the FSR 27 cc and 35 cc class.
(2) Fuel in the FSR 27 cc and 35 cc class must be a petrol-oil mixture. Petrol can be
of any octane level. The use of Methanol mixtures is prohibited."


Thanks for listening & Happy RC Boating! :)

Best Regards,

Niklas Edlund