Originally Posted by nativepaul
Sounds like good advice if you dont like building and want a RTR boat, if you may want to upgrade it later go for the impulse, which will handle a full on P mono or P offshore race setup, whereas the AQ MC will fall apart if upgraded to much faster than stock.
That is not to say that they are not both race worthy boats, impulse will run P Spec mono or P Spec offshore classes as it comes, and the MC will run P Spec offshore as it comes.
What do you want out of a boat, how will you run it, in what conditions will you run it, on what size lake, how important are aesthetics to you? these are all questions that you should think about to decide what type of boat you want. Outriggers are the fastest, depending on sponson design can handle rough water well, are second best turning to the right, but dont turn left at all, are ugly and use up a lot of lake. scale hydroplanes are the second fastest, and are beautifull but dont turn right all that well, dont turn left at all, are the worst in rough water or high winds and take up the most amount of room on a lake. Cats are middling in the speed range and do well in rough water but not so great in the wind, there are 2 types, wide ones like the AQ MC that turn both ways very well and narrow ones like the Genesis that dont turn that well either way but are faster and better in the rough/wind. Monos are the slowest of the surface drive boats but are the best in very rough water as they can be made to self-right, like narrow cats they offer middle of the road turning in both directions. Submerged drive boats like ECOs are the slowest, but make up for it with huge acceleration, by turning in both directions jaw droppingly well, and are ideal for those with small lakes to play on, however if you are in the USofA and want to race I dont believe there is any ECO racing going on at the moment, so check with your local club. (in fact thats good advice for any of them, if you want to race or feel like you possibly may do in the future, do to your local club and see what others are running, to avoid building an amazing P Spec offshore for example, then finding that class isn't raced in your area.)
Size matters too a 16" Mini boat can be a lot of fun on a small budget, if you put that same budget into a bigger boat it would be pretty slow and boring, but if you have a bigger budget a bigger boat will handle any given wave conditions better and as always be more impressive
Once you have decided what size of what sort of boat you want then think about your build skills RTRs are easy and normally fairly cheap as it will all be Chinese gear assembled in China, but the quality of the gear and the build will not be the best as they are made to a price point, if you go with a RTR at least gge a good pull on the motor/servo/battery mount to make sure they are glued in solidly and make sure the driveshaft is lined up with the motor coupling, as these are often points of RTR failure, oh check all the screws too. If you are capable and willing to put your own labour into it you will probably end up with a better boat in the end but you may also be surprised to find that it costs you just as much or more if you don't use all Chinese components, which is the savings of bulk buying covering the Chinese labour cost, but you will undoubtedly put more care and attention into the build that a Chinaman with a quota of 20 boats to build today. RTRs also limit your choice severely as there are only a few good ones out there of all the types put together. Riggers, Tenshock Y and Mini Y. Hydros, AQ UL1. Cats, Toysport Jolly, AQ MC, PB miss Geico, PB Mystic, Astec Apperition. Monos, PB impulse 31, Toysport synchron, Toysport triton, Tenshock Mono1, Kintec rocket, Kintec persuit Joysway offshore warrior. Submerged drive, Tenshock Eco, Toysport Joker, Tenshock Mini ECO.
which is a pretty comprehensive list of all the RTRs that I think are worth a damn, and you wont find a tenshock or toysport in your LHS, tenshocks are only available in the USofA through minicatracing, and toysport arent so much an RTR as a smallscale hull company, but Joseph is happy to fit out his hulls to whatever stage the customer wants so are available RTR though neither hull hardware nor labour is chinese so as ever the quality comes at a price. If you are willing to build in wood from a kit or plans, or just fit out an empty glass hull the choice of top quality boats becomes much larger and there are numerous good hulls for each type in many different sizes.
Which Spektrum is it that you have? The early Spektrum steering wheel radios didn't work well for boats, if you have a DSM2 5+ channel aeroplane set it will be fine as is, or if it is a steering wheel set with a picture of a boat on it will be OK if you get a MR3000 or MR200 reciever to go with it. If its a steering wheel set without a picture of a boat on it, it's low power DSM1 s#!t and not worth losing your boat over.
Check out the website in my signature, lots more info there than I can put in a post.
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