I do a t lot of sailing in the British Virgin Islands and just ginned this up.
Always wanted to get some cool video from the water on a RC boat, wanted one small enough to fit in a backpack, well I picked one up with damaged box at half price.
It looked like THIS outa the box:
http://www.aquacraftmodels.com/boats/aqub14-main.html
Original plan was to mount the camera inside or on top of the canopy…initial testing proved that to be a bad idea, the wieght of the video camera made it very tippy.
Loose the canopy, turn it into a RIB using polyethelene pipe insulator foam!!
Initial shot, not totally done, have to silicone the motor water cooling tube and trim it:
More pics here:
http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y238/saildoggie/Rc%20Video%20RIB/
Next step is to make the glassed foam “keel” that will suspend the camera under the RIB for underwater video!
Check the anchor set, no problem, just send the Stealth Video Rib out!!!
The camera mount is complete, adjustable for tilt and pan manually.
Just ran the sea trial in the big Olympic size pool, handles beautifully and can go pretty quick!!
The RIB appears to be very stable and balances perfectly with the video camera aboard.
I have bailed on mounting the camera on the bottom of RIB and am starting on a towable sled rig for the camera with dive planes that will take it down as the RIB is moving forward, the depth can be adjusted by length of the tow line as well as speed of the RIB as I will make the the sled have slight positive bouancy until towed.
Amazing what a Sunday afternoon of a few beers makes one dream up!!
for 70 bucks…with your “conversion” to a RIB. it would make a nice recovery boat. loose the camera and mount a small Carbon tube with a hook on the side so you can hook the shrouds and bring a boat home that has problems…
Ordered spare parts for the trip, extra battery pack, deck lids, props, prop shaft and rudder.
Gonna also pick up a removeabe rigid surface antenna to replace the floppy plastic tube, suspected leak source wher the grommet enters the hull, will be fully sealed with gaskets and silicone.
3 weeks 'till the trip, developing the underwater diving sled that will be towed for underwater video of the beautiful reefs and fish!