Alan Bond’s New Bows for Springer Tug.

I have learned a lot building this first springer tug. With the benefit of hindsight, I’d now like to build another one, incorporating all the lessons I’ve learned. But over and above those fixes, a fundamental problem suffered by all springers is that if you exceed the quite modest optimum cruising speed the nose dips alarmingly and they try to emulate submarines.

As this is already a non-standard springer, being almost 1.5x larger and (over) powered by *two* car heater blower motors, I’m not unduly concerned about adherence to class rules, so as an experiment I taped on some new bows using corrugated plastic card to see what improvement I could make. It’s starting to look like a tank landing craft now, but pusher knees could still be mounted at the front edge.

I’m now able to run on full throttle at last – submarining previously started between 1/3 to 1/2 throttle. It could probably do with some extra buoyancy at the stern to counteract the nose-up stance at full power. In a drag race with a conventional hull tug-boat using the same motors they were about neck and neck.

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