February 2013
Queensland Sporting Hovercraft Club
A branch of the AUSTRALIAN HOVERCRAFT FEDERATION Inc (Vic)
Dear Air Cushion Vehicle enthusiast,
The Queensland branch of The Australian Hovercraft Federation held a planning meeting on Tuesday,
19th February 2013, in the Staff Room of the RC primary school, 350 Mortimer Road, Acacia Ridge.
This meeting was attended by:-
| President:- | Peter Venn |
| Treasurer:- | Phillip Audsley |
| Secretary:- | Steven Odgaard |
Other members attending were Arthur Stead and Dale Baxter.
Visitors for the evening were Rita Chaffey and Kerri Audsley.
Cruise report - Muriel St, Redland Bay - Sunday 17th February 2013.
The February cruise was held at 96 Muriel Street and launch took place from Peter and Elaine’s private
boat ramp into the Redland Bay Channel. We had 7 craft on the terrace but only 5 on the cruise.
Those attending the cruise with craft were:-
| Peter Venn | Turbo TP6 powered by a Subaru 1800 EA81. |
| Angus Kerr | Viper powered by a Subaru 1800 EA81. |
| Arthur Stead | Revtech Renegade powered by a 20hp Honda. |
| Neil Budworth | Turbo Vortex 265. |
| Steven Odgaard | Expo Turbo (Brisbane Heat colours) powered by a 51hp Yamaha PE485 courtesy of Peter Venn. |
| Static Display | Billy Baker 2 powered by a 44hp Chaparral. Expo Turbo (blue) powered by a 51hp Yamaha PE485. |
Others attending the cruise were:-
Bill Toppin, Jeremy Torrance, Lucas Kerr and Graeme Packer.
The TP6 carried Peter Venn, Jeremy Torrance and Bill Toppin, the Viper carried Angus and Lucas Kerr,
the white Expo Turbo 240 carried Steven Odgaard and local bus driver: Graeme Packer, the Revtech
Renegade carried Arthur Stead and the Turbo Wedge 265 carried Neil Budworth.
We headed east to the mouth of the Logan River and turned south to Mark’s Hill and Rocky Point. The
wind was gusting at 15 knots but with low tide there were no white caps.
We headed back into the Logan River and explored the delta islands. Arthur was dismayed that Steven had not brought along the billy for a cup of tea. We headed up river as far as Carbrook then turned back for lunch with the ladies Elaine, Judy and Rita back at Muriel Street. Graeme was thrilled at his first ever hovercraft ride and then to have a delicious lunch to cap off a relaxing morning was so much more than he had anticipated.
Peter Venn showed us his imported Briggs and Stratton engine sourced from Flying Fish UK courtesy
of Russ Pullen of Sandwich. Peter plans to pull the Yamaha PE485 out of the Expo Turbo 240 and
insert the 35hp 2 cylinder air cooled 4 stroke engine as a trial power-plant.
The new engine has less power but can hold full throttle continuously and has good torque at cruise
rpm. The Yamaha only reaches full power of 51hp at between 6500 to 7000 rpm and can only sustain
this for 1 or 2 minutes. The power curve in a 2 stroke drops dramatically when the revs fall back to
4000 to 4500 rpm which is normal sustained cruising rpm.
The afternoon cruise took us north to Pannikin Island, but with heavy rain in the distance near Victoria Point, we decided to take shelter and made an early retreat for home. Peter Venn tried the blue Expo Turbo for a brief run. It was noisy with a hole in the muffler but the skirts which at first seemed very weathered, provided excellent cushion height. Steven fired up the Chaparral engine in the Billy Baker 2. It starts easily. After another tea break we packed up and departed at 4:00 pm. The rain held up and we had a wonderful club cruise for the start of the year.
Cruise Photos
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Report from other local hovercraft activity:-
Ben Woodhead left his apology for the cruise event. On Saturday 16th February he took his family for
a run on Moogerah Dam. He reported a minor breakdown and was unable to attend the club cruise on
the following morning.
News from the UK:-
From: Russ Pullen - 07 February 2013
Hi Steve
Hope you're all well over there. Sounds like the weather has turned rather wild once again. Its a
typically cold and miserable winter back here in Blighty. Soon be summer though. The UK Club has
asked me to develop the cruising side of the club and we have around 7-8 cruises in the diary between
May & October which is a good start.
Emma & I are just back from the London Boat Show, where Flying Fish exhibited a Marlin II Extreme and Coastal-Pro. We also displayed one of our new 'Platinum Black Edition' Marlin's which is a very high specification craft aimed at the Yacht Tender market. It features teak effect decking, kevlar and carbon fibre in the 'metalflake' hull construction and a 'Rampage' engine. Looks great on crystal blue water... and dreadful covered in estuary mud!
It may interest you to know that we've been making large strides forward in craft performance and noise reduction in a joint R&D project with Bill & Rupert Baker at BBV Hovercraft. This has lead on to us finalising a deal to produce the BBV5 under licence here at Flying Fish. This is a cabin craft with a 500kg load capacity which is to be renamed the BBV-500 to avoid confusion with the similar craft manufactured in Sweden under licence by Ivanoff Hovercraft. It's an exciting development for us which works well for both BBV and ourselves. First craft should be completed by early April.
To 'bookend' the range, we've also started manufacture of a tiny little craft called the 'Minnow' which at just 1.2m long, is designed for 5-10 year old kids. It's styled on the Eurocraft racing craft, looks great and unfortunately being the big lump I am, I doubt I'll ever find out how much fun it is! We've just been asked to display them in a very, very high-end store in London. Let's hope Mrs Beckham buys one for Romeo.
Hopefully, if everything falls into place, we'll be in a position to make a trip to Oz this year and will look forward to seeing you all then. We're very keen to find a pro-active dealer in oz to sell our craft there so we need to get back and find somebody this year.
Take care
Russ & Emma Pullen.
Russ Pullen
Phone:- 0044 (0)1304 619820
Mobile:- 07584 996 552
www.flyingfishhovercraft.co.uk
russ@flyingfishhovercraft.co.uk
Next club cruise:-
The next club cruise will be held on Sunday 17th March 2013 at Muriel St, Redland Bay.
As a special honour to Des Goss who passed away 12 months ago, this will be known as the 'Des Goss
Memorial Cruise', and will be a re-enactment of the cruise in September 2011, one of the last cruises
enjoyed by Des.
Meet at 9:00 am at Peter Venn's place at 96 Muriel St, Redland Bay for a launch into the Redland Bay
Channel.
UBD Reference - Map 267 B9.
Contact for the event is Steven Odgaard on 0400 798 404.
Next Queensland branch meeting:
The next club meeting will be on Tuesday 19th March 2013 at 7:30pm.
It will be held in the Staff Room at Our Lady of Fatima RC primary school, 350 Mortimer Road Acacia Ridge.
Hope you can come. All welcome.
Regards
Steven Odgaard
QSH secretary