Thank you, Ron and Dean! I got old Champion plans from a friend of mine, Rod Geraghty in Wisconsin. I'm deeply interested in the construction details and the history. That's why I'm often talking to Rod via Skype, learning as much as possible about vintage outboard racing. It's a great pleasure to get all these first hand information from those people who have experienced the real thing in th 1950s and 60s.
About two years ago I started to organize a boat racing club exclusively for radio controlled replicas of vintage outboard racing boats, scaled down to size 1/5,2. That's why our club is called 152VO ("1/5,2 Vintage Outboard"). We started with 9 guys in August 2012. Meanwhile our club has grown to 680 members with 180 boats in 10 countries. You can see a few of our boats here:
http://www.152vo.de/index.php/commun...rennboote.html (cottage racers as well as competitive racers of the stock and alky classes). We hold annual meetings and drive closed course races (utility and hydro) as well as marathon (team) races on a quartermile track. Our racing rules are based on the APBA rule book 1953. Meanwhile our vintage outboard racing club has become very popular in Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, France and Austria.
My first model replica which I built fpr the 2012 competition was a tiny little cottage racer, the Atomite, published in "Boat Builder's Handbook", drawn by William D. Jackson and sold as a kit boat by a manufacturer called "Ozarka" in the early 1950s.
My second one for the 2013 competition was a scale replica of the 1951 Switzercraft BU Baby Bullet, which is running awesome. A very fast and stable boat. I took second place in the results, my wife took first place with her Baby Bullet.
Here's a pic of a few of our boats on the last competition in August 2013:
I'm the guy in the green t-shirt to the left. If you're interested you can find more than 100 photos of the 2013 competition here:
http://www.152vo.de/index.php/commun...vents.html#2nd (click on one of the four thumbnail pics on the right to open the gallery).
So I have a cottage racer and a stock BU at the moment. My next boats will be a class B Alky, the Jacoby Flyaway (conventional) from the late 1930s and the 1953 Champion AU/BU which I'll try to finish for the next competition. That's why I'm interested in some construction details of the original Champion boat. If you know someone who has built an original Champion kit boat or still owns a Champion AU/BU please let me know. It's really tricky to get detailed information about these boats after 60 years so every information is highly welcome.
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