Colorado Crew’s Sixth Annual Regatta:

Mile High Fun at 100 Above and Seven Below

The Denver based scale ship and boat modelers club once again held their annual get together at the Westin hotel and Westminster Promenade over the weekend. Temperatures hovered around the century mark both days making any excuse to step into the water welcome.

The event was well attended with many types of vessels represented including seven working subs brought by squadron area members. Tim Senecal brought his nearly completed, and recently overhauled Alvin to run through its paces, and waxed poetic upon the virtues of the new brushless motors he had recently installed. He referred to them as his "500-dollar motors" not because of the price, which was around fifty bucks, but because of the new lathe he bought to turn their custom shafts. Tim also spent some time fine trimming out his German Type II whose plug forms he had come into fortunate possession of.

Ted Shulte once again ran his Type-VII in true U-boat Captain style making torpedo runs on the numerous targets in the area with his usual no nonsense air neither suffering fools nor channel hogs lightly. His ten-year-old boat ran flawlessly, but unfortunately upon a shared channel so not near long enough to suit him or fans of his beautiful shark-like craft.

Larry Hersh brought his SWM Blueback done up to represent the USS Barbel (SS-580). Larry is also working on a SWM Layfayette that will hopefully be steaming by next years get together. His Barbel ran smoothly but was apparently running too heavy and while it wasn’t required that day he was very glad for the peace of mind his failsafe gave him.

Tom Spettel brought his running (finally) Thor designed Alfa, which he has been slowly but steadily working up over the past couple of years. Tom is also an ardent convert to brushless motors giving a demonstration on just how quiet and powerful they are. He is planning a refit of his Alfa to incorporate them.

Tom Kisler brought his D&E Skipjack (Scorpion SSN-589) and a new SWM Kilo. The Kilo ran well but light and needed encouragement to find the depths. The Scorpion's re-repaired rudder held up and worked well too. Tom got the nod for furthest distance traveled to attend and asking the most questions.

The major event of the northern half of the squadron area was a big hit with a lot of excellent, clear water at a beautiful venue. Many here also expressed a desire to attend the annual Sun N Fun event and those regulars of that event would find this trip to Denver worthwhile as well. The reason for the hobby is fun and that’s exactly what this weekend was about. See you next year!

Tom Kisler