Okay so George got off to a rough start, we all like Robert too, but he grows on you, WE LIKE GEORGE!! And he has gotten better. Meet the new Darrin Stevens. Not the same as the old Darin Stevens. One of the things missing from the first American Episodes is the FUN quotient. The Brits have a great sense of SPORTSMANSHIP as well as a good sense of humor. Americans raised on Football and Little League are overly competitive and bad sports. RDF needs to screen out these types in their selection process. We went to London to have FUN and we DID and it SHOWS. We had a Blast, we made lots of new friends with the crew and Art Attack, our competitors. Sure, we were bummed we lost but we went out in a Blaze of Glory. Hitting the Wall is better than stalling out in the pits. And it made good TV. This was the experience of a lifetime and we felt our only obligation was to put on a good show. We did. Even though we lost, we may get to go again, because FUN is contagious and Junkyard Wars is infectious. Silly Later,,,,,Alex ,Metal Medics, one pontoon short of an awesome Victory!! Our Boat Rocked! right over. I got to keep the propeller, Dr. Bill kept the deco toaster Hood ornament!! Hey Art Attack! We love you Man!!

-- Alex Metal Medic (alex@gilanet.com), January 11, 2001

Answers

I watched it and enjoyed it throughly. I feel for you on the race though. If you had plowed over you would have womped them. (By the way, I personally I don't care who hosts it, it's a interesting show and we need more of this on TV.)

-- Karl Olson (aka The Stereo Logic) (karl@thestereologic.com), January 11, 2001.

Your boat was the best! It was a freaking blue bullet! I was hoping that someone would turn the poor thing over and revive it to see speed again...even after the race was over entirely. I would have liked to see a drag race between the boats!

I guess your team did not know ahead of time which side of the pond you would take, and which way you would have to turn, therefore which side to put the support pontoon on? Or would have putting the support on the turning side made it hard to corner?

Good job to both teams, and George was not bad at all! There were some funny moments in the show... how bout when they said their boat was like george... big and loud (something to that extent)...

-- Luke (lrl@ou.edu), January 11, 2001.

Alex- We in Silver City were watching! Go team! Sure wish you could have had found another pontoon! You would have won by a mile! Great message title, by the way... I too am sick to death of all the whiners! I agree, George is cool, and no amount of whining of posters on this board will change my mind! I hear through the grapevine that the car door on your introduction video was from the infamous "Laura" car! True or False?

-- Rhonda (mxrs@zianet.com), January 11, 2001.

Alex, I have never rooted so hard for a team and laughed so hard at the outcome. You guys were a blast. I thought it was hilarious when you were acting like a used car salesman. We are close enough to Silver City (Safford, AZ) to have known ahead of time you guys were going to be on. They need to put you guys back on for sheer entertainment! Not to say you weren't brilliant....Your boat ROCKED (no pun intended!) and you should have won. Maybe next time!!!

-- Sue Crum (wscrum@zekes.com), January 11, 2001.

Hey Sue, I loved the "Your boat rocked!" line! Now that's funny! By the way, Metal Medics were awesome! This was one of my favorite shows yet. Art Attack wasn't so bad either, and I loved the "flirting for parts" routine. Great show guys! (And to think, some people say the American version isn't entertaining!)

-- jean (memejohnson1923@hotmail.com), January 11, 2001.

Just curious cause I missed some of the show. Did you all ever think about using a barrel on the other side of the boat since you couldn't find a pontoon? It might of helped keep it from turning over...Not that I'm being critical...I thought your boat was great and should of won. Just curious Thx

-- JunkMan (r1ddller@juno.com), January 12, 2001.

To the person who suggested turning the boat over and running it again. Wouldn't work... I am sure that submersing the engine surely would have ruined it.

-- Brian Straight (Writer4747@aol.com), January 12, 2001.

Our expert knew the other expert was working on a planing design with considerably more speed potential than a displacement design. The Art Attack boat never approached anything near planing but nobody knew that. Their prop sucked air, cavitated and just didn't hook up. It was too high on their stern, and wasn't a good prop anyway. We had a great prop and knew it. We didn't know just how well the whole mess would "hook up" and boy did it ever. So, our expert was really concerned with total drag and wanted a single pontoon over a big lump of styrofoam or barrel or something out the other side. There were big heavy yellow gas pipes which might have worked but we just ran out of time. I was very impressed with the Art Attack strategy of using a shaft drive motorcycle. All the controls and everything, plus a choice of gear ratios in one finished package was brilliant. We had far more work to do dealing with that massive Land Rover diesel. They found a boat and a power system. We had to build our boat and power system. Cudos to Justin and Art Attack for good planning and scavenging, even if it didn't live up to its' potential. Dr Bill and Larry could have taken it a little easier and maybe not flipped, but they didn't know the Art Attack boat wasn't moving very well and I think in the excitement of the moment they got carried away. How about swept away? Larry had moved to the inside of the turn and might have started the roll with his weight shift. This boat had so much motor sticking out of it that probably only another pontoon could have saved it. It was very top heavy. But it sure was a cool crash huh? Silly Later,,,,,Alex Metal Medic

-- Alex Metal Medic (alex@gilanet.com), January 12, 2001.

Did you know we had no neutral or clutch? The only way to stop or start "Logger" was to stop or start the engine, as it was direct drive. That monster drive shaft was hooked up directly to the flywheel. There was no room in the barrel to include a clutch or bell housing. It was big and dirty. I was the motor man. I had it running like a top. I want to nominate myself for the dirtiest Junkyard Warrior ever. Thank you, thank you, I owe it all to that Land Rover diesel. Silly Later,,,,,Alex Metal Medic

-- Alex Metal Medic (alex@gilanet.com), January 12, 2001.

When we got to the drawing boards and started tossing out ideas for the boat. At first I really wanted to build a catamaran using two rows of 55 gallon drums, 3 drums in length. Then mount the motor between the pontoons on a cross bar frame.. That way there would be no need for a stuffbox... the weight of the motor and pilot would really be distributed well. I kept drawing it on the board but in the end the duck boat was what we decided on as a group. + all the drums were already sitting in the Medal Medics area by that time. Medal Medics go into the record books for the best destruction of a $5,000. ?? camera. Great footage gurgle gurgle gurgle....

-- Duane, Art Attack (flatmo@humboldt1.com), January 12, 2001.

The look on cathy's face when the Medics did the barrel roll was priceless!

If you are going to have a failure, don't go out with a whimper, go out with a bang! The Medics sure delivered! ;)

10 out of 10 points for style

(To reply in email replace blort dot invalid with anime dot net)

-- Dan Hollis (goemon@blort.invalid), January 12, 2001.

I got to watch my taped shows a day late. I really enjoyed the fact that the two teams were "friendly rivals" rather than enemies. The competitiveness of the Hot Rods episode was just a little too american for me!

By the way, there is no particular reason why a diesel engine wouldn't work after a dunking. High voltage electrical systems are most affected (plugs, coils etc). As long as you still had fuel going to it, it would probably have run.

-- Michael (Canadian P.Eng.) (michael@mks-tech.com), January 12, 2001.

someone said the engine was probably ruined by the roll. I believe diesel engines will run submerged, (for a short while). I would probably still run. (mute point I know.)

-- bdudley (bdudley@industrialmechanical.com), January 12, 2001.

Hey Duane, That Catamaran idea is what Bill and I came up with too! Boy would that have been a lousy show. 2 nearly identical boats that couldn't sink or flip. Bummer!! Hey we figured that when that running diesel sucked water into those high-compression cylinders that it instantly destroyed the engine. Water being non compressible, it probably blew the tops of the pistons in. Easy come, easy go. I think that's so funny you thought of a catamaran too. Hell those boats would still be running around that lake, probably rent them out. But what a boring show. See, these producers got it figured out, it's TV! Silly Later,,,,,,Alex Metal Medic Too answer the next question. Yes, the teams can override the expert, but the expert has it all worked out and we've all just heard the topic for the first time. It is pretty hard to argue with someone who's got it all figured out ahead of time, is an expert on the subject, and you're basically overwhelmed by all of it anyway.

-- Alex Metal Medic (alex@gilanet.com), January 12, 2001.

Liked your figurehead. As to keeping running, even a landie engine would have a problem. They inverted with it running hard, so it would have snorked up a cylinder full of water. Its called "hydro lock". If they were lucky and no rods were bent, they could have pulled the glow plugs, and drained it. Given they were at running hard, the chances of an unbent rod are low.

And I am glad they showed how things really worked -- that wall between teams is to keep us from spending all of build day helping the other team.

We also bartered for parts, gave each other tips on where stuff was, and in the case of the tractor wheels, we just handed them over when we decided not to use them. The producer made the beachies set up the theft.

Even tho it's in LALA land next year, us NERDS want back. We haven't cut a car in half lengthwise yet.

-- Jeff - The NERDS (dp@the-nerds.org), January 12, 2001.

When I saw the prop that Art Attack was gonna use I knew there would no planeing, way tooooooo much pitch. There is a boat drive system, I can't think of the name right now, that only puts the bottom half of the prop in the water. The other lower angle prop would have made a major difference in the speed of the Art Attack duck boat. JustJay

-- JustJay-Captain-Three Rusty Juveniles (justjay@neo.rr.com), January 12, 2001.

I haven't seen such a good boat sinking since the Titanic movie. Iceberg, straight ahead!!

-- Richard Manahan (rjcyclesk8@hotmail.com), January 12, 2001.

Hey, I think we've actually had an intelligent exchanging of ideas without one person saying the "G" word!!!!

-- Duane flatmo (flatmo@humboldt1.com), January 12, 2001.

Yow! We are having fun!

-- The Zipper (abbynrml@tcsn.net), January 12, 2001.

Great shows this week. And TLC even did a nice job with the schedule, filling the 8:00 hour with "Collapse," a show about forensic engineering.

People have talked about diesels running under water; I initially thought the same thing (I guess we all watched the episode with the amphib trucks...) about rolling the torpedo over and at least giving it a try (hey, that engine was already scrap; it couldn't have been ruined...) but like the like-minded people here, I didn't think about it sucking in water...

The other thing that occurred to me immediately...as the animated drawings were airing, actually...was that the prop shaft shouldn't go through the hull...though that would require either raising the engine or adding some kind of a counter-shaft, neither of which would actually be a simple thing...

It occurred to me that the problem with the US-pointed shows is not so much You-Know-Who, but rather the fact that the US show has all those idiotic bumpers in it to move to and from the station breaks. I'm going to have to watch Scrapheap again to see how that goes, but I'm pretty certain that the part so many people don't like seems to come down to the bumpers more than anything else...

-- Dave Althoff, Jr. (dalthoff@capital.edu), January 12, 2001.

he jay it called cavitation i think

-- Robert (Robo_man80@hotmail.com), January 12, 2001.

Those racing outdrives are called "Aernson" or "Arensen" outdrives, and they have a CV joint in the shaft, so that the whole prop end of the shaft can be turned to direct the thrust to steer the boat. This eliminates the drag of having a rudder in the water. When the boat is on a plane, only the lower half of the prop is in the water. This eliminates the drag of the prop shaft and struts in the water. They are always used in counter-rotating pairs, as it would cause the boat to go in circles otherwise. It takes a ton of power to get a boat equipped with them on plane, but once it gets up, it is the most efficient system going for ocean racing boats. I could see that they would have a problem getting the "Hot Hazel" planing when they were putting the top of the prop higher than the bottom of the boat hull. The water behind a planing type (flat bottom, square transom) hull comes straight out from under the hull without rising much for the first several ft when a boat gets on plane. I had a great laugh when the ballistic barrell went bottom up. They didn't think about the effect that the rudder torques the bottom of the boat to the outside of a turn when you turn a boat, making the top of the boat lean to the inside of the turn. It was quite top heavy, but it really ran well before the big Oops. They could have (you know, couldawouldashoulda) turned a loop to the right (make a "P" turn) at each corner instead of turning left, and that way using the torqueing effect to hold the outrigger in the water, but that would have taken extra time to make the corners. I am very glad that no one was hurt, as it would be terrible for anyone to get hurt while filming the show. Had I been at the helm, I would have done exactly the same thing as they did, and flipped it.

-- Waddy Thompson (cthomp3851@aol.com), January 13, 2001.

That rang the bell It is Aronson. Waddy if you had dumped me in the water, not being much of a swimmer, there would have been well i would still be spitting and sputtering.

-- JustJay-Captain-Three Rusty Juveniles (justjay@neo.rr.com), January 13, 2001.

Looking at the tape, you can see Larry the expert climbing to the inside just before it starts rolling. It's like they thought it was going to lean in the corner like a car, not a boat, for you are correct about the torque from the rudder. But there is also the torque on the deccelerating propeller as they went into the turn. When Bill let off on the throttle going into the turn it caused a reverse torque on the boat with the rudder and Larry to make it roll. The answer was to cut the one pontoon in two and use sparklets bottles for nosecones. Keeping the pair of shorter pontoons farther aft would have eliminated the bow wave off the pontoon swamping the engine compartment. So close and yet.... Silly Later,,,,Alex, Metal Medic

-- Alex Metal Medic (alex@gilanet.com), January 13, 2001.

Looking at the tape, you can see Larry the expert climbing to the inside just before it starts rolling. It's like they thought it was going to lean in the corner like a car, not a boat, for you are correct about the torque from the rudder. But there is also the torque on the deccelerating propeller as they went into the turn. When Bill let off on the throttle going into the turn it caused a reverse torque on the boat with the rudder And Larry to make it roll. The answer was to cut the one pontoon in two and use sparklets bottles for nosecones. Keeping the pair of shorter pontoons farther aft would have eliminated the bow wave off the pontoon swamping the engine compartment which is why they were trying too hard to keep the one pontoon from submerging and making an even larger engine swamping bow wave. So close and yet.... Silly Later,,,,Alex, Metal Medic It does seem odd that we didn't get to test the boats before the race. Most of the other contests have a little test time. Of course a bad boat can sink or flip right away and they would have no contest at all. If we'd flipped the boat on a test run there would have been no show. Ahh these TV producers,they ain't so dumb.

-- Alex Metal Medic (alex@gilanet.com), January 13, 2001.

Alex, Did you give any thought to which side of the track you were assigned? Did your team consider asking Art Attack to trade so your pontoon would be on the inside of the turn... after all, you did trade a propeller for a few hugs! Or perhaps that never entered your minds that you might tip. Just curious.

-- jean (memejohnson1923@hotmail.com), January 13, 2001.

Yes Meme we did discuss swapping sides or even running the course backwards. We just didn't get it figured out. There was much concern of the boat flipping on acceleration, that the torque on the big prop would turn the boat right over. The Expert and The Judge argued about this a lot. But nobody ever brought up the torque of DE- acceleration coming into a turn, and nobody brought up the torque i.e. side force of the rudder turning. Larry (expert) seems to have gotten that backwards or he was just trying to keep that pontoon from diving and making a bigger bow wave which was already swamping the engine compartment. OOOPS!! Silly Later,,,,Alex

-- Alex Metal Medic (alex@gilanet.com), January 13, 2001.

Hot Hazel was cool, but Alex. . .didn't you have a few other drums sitting in your build area. We watched and the biggest question that kept coming up was, why not use a few drums on each side for pontoons? It may have made for more drag, but hell, that wouldn't have made a big difference in you speed!!! Just asking. I thought it was so cool that Hazel brought everyone home. That's the way the game should be played.

-- Joey Falgout (B.J.) (joeyinalexandria@hotmail.com), January 13, 2001.

You know Joey, I think there was one barrel left out in the yard. And our expert was SO concerned that Hot Hazel was going to get up on a plane and go like stink that a barrel hangin' out there was just not in the program. The answer was to cut our one pontoon in half, and go with a short pontoon on each side, but we were so pressed for time we never thought of it. It was such a frantic, frenetic (is that being redundant?) pace that we made LOTS of mistakes. We had decided ahead of time that our design must be source driven, that we had to let the stuff we found determine our plan, yet here we were finishing up without a key component. I saw the guys cutting out the barrel for the larger than expected engine and realized we would have little or no freeboard, but it was too late to do anything about it. That's one of the things about this show, you have so little time, you have to go with it even if you know it's wrong, because there is no extra time to change anything. We let Bill drive 'cause he weighs less, but his lack of experience as a "test pilot" contributed to our loss. He took off way too fast for an untried vessel, and his line into the corner, straight in, was absolutely wrong. I have a lot of experience racing motorcycles, cars, 4-wheel drives and sailboats, but with 3" of freeboard at the engine compartment, we thought all that free liposuction Bill gets in his off-hours in the E.R. would mean 50 lbs. less weight, a little more freeboard, and a little less water in the engine bay. We made so many mistakes. It is unavoidable. Luck is a huge part of the show, strategy is so important. But from the TV Point of View we did great. The tragic heros. Built a water rocket and blew it up. That makes good TV. I can't say that I could have kept it from flipping, perhaps, but we will never know. I might have kept it going but swamped it out anyway, bad TV. But I didn't get wet, I got major camera shmooze time with Cathy on Castaway Island while George was ashore with the Judge. I wanted the second pontoon but I was the only motor guy on the team, So I had to give up my search for a second pontoon and get the motor running before time ran out (I got the motor running in the boat with about one minute to go!) Neither boat reached its' potential. If we could have done a quick test then fixed them both, we would have had a real race. So, that's team sports. And that's TV. I was motor guy and team spokesperson, Bob is our certified welder... Bob and I didn't get wet.... I have never worked so hard,, or had so much fun, Damn the torpedoes, let's do it again!! Silly Later,,,Alex

-- Alex Metal Medic (alex@gilanet.com), January 13, 2001.

One last question; How cold was the water? Waddy, "Rusty's" "Wreckspert"

-- Waddy Thompson (cthomp3851@aol.com), January 13, 2001.

I keep going back over that race too. I think we were all so hyped up to get off the starting blocks while each of our boats were sitting there in the water, taking on water! I know the Medics had the same concern about taking on water. So when the the race started, everyone was fast to punch the throttle. We knew right off the bat that our prop had not been mounted sufficiently deep enough under the water line to keep it from cavitating. We had the ability to shift into second and third gears but it didn't matter because the boat just hit peak speed and stayed at that speed. I think if they had of been able to see us floundering and slowed just a little they could of made their corner turns without flipping. "Steady the course" became our battle cry in the end.

-- Duane, Art Attack (flatmo@humboldt1.com), January 13, 2001.

It looked to me like if you Metal Medics had had the benefit of a crystal ball, you could have prevented the roll-over by simply seating your passenger on the strut halfway out to the pontoon.

-- eric (earsjohnson@usa.net), January 15, 2001.