The Hole Story

To modify the Custom Replicas Nautilus for r/c, I had to open up the hull for quick flooding and draining. This will be a wet hull type boat meaning the interior is free flooding. The electronics will be housed in a watertight cylinder to keep them dry. The advantage of wet hull engineering is it reduces the overall weight of the finished model. The internal volume of dry hull boats provide huge amounts of positive bouyancy and thus need to be ballasted down with much more weight than wet hull boats.

The first step is to open up the main ballast tank floods. I attacked the job armed with a Dremel tool, sanding drum bit and particle mask. The nice thing about this particular chore is it doesn't require a lot of finesse.















Next, the upper hatches were opened up. This allows air to escape the hull during diving. Trapped bubbles can cause a boat to hang on a dive or throw off submerged trim. Therefore, they must be given a straightforward path to escape.

















The forward hatch is also opened up. I worked from below on this one. Eventually the deck grates will be opened up as well.

















A look inside the hull. All the MBT floods are open along with the diver access hatch. CR makes a stout hull and 1/32 scale provides ample elbow room to work on the WTC installation.