Well the past few months I have just been enjoying the Fitzgerald in the water. I have been running with the Michigan Scale model Boat Club, a great bunch of modelers. The Fitzgerald has been an absolute joy to run. I think it's so cool to maneuver this laker as real ones do, you truly get an understanding as to how it's really done. You can see by the photo's with the right conditions, it's hard to tell it's a model. O and my little Lindberg diesel tug is something else. She has so much power that she can push my Fitzgerald completely sideways. Check it out here.

Ballast Tanks

The ballast tanks work perfect. I set it up for the first run with an external 12v power supply. It took a total of 2 to 3 minutes to fill and empty the 12 gallon tank. She was ridding a little low in the aft about an 1/2 inch, I knew all I had to do is remove about 7 pounds of lead I had glued in the aft ballast section. The second trial run she leveled off perfectly. I also made the pumps work with the radio, I can know operate the pumps while she’s on her way or with an external power source. This option proved to be very cool and very useful on the open water.    

Running at slow speed with about half ballast. Being able to adjust the ballast on the water is the best thing I could have done. This way you can play around with it, and if it's windy, you can throw more ballast in. With full ballast in 20 mph winds she has no problem turning into the wind. Empty tanks and she gets blown all over the place.