Intlwaters) Hello Mr. Glenn Quarles, greetings from Intlwaters. Could you tell us a little about yourself, like how you got started in R/C boating, and where do you call home?

Glenn Quarles) Hi Tom, thanks for asking me to do this interview. I got started in modeling with my dad back in 1970 in New Braunfels Texas. We flew RC planes mostly, but like most kids I wanted something simple enough I could do by myself so I played around a little with control line planes also. Even though my dad and I messed around with RC boats a little during our "airplane" years I didn't get real  serious until 1981 when I met some racers in Lubbock TX where I was going to Texas Tech University. One of the guys gave me an old .21 Crapshooter that I ran for a year before I built a .45 Spider. I had a great time going to races around Texas, Oklahoma, and even made it to the Southern Gentleman Hydro Invitational a couple of times in New Orleans La. After graduating from Tech in 1984 I went to pilot training for the Air Force in Phoenix AZ. While there I met the local boaters and joined them at the pond when I had time. It was in Phoenix that I designed my first real hydro. It worked OK, but was kinda heavy (REAL heavy by today's standard...about six pounds). After graduating from pilot training in 1985 I got married and we were off to Altus Ok for a couple months of training in the C-141. I had been thinking of how to make another boat of my same design, but much lighter and I came up with a technique similar to how we had made foam wings for our RC planes. The boat I built with this new construction weighed four pounds ready to run. VERY light in those days! The boat ran very good with only a few problems. About this time (1986) I heard about the new Nova Rossi engines and gave Bill McGraw a call and ordered one. This started a great and close relationship with Bill that I still enjoy today. With the Nova installed, my boat ran even better and Bill asked me if I would let him use it at a time trials they were going to have in Memphis. This was the same time when IMPBA cleaned the record book and started over with the new electronic timing equipment. Bill was able to establish the new straight away record (a whopping 55 mph), but didn't get a good chance at the oval because it was snowing too hard to see the course. I think this early success with designing my own boats set the course of my boating for the next 12 years.

Intlwaters) Hey Glenn, we have something in common. As you likely know, I have been designing my own .21 rigger as well. I know you are currently the IMPBA .21 1/16 mile straightaway record holder. It must have been hard work with many trips to the pond to get to 90.036 mph! Could you tell us a little about the boat you used to achieve this record, and how it was setup?

Glenn Quarles) Yes it was MANY trips to the pond! In fact it was about 10 years worth of trips to the lake. After setting the IMPBA straight away (SAW) record several times with my regular heat racing boats in the mid eighties, I knew I had  to build a dedicated SAW boat to reach my goals. In about 1988 I started with a clean sheet of paper and designed a .21 rigger just for straight line and thought of a way to build it to the weight I thought it needed to be. At this point I had only seen one real SAW boat so I was really just making a guess on many of the design details. This first boat weighed about 3 lbs ready to run and worked pretty good up to the mid sixty mph mark (I think the record at the time was around the upper 50s), but would blow off in any wind or chop.

I think it is important that I tell you about my thoughts on designing and building boats for time trials. I had my ideas on what the priorities needed to be to be successful at SAW and I have not changed them since. My basic idea for straight line is that I don't need to go pretty fast a lot of the time, I need to go REAL fast for two back to back passes. This idea has been pretty successful for me, but has caused me much frustration over the years...patience is very important in this game. A result of this idea is that consistency must be given up in many respects. For example, my SAW boats would not consistently run on choppy water without crashing (this became truer and truer as the speeds went up), some of my designs would not turn consistently (I only needed them to turn good enough to get pointed the other direction...if getting rid of the turn fin picked me up some speed, I did it), and my boats were not built to last like a heat racing boat...I always considered them to be disposable and didn't built them heavy enough to last several seasons (I paid for this by breaking boats and losing some equipment at the bottom of the pond...it was worth it). One area I never felt I gave up too much consistency was is motor setup. I have Bill McGraw to thank for a large part of this over the years, and in fact Bill has been doing all of the engine building for our team for the last 3 or 4 records. No matter how we set up the Nova Rossi's they would always work good enough to get to my goal.

Well, I know that was kinda long winded, but I felt it important to understand how I approach time trials. Between 1988 and 1998 I designed 9 different straight line boats. Each one was trying to solve a problem with a previous design, or just trying a new idea to get a little more speed. Most were at least partially successful, but some were complete duds. I didn't mind the failures too much because I was almost always able to figure out why they didn't work and didn't make that same mistake again. My last boat has been the best in both speed and handling, running at 100 mph (in testing only unfortunately) and hardly ever doing anything stupid in the turns.

Some common characteristics of all my SAW boats are:
-Except for the first one they all weighted between 2 and 2 1/2 pounds ready to run.
-I don't use any kind of rear sponsons or riding surface...I don't like anything extra dragging the water.
-PROPS...pitch is GOOD, more pitch is BETTER.
- They are designed to have very little drag on smooth water.
- I work VERY hard to get rid of all driveline drag. 21s don't have any extra power to overcome drag.
- Aerodynamics are important (but not as much as getting rid of drag)
- Engine temp is important.

Intlwaters) What is your tub made of? ply, light ply, balsa? Do the sponsons use the wood over foam technique?

Glenn Quarles) The tub sides are made of an endgrain balsa/fiberglass composite, the top is carbon fiber, the bottom is 1/32 ply, the transom is plywood, and the motor mounts are hardwood. The important thing to remember when building a tub is that some parts like the motor mounts and transom must be very rigid to allow the power to be transferred to the prop and not absorbed in the hull, and that many other parts of the tub are "just along for the ride" and should be as light as possible. Yes the sponsons are wood over foam. I use the regular 1 lb white foam with balsa and ply. I have molded sponsons out of carbon fiber, but I needed the extra floatation of the wood (even at 2 lbs my SAW boats barely float).

Intlwaters) What types of things are you doing to reduce driveline drag? I don't see how this is really possible. From that I mean it has to be in the water right?

Glenn Quarles) When I talked about reducing drive line drag, I meant the drag of the cable running in the stuffing box and strut. This is another place where I got some ideas and started thinking about just how much was really needed to get the job done. I don't run cable grease...Slick 50 between each run works great and cuts the drag. I also use four ball bearings in the strut instead of any kind of bushings. They work good, but are expensive and VERY high maintenance. With the cable lose in the engine collet I can spin the prop with my fingers and it will continue to spin for several seconds. Even though it takes a lot of work to get the drive system like this and a lot of maintenance to keep it like this I believe it adds speed. 

Drive line drag in the water is not really much of a factor since the stuffing box and strut will be completely above the water when the boat is running fast. To minimize the drag during launch, turning and other slow speed running, I make sure the joint between the strut and stuffing box is very smooth and blended and that the entire drive line is polished. 

Intlwaters) Wow you really are taking this to the extreme! Do you have any ideas on things that can be done with a heat racing boat to reduce driveline drag, or will this not make that big of a difference in heat racing?

Glenn Quarles) Well, I'm not sure if I would call it "to the extreme", but like I said earlier, my goal with my SAW stuff is to go fast and I actually enjoy all the hours of work it takes to make it happen. yes there are a lot of things that can be done to help a heat racing boat. I don't run the ball bearings is my heat boats and don't recommend them to anyone else...remember, to do good at heat racing you need that consistency that I talked about purposely giving up for SAW and this setup only works for a few passes before the oil is gone and the cable starts dragging. The biggest recommendation I can make is to make sure there are no sudden increases in diameters in the drive line...the stuffing box tube should flow smoothly into the strut, the strut should lead smoothly into the drive dog, and the drive dog should flow smoothly into the hub of the prop. As you run your fingers down the drive line if you can feel any edges you should try to get rid of them...they will cause drag in the water (they may actually be above the water at full speed, but will hurt acceleration from slow speeds). 

Another BIG way to get rid of drag is to make sure the cable enters the CENTER of the stuffing box tube up at the motor end and that there are NO extra bends in the stuffing box getting to the strut. When I build a boat I always make sure the angle of the motor mount lines up EXACTLY with the angle of the straight part of the stuffing box (the stuffing box should not have any bends in it before it leaves the bottom of the tub) and should only have a gentle bend in it between the bottom of the boat and where it enters the strut. I NEVER put an "S" bend in a stuffing box...they really increase the drag of the cable on the inside of the tube as it makes the bends. 

No matter how careful you are when you build a boat, it is almost impossible to make the cable line up to enter the center of the stuffing box tube every time. What I do is to use small pieces of head shim stock that I put between the engine mounting lugs and the mount to shim the motor/cable into perfect alignment with the stuffing box. You may find that different shims are required for different motors. 

Another thing to take a look at are the bearings/bushings you use in the strut. I like to run two lead teflon bushings with a short spacer to spread them out a little. I like this set up because I only have 3/4 inch of contact surface (drag). You may also be able to play with the kind of cable grease you use to cut down a little drag. I use water proof wheel bearing grease mixed with STP or slick 50 or something like that to thin it out some. 

Intlwaters) Here is a question where your answer may benefit a lot of boaters. When you have your boat out on the water, and it's at speed, what are you looking for to see that it is running correctly?

Glenn Quarles) When I'm testing a boat I look for water coming off the boat and the rooster tail. I don't like to see any water coming off the sides of the front sponsons, I like to see space under the rear sponsons (I set mine up where they only touch at slow speeds and in the turns...about a 1/4 inch above the bottom of the strut for a .21 boat), the spray off of the rudder should be minimum and should stay very low. If you see spray coming off anywhere else you may be able to fix it and gain some speed. 

The shape of the rooster tail also tells me how effectively I'm using my horsepower. A good rooster tail should be very low and solid. If yours is real high and choppy you may be "beating" the water more than "pushing" it...you may want to play with props to find something that does better at using your motor to push the boat instead of splashing water high into the air. 

Intlwaters) What is your goal for this year? Do you have a certain speed you would like to achieve? 

Glenn Quarles) Tom, to tell you the truth I haven't even run boats more than a couple of times since I set the last .21 SAW record back in 98. Just after that time trials in Huntsville I got stationed here at Randolph AFB just outside San Antonio TX. Between the move, and the kids getting to the ages where I have a lot of stuff (sports, homework, etc.) to do with them I have not had time to run boats. Even though my desire to stay hot and heavy into boating is still there, the time isn't. Since I have had my boat over 100 mph in practice, a natural goal would be to make an official pass over 100 and then to get a two way average over 100. I don't see this happening anytime in the near future and I know there are some really good boaters working for the same goal and may be there soon. That is a cool part about setting records, it always seems to push folks to find out how to go faster.

Intlwaters) Well I can see how moving can mess with your plans, as I have recently moved myself. As for kids... my wife Jamie is pregnant with our first r/c boater... oops I mean boy (her due date was yesterday). I wanted to ask a little about your engines. You said that Bill McGraw was working with you in this respect. How much modification is done to the engines you are using?

Glenn Quarles) Actually Bill doesn't have to do a whole lot to make an engine run fast. He changes the head button a little, make very small changes to the sleeve and crank timing and just makes sure it has a good fit. As you know these Nova Rossi's have a great reputation and I completely agree. I had run this engine in my SAW boat for over a year (that's a LOT of testing) before I set the record and have not replaced ANYTHING in it. Every .21 record I have set has been with a NR and most of them have been completely stock. I am running a carb that Rod Geraghty made for me and it works great...it is not real big (.343), but the motor sure likes it!

Intlwaters) Yes there is little doubt for most people that Nova Rossi's are the current king in the .21 class. I sure got beat by a lot of them when I was running my OS. Going back to drive line drag, have you ever tried a .150 flex shaft? I would think it would be significantly less weight. I hear that a .187 can go all the way up to 60 boat. Surely a .150 could work in a 20 rigger, even for heat racing. What do you think?

Glenn Quarles) I never used a .150 cable. Getting the horsepower to the prop was one area where I didn't try to shave weight...I like to keep the entire drive train as solid as possible. That's why I use solid hard wood mounts with a 1/4 inch aluminum plate, a good solid transom, and plenty of fiberglass around the stuffing box. I don't think a .150 cable would stand up the size props and the RPM I was running anyway and I would hate to lose my best prop just because the cable broke. 

I wouldn't use one for heat racing either. This gets back into the area of a potential performance gain VS consistency. I'm not sure if you would get less drag/more performance using a .150, but I'm pretty sure you would stand a good chance at breaking a cable more often. If a person thought they could gain from using a smaller cable and didn't mind the little extra maintenance required then I would say try it. Trying things other people said would not work or hadn't thought of is how I have been able to be successful...if everybody does things the same way, everybody gets the same results!

Intlwaters) Trying things other people say wont work, or that is different.... that's me! As a lot of people know I am trying out an RB Concept C4 r/c car engine, from www.rbproducts.com . I have been told by a lot of people it wont work... but well see, maybe there right!

I have been told that your current boat is VERY small as well as light. What is its overall length, width?

Glenn Quarles) Yes my SAW boats are just big enough to handle the power. The tub is about 24 inches long and about 2 inches wide at the biggest point. The sponsons are maybe 10 or 12 inches long and about 14 inches apart. Like I said before, even at 2 lbs it has just enough volume to float. It has taken me a lot of work to be able to get a boat this size to work at the speed it runs, but it has been a fun challenge.

Intlwaters) You said your tub is 2 inches at it's widest point. What kind of shape is your tub?

One of the biggest problems with getting a very light boat to stay on the water at high speeds is getting rid of the right amount of lift to keep it from blowing over. Over the years I have played with many ideas, and in fact I reached the point where I had gotten rid of too much lift. One of the first changes I made to the shape of the tub was to make it narrower at the front to get rid of lifting area, this seems to work good and over the years I experimented, even going to the point where the tub came almost to a point in the front and did come to a point at the rear. I also came up with the idea of making the front part of the tub (from about where the motor sits to the nose) V bottomed to keep the lift from building up. This worked pretty good too. For my current boat I decided that I needed a little more lift so I left the bottom of the tub flat , but still tapered it to the front and back from the widest point where the engine sits. This boat does not have a lot of taper in the back so the transom is almost two inches wide also. 
Tom, if you don't mind I would like to pass on another one of my opinions. I don't really like saying things like "I came up with the idea to..." because I believe there is really nothing new that any of us are doing in the hobby today. A lot of really smart folks have been running model boats for a lot of years (look at the performance the tether boat guys were getting years ago) and probably used some of the ideas we think are "new" today. I guess what I'm saying is that even though I have never seen or heard about some of the things I have done, I don't really think that "I'm the guy that came up with it". I think it is really cool when boaters put ideas together in ways we don't see often, but I don't think we can say that we have really "invented" that much stuff brand new. 

Intlwaters) I would agree with that. The only thing that is really new are some high tech materials, but even then they are used for the same things. Not new ideas, just new materials. Before the last question I would like to thank Glenn Quarles for spending the time to do this interview with me. I think it went very well and provided some great insight as to what kind of effort it takes to make a world record. When the time is available again Glenn, be sure you get to my clubs annual record trial in Yorkville so I can meet you in person. Here is the standard last question. Peer into your crystal ball and predict where this hobby/sport is going.  What is going to be the next big thing?  What technology should we be on the lookout for?

Glenn Quarles) Since I haven't been too active for the last year and a half I think my crystal ball may be a bit foggy. I see the gas stuff getting a lot of interest over the last couple of years and it seems to have a good following. Years ago I saw Jim Augeston set the APBA gas record at something over 65 mph and I know folks are running faster than that now so I expect the speeds to keep increasing. For the nitro stuff I see fewer folks messing with it for a few years and then I think the numbers will build back up some. There will be more boaters going fast as we share information, but fewer boaters trying for records as they get harder to get (another Glenn prediction...EVERY record that stands right now will be broken and in a few years most of them will be held by boaters who do not currently have any records...SO to you new guys, KEEP TRYING!). Unless we take some actions to make it easy to get people racing with out having to spend the big bucks on equipment, we are going to continue to lose numbers. My opinion on what to do...SOMETHING...ANYTHING. Don't wait to get the whole boating community to agree on the one best solution (that will take forever), but do what ever you can in your local area! Make it EASY and FUN to go to the boat pond and run boats with somebody else. Oh yea, be nice to the new guys (that was us a few years ago). 

Tom, thank you for giving me the opportunity to pass on some of my ideas and opinions. Out of the hundred ways to get the job done, maybe I gave someone some help they can use. Feel free to contact me any time...I will be happy to help all I can. 

Thanks, 
Glenn