SUBFEST 2021 - Could it get any better!?

I'm not entirely sure what I did to warrant such epic weather for SUBFEST now for the second year in a row, but I need to figure it out and keep it up. For all three days of the event, the sun was shining, and temperatures hovered in the mid seventies (let's call it 20C for our metric friends).

Now that I'm back in Florida for a few days to pack up the Nautilus Drydocks shop in preparation for shipping everything to its new home in Texas, I finally have reliable internet and a proper computer that allows me to sit down for a few minutes and summarize the event for everyone who was unable to attend.

I do want to preface things by saying that I am somewhat, let's say "perturbed" at United Airlines for rejecting my dog Gracie to come with me. Despite the fact that we've flown with her for the last two and a half years in the same kennel, and as recently as the week before the event with the same airline, they decided at that point that the kennel was inadequate and that she could not board. This caused a massive furor as I had to get my wife, Renee, to drop what she was doing and Uber 40 minutes to the airport to pick up Gracie and let me board. We made it happen, but Gracie, who was such a fixture at the event last year, was not able to join us.

Thursday night saw a few of the early-comers arrive and scope out the venue in the late afternoon. Due to cooler than normal temperatures, and the lack of swimmers for the weeks preceding, the water at the Red Clay Resort was even more crystal clear than last year. Video taken later at the event showed that visibility underwater was far in excess of forty feet, and the bottom was clearly visible from anywhere on shore. Excitement started to build for the coming days.

At 6:00pm, a small group of we early attendees showed up to the Anejo Grill for a pre-event dinner. There were about eight of us that came and enjoyed some great Mexican food and a few gargantuan-sized mugs of beer. Well, truth be told, most people enjoyed a far more reasonable serving of brew than I did, but I was still grumpy about Gracie and chose to drink an extra portion in her honor.

Friday morning dawned cool, crisp and sunny. The thermometer in my rental car showed a balmy 43F on the way to the resort (6C). Fortunately, as we set up the registration table, course and other event necessities, the temperature rapidly climbed to a wonderful 73F (22C).

The resort thoughtfully supplied hot coffee and opened up the concessions for lunch, saving us all the hassle of having to leave the site to scrounge food.

Most of the day was set aside for open running and camaraderie with no real scheduled events. Most boats hit the water at least once, and general RC sub banter and discussions filled the day as we lounged by the pond-side, enjoying the cold, clear water and warm, sunny shores.

The day culminated with Darrell's famous low-country boil right at the event venue. Healthy portions of sausage, shrimp, potato and onion was a perfect way to wrap up the day and enjoy each other's company as the sun set and the temperatures dropped back down into the realm of “nippy”.

A few brave souls stayed right on site, including the illustrious David Merriman, who camped out in the back of his minivan, doggedly safeguarding our armada of submarines, which we left out to collect dew overnight under the protective roof of the convenient covered, lit and powered shelters.

Saturday dawned about 5 degrees warmer than the preceding day, morning mist quickly burning off in the warm sunlight. The resort treated us to more hot coffee and a wide selection of local pastries available for purchase. While not a person with any sort of sweet tooth, I nonetheless found myself taking advantage of the treats.

After a quick skipper's meeting, the pond opened up for running. Once our skippers got a feel for the water, we began our navigation course challenge, which involved navigating through a course of floating buoys in both surfaced and submerged trim. Penalties were assessed for missed buoys, improper submerged state, and collisions with objects or the pond bottom. Jeff took a stab at it twice as the freshly minted skipper of his newly acquired LA Class boat, but was unable to unseat Nathan Hodges who ran the course with his bulletproof ThunderTiger Neptune. It was, however, finally Tom Chalfant who, with little drama, threaded his way through the course with his beautifully trimmed Walrus, and he took first place overall in the event.

The second competition was the Conning Challenge, which involved the helmsman standing with his back to the water and the CO of the boat issuing orders to navigate the boat through a truncated version of the same navigation course. Apparently not a lot of skippers were excited at the prospect of allowing someone else to take responsibility for their boat, as it was only me and one somewhat hesitant attendee (with no RC submarine experience) who challenged the course. Surprisingly, the run went remarkably well, at least from my perspective. While it’s entirely possible my boat ended up touring the far side of the pond and back again without my knowledge, the big takeaway was that we passed every marker and didn’t hit anything (that they told me about). I’ll say that I won the event by default, but look forward to next year when I want to see more skippers take up the challenge.

It was about this time that the crew from Citadel Creative showed up with their cameras and drone. I elected to invest in professional videography for this year's event, and I was not disappointed. Kyle and his crew did an amazing job at filming the event from the ground and the air, and also conducted a big handful of really fascinating interviews with attendees where they got to talk about their boats, their history in the hobby, their reasons for attending, and more. At the end of the day, they are going to hand over all that raw footage for me to edit down to something digestible and make available for viewing for everyone not able to attend.

The last competition of the day was the Great RC Submarine Race. We had about a half dozen competitors with boats ranging from a pair of 1/50 Upholders to a big Delta IV, a Japanese midget sub, an LA Class and the ever-present Neptune. At the end of the sprint, it was the Nautilus Drydocks Upholder with shop manager, Jason Butterfield, at the helm that took first prize, though David Merriman’s midget boat with Casey Thrower at the helm was very close behind.

At around 1pm or so, we all sat down and ran our annual Q&A. There was some great dialogue about the technical side of building boats, but also some much higher-level discussions about the future of the hobby, growing membership and resources available to those who don’t have access to adequate room, tools or facilities to build a boat at home. The entire thing was filmed and will form part of the video that will be available later.

As the day began to wind up, we conducted our event raffle. Prizes were donated by some of the amazing vendors and supporters of the hobby. A few last-minute additions loaded up two table’s worth of prizes. In all, there was nearly $4000 in giveaways that were handed out. The big winners ended up being Bob Eissler, Nathan Hodges and Matthew Homeier, who were each drawn multiple times. Winners who purchased tickets through donation and who were unable to attend have already been notified. If you haven’t heard from me, you didn’t win (sorry!...)

The last scheduled event was the Skipper’s Choice Awards. Attendees voted for their favorite boats in three categories: Engineering, Scale Looks, and Performance. At the end of the day, Steve Hodges swept two of the categories, though in effect it was all three, as Jeff’s LA was actually originally built by him as well, and that boat won the Performance Award.

Wrapping up the day’s activities was good old-fashioned barbeque, once again thanks to Darrell. We were treated to ribeye steaks, baked potatoes and salad. It was a great way to end the day and pass the time until the sun set and we opened up the pond for the Night Run.

At around 8pm and after the sun set in breathtaking fashion, we began dropping boats in the water, most being equipped with onboard LED lighting, but many taking to the water with glow sticks rubber-banded to the hull. It made for a really awesome sight to see all of those boats patrolling the waters in the blackness, pursued by the floodlights of the videographer’s drone as he hunted down the boats for some more excellent footage to add to the video.

Sunday was very relaxed and completely unscripted. More open water time, handshakes and farewells. As an unexpected surprise, David Ruiz showed up out of the blue after putting in two solid days of driving going from Pennsylvania to Florida, back again, and then down to SUBFEST in time for the last few hours of the event. I’d call that dedication, but it could be considered bordering on insanity (but the very best kind and one that we’re grateful he’s subject to). David is the owner of the beautiful Engel Type IX that Steve built and won best scale model Skipper’s Choice Award form.

Most people took off at around 10am, but a few hung around and dropped their boats in the water for a last run before heading out.

While I have to say that I felt more unprepared for this event than last year’s, thanks to my hasty and prolonged move in the weeks leading up to the event, SUBFEST nonetheless felt like a great success. I am very much looking forward to next year, taking everything we learned, adding some more technology, perhaps a full event livestream, and much more.

Thanks to everyone that helped out, donated and attended. It was through your support that this was, once again, the premier RC submarine event in the world. See y’all next year! Bob Martin

The RCSubGuy Owner - the Nautilus Drydocks, LLC