I’d heard a lot about this subject as a beginner. It must happen a lot !

As you may have seen on the website yesterday, during the Marblehead Rankings Nigel B lost radio contact with his F6.

It turned out to be “damp in the electrics”. We had only one discard in the day, so it was really important for Nigel to diagnose and fix it quickly. This is what he did (very rapidly!):-

1/ Boat on to the stand, pot lid off, and quickly verify power in the boat and especially at the receiver because the receiver’s LED was glowing green. Waggle the two joy-sticks to determine what was working and what was not working.

2/ Sure enough, for Nigel the rudder was not responding, but the mainsheet was OK. Conclusion = not a complete closedown and there is power in the boat. Good news.

3/ LED was green so that tells you it’s in the rudder setup somewhere. Where to look next?

4/ Statistical guess : rudder servos don’t fail all that often, so the connection where the rudder circuit joins the Receiver is number one suspect. Pull out the connector to channel one and have a close visual inspection which revealed the wicked glint of moisture.

5/ I’d heard about a product called “Corrosion X” before, but not seen it in action. It looks like WD40, may be a bit thicker perhaps. It is supposed to do all the WD40 type things plus be the best water dispersant and repellant that money can buy,… safe on electronics especially. Anyway, out comes Nigel’s Corrosion X aerosol from the van, …squirt squirt…. deep into the connectors of the receiver… right “in” there….I must say Nigel was not afraid to be generous. Then a good blow to help the excess away. I don’t think it needed a moment to dry or anything like that.

6/ Plug the rudder circuit back into the receiver, checking the plug is the correct way around (!!), instant fix !! Waggle joysticks and “job done”!!

7/ Pot lid on – go racing !!!

Lessons :-

a) I think GH uses Corrosion X as a regular setup tool (not just a “fix”) on the electrics. Interesting.

b) someone in the car park probably has a can of Corrosion X, but I resolved to get a 250ml can from Amazon and keep it in the car….. WRONG!!

This photo above is the smallest, cheapest Corrosion X unit on Amazon. Obviously to all of us, 250ml will last a radio sailor several lifetimes. However… I made a mistake because that trigger on the can is NOT an atomiser. Squeeze the trigger and there’s only one adjustment size…. A thick rod of lubricant shoots out – honestly one squirt would make an entire Chieftain Tank very slippery !!

You actually want the smallest aerosol can that you can find online. (see Nigel’s in the top photo). Eventually I had to go to the manufacturers own (UK) website and order it there. 475ml was the smallest aerosol …so two friends can share one, each for a lifetime. Shipment from amazon is free of course, but CorrosionX use Fedex so your total price is bumped up a lot. 475ml was though near the same price as 250ml with the trigger on top, so keep a sense of humour and sense of proportion about the whole thing!!

If you know anyone with a Chieftain Tank, let them know I have something for them….