Posted by:
Mike Clark (---.winn.dial.virgin.net)
Henry are you in the UK?
There are a couple of very out of date books about flash steam dating from the 1970’s but now reprinted and available from Tee Publishing www.teepublishing.com.
These are:- Flash Steam by Edgar T Westbury, and Experimental Flash steam by JH Benson and AA Rayman. These will give you the basics but things have moved on a lot since then.
The expert in this country is Phil Abbot who is the person I mentioned at the start of this thread. He gave a good talk at the International Model Boat Show in the midlands in October. I don’t have a contact address for him but he is a member of the Blackheath Model Boat Club.
The main place where steam hydroplane racing, both tethered and free, goes on seems to be Kingsbury Water Park which is near Tamworth. [
www.kwpmbc.co.uk]
The current engines have a poppet type inlet valve with uniflo exhaust and do expand steam - however economy is not their aim - just speed.
Mike