Ol' Sea Dog challenge!

[Sharkman Briton]

I have a challenge for ye landlubbers! Get on ye boats and sail to ye south pole n back, aye?

Basically, starting from the water at the end of the runway, sail a boat all the way to the south pole and back, it doesn't have to be the exact south pole, just to the ice caps biome and back to KSC, heres the rules:

1: You must not go on land: This is pretty self-explanatory, so don't go on land, except when you launch your vessel, skimming the land is okay, but going properly on it like a rover isn't, it is fine to beach yourself on the land, as long as you get off of it and are back on your way in the sea.

2: You must not go into the air: This, too, except for getting into the water, which you should be using hyperedit for, theres obvious exceptions like getting a bit of air and stuff, this rule generally means no flying, getting a some air is okay, properly flying is not.

3: You must take screenshots: Take a screenshot at your departure, a few during your trip, one at the Ice cap, a few during the way back, and one back at KSC. But take as many screenshots as is necessary, document every cool event during your journey!

4: You must come back to KSC: Enough said.

Allowed mods: Better Buoyancy (pretty much required) Hyperedit (for getting into the water) Fengists shipyard/maritime pack.

Tips: Structural Fuselages are a godsend, use these to keep your vessel afloat! Wheesleys and a good amount of LF fuselages are the best option for moving. Use control surfaces at the sides of the surface of the vessel, if you angle them a bit they look like the sides of a real boat, and they are very good for manouvring. Airbrakes are useful, as they help your craft turn and stop in an emergency situation.

So lets do that again, shall we? Make your ship, hyperedit it into the water (ship lander > load > KSC (wet) or something like that.) sail to the southern ice caps, sail back to KSC, take screenshots along the way. Profit.

Lets see what you all can do!

Example boat, it can turn without moving! Although for the full expedition you will need more LF, this is just a draft of what a good ship looks like.

Have fun!

[Stoney3K]

I hope you know it is gonna take ages to sail from the KSC to the south pole and back, right?

Hours of boringly watching your boat move in one direction over open sea, with full throttle and SAS engaged. I don't particularly find that a challenge more than sailing anywhere nearby, like the island with the runway on it.

Also, why Hyperedit? Constructing a proper boat launcher (or even an amphibious vehicle) with nothing but stock could be a rewarding bonus challenge in itself.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Stoney3K

[MERTI]

I haved a Little incident:

[BlueCanary]

Time to try and keep my boat from exploding for long enough to get anywhere

[xendelaar]

I'm curious if i can design a proper vessel with stock parts only. I'm going to try this challange tonight. Nice idea!

[The_Rocketeer]

I had a go at this today, 100% stock. The Polar Aurora had 4180 LF and 2 Whiplash engines for power. From departure it was cruising nicely at about 115 m/s on full throttle, 4x physwarp, about 2 game-hours in. Draining fuel mass was allowing my speed to creep up ever high, eventually up to 140+ m/s. Then with no warning the ship despawned and all that was left was a few radial intakes bouncing away - maybe I hit a surface seam, or possibly the weight/speed hit a critical threshold and caused a 'surface collision'? Anyway, even so I still wouldn't have got half way to the polar ice with that fuel allowance. I figure I could double the fuel without losing too much velocity, but the part count climbs crazy and the chance of what happened last time happening again goes up with every joint.

Here's my boat anyway:

[Sharkman Briton]

Really like the boat, Wheesleys are the best for boats IMO, and you can still get good speed with them, and to save on part count a bit use Structural Fuselages instead of radial intakes.

[xendelaar]

My current design has a top speed of 34 m/s... It would take me 11 hours to get to the south pole with that thing. Seeing Rocketeers vessel I figure I'm doing something wrong. Back to the drawing board i guess...

BTW. Rocketeer, I really like your design