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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Super Sea Hawk, June 5, 2003
Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars
The Sea Hawk is one of several current radio controlled boat offerings from Nikko. I purchased this one for my 12 yr old Nephew and he really enjoyed it. The Boat is about 1/8 of a knot slower than My Nikko Fireboat which made for pretty close racing in the pool. The Sea Hawk might pick up speed with a premium set of the 6 AA batteries it requires as we were running "super saver" walgreens ultra alkaline batteries. It's a bit of a bummer that the Boat does not accept the popular 9.6v recharge pack like allot of the other Nikko Boats currently offered. My Nephew learned how to "ride" the currents from the water jets in the pool to gain speed and change directions. Within a short time he could perform docking manuevers like a pro. The Boats gearbox is very quiet compared to the Fireboat and almost sounds like a real boat as it moves along at about 2-1/2 knots. Very stable steering, doesn't rock allot in the water like the taller Fireboat does and also stops faster than the fireboat when reverse is engaged. The Sea Hawk also steers pretty well in reverse. The boat had a steering problem right out of the box which required removal of the upper deck to gain access to the steering mechanism which only needed a shot of WD-40 to get it to work smoothly and stop sticking on left turns. Steering seems to be a consistant problem with both of the Nikko Boats I have purchased recently but once lubed it worked perfectly. Perhaps I should have given only 4 stars for durability but it's really more of a quality control issue than durability as the boat continued to work flawlessly after being lubed. If your boat exhibits this problem and you decide to remove the deck just be careful of the wires that are soldered to the on-off switch as they are easily broke loose from the solder if you yank the deck off to fast. The Deck fits tightly to the hull. The shaft seal on this boat looks like an improvement over the much older design of the Fireboat and the boat did not take on one drop of water in nearly 45 minutes of run time on the same walgreens batteries. For someone who is going to use this boat allot, an investment into a set of rechargeable AA batteries would be worthwhile. Keep in mind though that 6 rechargeable AA batteries and the required charger will cost more than the 9.6v pack and charger used on some of the slightly more expensive offerings from Nikko which with the cost of rechargeable batteries considered would put this boat closer to the same price catergory as some of the larger ones like the Nikko Starfire. This boat is an excellent value for the money and proves that Nikko has a well engineered RC boat for nearly every price range.
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