BEHIND THE WHEEL

The Barbwire 2 comes nicely packaged in Styrofoam in the box (which I recommend keeping to pack your boat in after you’re done running it). After cracking open the box, I charged the included 1300mah Lipo battery that carries a 75C rating, which should provide nice acceleration off the line. Unlike a car review where I do my shakedown turns out on the street by my house, I had to wait until I got to the water for my first runs. The 17-inch hull is compact, so it was pretty hassle-free when it came to transporting it to my test location, the San Diego Model Boat Pond in the Pacific Beach area of San Diego, California. I’m still a beginner to boating, but getting the Barbwire 2 ready for the water was pretty straightforward: Just plug in the battery and go. Conditions at the pond were perfect, with calm water that was glass smooth. The first task on my list was to make sure that steering formed the same-size turn to the left and right. This was easy to do using the steering EPA control on the top of the radio. Once the boat was tracking straight, I set off to have some fun on the water. The first thing I noticed was how well the steering responded to input from the radio. “Turning on a dime” seemed like an understatement, and the responsiveness only got greater the more speed I gained. In a straight line, the Barbwire 2 accelerated like a rocket, getting to its top speed in a short amount of time while shooting up a huge water roost that is guaranteed to make you smile from ear to ear. So how close did the Barbwire 2 get to its claimed 30mph top speed? I threw in my trusty GPS unit to find out. I left it in there for an entire battery, which gave me an average run time of nine minutes, and ran the whole length of the pond multiple times. The best I could get was 28mph, and that was good enough for me. I’m not sure an extra 2mph would have increased the level of fun I was already having. After running the Barbwire 2 a dozen times, I was surprised how little water made its way inside the hull and on the electronics. Just to be on the safe side, though, I do recommend wrapping the radio’s receiver inside a balloon to fully waterproof it.