At Newton Marine, the shop is busy getting ready for the season.

David is currently reorganizing his tool boxes and getting Ryan Opfer’s old Pay ’n Save back together.

When those projects are done, Newton will continue his work to get the Red Dot and the Miss Budweiser ready for the modern season.

John Earnest has also been hired to build a brand new Hawaii Kai III as Newton's primary vintage boat for the season.

Never mind that he has also taken on the organization of the Roger Newton Memorial RC Boat Show coming up on February 18 at the Hydroplane & Raceboat Museum.

Just a few projects to work on … and like many of us, Newton is looking forward to racing this year.

Like many of the rest of us, Bill Mowatt's shop sounds like a bit of a beehive with all of its activity.

As we all get ready for the Roger Newton Memorial RC Boat Show at the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum this coming February 18, Mowatt has several projects in the works.

First, he made some changes on his 1968 checkerboard Bardahl in 1/10 scale, the real boat having been driven by Billy Schumacher in 1968. Mowatt added some structure in the bottom to try an alleviate the flexing which makes the boat unstable in the straightaway causing it to lift and flip over.

He also started work on his first scratch build the 1/7 scale checkerboard Miss Bardahl. This is a Russ Nachtweih hull design. Bill gives loads of thanks to Mike Hughes for all of the help on his build. Mowatt is also grateful to Craig Mullen for giving up the registration for the 1/7 Bardahl. And Mike McIntosh for laying up the cowl.

So if Bill wasn't busy enough Len Taylor has let him purchase the 1/10 modern hull being built by Craig Bradshaw. This will be the 2007 Beacon Plumbing. All three boats Bill will be running in 2023 will have a checkerboard design, and he's plenty excited about it.

Founded by Roger & David Newton, Rick Lentz, Ron Daum, Bob Van den Akker, Monte Steere and numerous others, ERCU was born in 2003, following a successful model long before established by RC Unlimiteds.

But the club itself still isn't old enough to go out for post race beers.

This season, we celebrate our 20th season of racing as we've begun to re-emerge as the region's largest fast electric scale hydroplane racing club, with more than 100 boats registered to race in the 2023 season. To celebrate, and to recognize those who established the club, who built the club and who sustained the club over the years, we will find ways to celebrate and recognize the first two decades of the club's illustrious history. Stay tuned to our website, our social media and please make sure to attend our events this year.

ERCU was formed by folks who enjoy building and racing models of some of the truly great, and even some of the not-so-great unlimited class hydroplanes from the past and present. Who knew that 20 years later, the whole world would be electrifying everything from their homes to their cars.

With the blessing of RC Unlimiteds, which supported the startup new club, Roger Newton led the founding of the club during an organizational meeting at the Northwest RC Model Show at the Washington State Fairgrounds in Puyallup. That was February 2003. By that spring, there were enough members, and enough race sites - including the waterfall pond at Bellevue Downtown Park - to conduct the first racing season with just a handful of 1/10 scale FE boats.

With know-how, energy and a lot of hard work by the founding members of the club, and later by Jeff & Mike Campbell, it wasn't long before the number of boats grew significantly, and motor and battery technology quickly changed and evolved to something that kicked off the modern era of 1/10-scale RC racing.

While the club continues to be very strong, and is still growing, there is always room to learn and to improve. We'll see what's to come in the 20th season of ERCU racing. Should be fun.

The second of our three ERCU Winter Meetings is set for Saturday, Jan. 14 at 10 a.m., via Zoom.

This will be the third meeting of the 2022-23 club Board of Directors, with an agenda of items that provide updates on what the board is working on this winter. If you're interested in participating, all members, past members and future members - as well as other interested parties - are welcome to attend.

There's also time on the agenda for a "shop talk" update where members can bench race and swap stories of what's going on in each of our own shops, too.

To attend the meeting, click the link below and follow the meeting ID and passcode instructions.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8464189312?pwd=dTZNdDFXSmozZTBTN0xMVHBkc0I1Zz09
Meeting ID: 846 418 9312
Passcode: ERCU2022

The agenda for this month's meeting can be found by clicking here.

Our next winter meeting will be Saturday, March 11, also on Zoom.

Within the first week of the year, it is impressive that ERCU members have registered a total of 100 boats for the upcoming 2023 racing season.

With still as many as another dozen boats that haven't yet been renewed from the 2022 season, the grand total of registered boats this year will easily exceed 100.

The 1/10 scale division of ERCU remains the most popular as we enter our 20th season of racing, with 28 vintage, 25 classic and 20 moderns registered for the upcoming season. The 1/7 scale division - entering its second year as an official division of ERCU - has 27 boats currently registered. Vintage seems to be the most popular class in 1/7 as well, with 15 boat registrations. Classic has seven registered boats and modern has five.

While registration protections were lifted on January 2, owners still have the opportunity to re-register their own boats, but all eligible hulls are now open for registration on a first-come-first-served basis.

The next ERCU Winter Meeting has been scheduled and will be held remotely, via Zoom, on Saturday, Jan. 14 at 10 a.m.

This will be a regular meeting of the 2022-23 club Board of Directors, but it will also be an opportunity for all current, past and future members to come together during the offseason and talk a little bit about the club and it's progress. If you've got questions, please attend and ask them. If you have comments and/or ideas, attend. Everyone would love to hear from you.

To attend the meeting, click the link below and follow the meeting ID and passcode instructions.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8464189312?pwd=dTZNdDFXSmozZTBTN0xMVHBkc0I1Zz09
Meeting ID: 846 418 9312
Passcode: ERCU2022

The agenda for this month's meeting will be posted soon.

Our next Winter Meeting will be Saturday, March 11, also on Zoom.