Several months ago now, Apo Piaggio passed me her – then – latest creation, the WALT River 400 Hop, a compact little speedboat which is ideal for exploring inland waterways – as the name suggests – and also does very well out on open waters. I’ve been meaning to review it for a while, so my apologies to Ape to only just recently getting to it.
The first thing to note about this boat is that at L$2,900, it is literally packed to the gills with features and capabilities which make it easily among some of the best small boats (and larger ones for that matter!) in Second Life.
The package comprises the boat, a trailer for moving it around on land, a neat little owner’s HUD in the form of a Smartphone and a box of accessories which includes 2 texture sets (1024 and 2048 resolution); the trailer mentioned above, an avatar adjustment tool; a “Hook” tool and script allowing the trailer to attach to a vehicle (preferably with a towing hook) and the excellent user manual.
In terms of size, the River 400 Hop really is small – small that the Bandit 170, which I reviewed back in April 2020 and thoroughly enjoy using, and under half the length of Ape’s ever-popular Little Boat power boat (reviewed in 2015). Like the latter (and the majority of Ape’s vehicle releases) comes neatly packaged in a box feature a miniature of the boat and its trailer.
Handling the boat is presented with keyboard, chat and HUD options, depending on your preference. There is also a comprehensive set of chat commands both for operating the boat and for things like lounging in the seats, setting up on-board options such as the Bimini or canvas “tent” (if out in bad weather!) or permissions for driving the boat, etc. Some of these may trigger dialogue menus in the top right of the viewer window, and the complete family of dialogues can be triggered by simply touching the sides of the boat. I’m not going to go through all of them here as there is that comprehensive user guide – so RTFM 🙂 .
The easiest way to start / stop the outboard motor is by typing “start” or “stop” in chat from the driving seat, whilst mooring can be achieved with the “moor” command – moor on that in a bit. Steering is via the Left / Right arrow keys (or A and D if you have your viewer set that way), the Up arrow key (or W) gradually increases the throttle for forward motion, the Down arrow key (or S) retards the throttle for slowing or shifts the boat into reverse. Meanwhile Page Up (or E) steps up the throttle in 50% increments or set it to neutral if moving in reverse; similarly Page Down (or C) will also set the throttle to neutral if moving in reverse, otherwise will set reverse speed to 50%.
As the boat has an outboard motor, this can be manually raised / lowered and trimmed using SHIFT-Left arrow or SHIFT-Right arrow respectively, or the boat can be set to automatically raise or lower the engine when stating / stopping, and to auto trim during operations. Again, more of this in the manual.
Overall the boat handles well – although for river cruising, I would advise against setting the throttle too high; the River 400 Hop is nippy and can pinball along rivers if you’re not careful. The boat includes a region crossing recovery system as well, easing the pain there.
There is a range of sitting poses for when moored and the seating can become bench recliners with singles and couples poses (all accessed via the dialogue menu’s Seats option), while the front seat can be adjusted by touch and the rear seat touched to reveal the fuel tank – like many of Ape’s vehicles, you have to give the River Hop a drink every so often to keep it going! A ladder for swimming on the left stern quarter can be raised / lowered.
Mooring is one of the interesting aspects of this boat. Issue the Moor command, and the appropriate dialogue will be displayed, given you various choices for mooring – which may vary depending on set-up / where you are. Again, the user guide explains all, but it’s worth mentioning the mooring buoys and side-to-side options.
- The mooring buoys allow you to effective “moor” the boat anywhere and maintain station, the boat sitting between a pair of fore-and-aft buoys.
- Side-to-side allows you to tie-up alongside other River 400 Hop boats and (in the future) other WALT boats.
There is an option to drop anchor, but this is also part of the boat’s realism functions which help lift the experience of using the boat. In essence, with the realism options available, you have to correctly position the boat in order for the anchor to work – the HUD can help with this.
These realism options allow the boat to respond to both the effects of the SL wind, such that it will drift when the engine is off or at idle (unless moored) and the wind can also affect the boat’s head as well, depending on the direction. All of these options can be toggled by the dialogue menu system, as can the boat’s rocking motion (often found in water craft). As with many of Ape’s boats, as well as periodic refuelling, the engine on the River 400 Hop should be monitored against high temperatures.
Anyone familiar with Ape’s Little Bee knows that it includes a trailer and a VW Beetle, allowing it to be carried by road. The River 400 Hop boat offers a similar capability, albeit with some differences. Firstly, there is no “winching” capability on the trailer to haul a boat out of the water and onto it using a suitable slipway. Instead, with the trailer close to water, its own menu system can he used to rez a version of the boat in-world (rezzing permissions allowing) and hide the version on the trailer, and vice versa, if taking the boat “out” of the water. Secondly, rather than having a dedicated towing vehicle, the River 400 HOP comes with an experimental tow system which can be used to hook-up the trailer to almost any vehicle. There’s even an included tow hook if your vehicle doesn’t have one!
This approach does complicate custom painting the boat if the trailer is used – the version on the trailer will need to be repainted as well if it is to match. Suggestions on how to achieve this are in the user guide. However, to get a version of your customised River Hop rezzed by the trailer, simply edit the trailer, delete the version of the boat in its contents and then drop a copy of your version into the trailer.
The trailer comes with its own comprehensive menu system for fine-tuning control when towing, toggling the light on/off etc. Whilst experimental, it is fun. The boat can also do its share of towing –the AA tube, AA Banana or Ape’s own FI Wakeboard. Again, the user guide covers this.
With a host of additional features – fender rezzing, weather cover rezzing, region crossing recovery steps (if things go wonky), a nice security suite, etc., – all typical of the care Ape puts into WALT products, the River 400 HOP is a nifty little thing and offers plenty of opportunities for fun.
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