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1.1 Servos
(By Bill Pickl)
The key here is the word resistant. The best way to date to make a servo so it can operate in relatively shallow depths of water is to cover all seams, wire outlets, and screw heads with plumber's goop. This stuff is tear resistant, very adhesive, and fairly flexible. Add a ¼" i.d. rubber o-ring coated in grease between the servo horn and the servo and you will have a servo that should stay dry in normal combat operation. If you ship sinks you will need to open the servo up because any water that gets forced inside will be trapped in the servo and will eventually cause the servo to fail. A method invented by Gene Wisner, but to date untested would take this method one step further and add two 10/32 barbed fittings on opposite sides of the servo cases and daisy chaining them together with 1/16" id tubing and pressurizing them at around 10 psi. This would have two benefits. First it would provide counter-pressure in case of a sink in deep water so that water is not forced into the servo. Second if they are all daisy chained together you can open a cap on the last one in-line and run clean dry air or CO2 through the servos to ensure they are dry inside without having to remove or open a single servo. Of course I would not recommend adding any tubing to servos used for cannon elevation as that's just more stuff to get caught in the rotating parts.
Some skippers prefer to drill holes in their servos so they can quickly flush the servos with WD-40 after a sinking. The caution here is that if the servo sits low in the hull it will fail as the water rises in your sinking ship perhaps disabling a key system long before the ship goes down. Also a lot of water gets splashed around inside the boat from pump sprays etc. and open servos can get wet and fail before the ship gets into trouble.
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