Built out of house guttering to a scale equivalent to model railways HO the layout is approx. 4 x 3 ft. Mounted in a wooden frame and provided with a protective see through cover it fits into the car and can go anywhere. it has been an on-going project to build RC boats to suit. Those used at present are commercial products (loa 5" (125mm)) with simple two channel two prop drives - not proportional but with forward and reverse and by operating one or both props plus reverse steering is OK. Battery life limited to 6-8 minutes with similar recharge time. Built largely from scrap and odds and ends the project cost well under £80. The idea is/was to have several units and link them together to make a large layout!

RTR minI electric speed boat with proportional 2CH RC. 280mm loa (11")

Good boat and fast. Watercooled brushed motor. Normal problem with commercial mini-boats is lack of proportional RC but this is fine. Battery life about ten minutes - low freeboard and takes on water but electrics/RC have proven resistant to regular swamping!

Thanks to all those that made suggestions about making the Suction Hoses, here are my efforts. The boat looks OK now thought there is much to do still. I am using two Johnson drill motors in paralell with one 50 amp ESC & 20A fuses in each motor + supply lead, all running on 8.4V NiMhi. the current props are 40 X 21 three blade. The boat is fast enough but battery life is short and the battery is very hot after the end of the run. I water cooled the motors and ESC. I will try some smaller props and 7,2V to see if there is an Improvement.

This is my Sea Hornet which was rescued from Ebay see photo 1. Gray (Froggyt996) recognised it as a Sea Hornet even with the hideous cabin attched which the prvious owner had made. Also see the propshaft angle in photo 1 - would this have ever worked? Gray again restored this for me, I wanted a mahogany boat which looked like an italian speedboat and this is what he did for me see photo 2. Photo 3 sees the Sea Hornet on the sea at Southsea just after the start of the Round Britain Race in 2008. The receiver battery failed and a very nice Lifeboat Man from Southsea happened to be watching me run the boat and rescued it when it stopped running. it was put in dry dock over this winter to be tidied up again after a couple of years constant use and photo 4 sees it with its 2 new screens, re-varnished and 2 new rubbing strake. it is powered by 2 Graupner Speed 600 motors, a Ripmax sea sprint watercooled speed controller and 2 x 3 blade prop shop props on 2 x light weight shafts. it is also filled with bouyancy foam it case the inevitable happens which makes it quite heavy. it is ran on 2 x 8.4 volts nicad sticks and gives me a running time of approx. 20 minutes with quite a good turn of speed.
Marie (alias Mrs Froggyt996)

first tests (after build started 30 yrs ago !) showed great speed and great handling too but short battery life on 12v set up and 700 series motor so now testing with 6v that gives less speed but much longer running.

Sea Hornet with Graupner 540 series motor also undergoing tests and both models have needed 40A ESC to handle current draw.