Although I have built and flown R/C airplanes for more than 20 years, I've never really been into R/C boats. In fact, this is the only boat that I've ever owned!! Our flying field is situated on a beautiful 20 acre lake, and occasionally a big group of the boat guys show up and its usually quite a party. The speed boats are a blast to watch, but I've always chose to be a spectator.
Somehow how or other the idea came up of a boat powered by a trolling motor. I ran across something similar on ebay, although rather crude, I was fascinated by the concept. Being an avid fisherman, I had access to several trolling motors to experiment with. After kicking it around for a while I settled on a older Shakespeare 606 wondertroll. Its a smaller motor, but has plenty of power. This was a motor that we used to fish with! It would easily move a small jonboat with two guys and all our necessary gear. Seemed like plenty of power. This was my starting point.
My original idea was to build a really big freakin' boat that was near indestructible, low on maintenance, and fun!!....something to throw in the water that just about anybody could drive.
After a couple quick sketches, I had my plan......a quick and easy project, not scale by any means, but a neat project nonetheless........of course it didn't go like that at all.......
The whole boat was designed around the motor. A simple vertical firewall on the bottom half of the hull. After I had the basic framework roughed out, it seemed there was room for a second motor!!!...I was against the idea at first, I was really trying to keep it simple. But after some thought I decided what the hell....I new where an identical motor was at, might as well go for it!
This is where it went from being simple to being a long term project. As it began to take shape, I just finally gave in and decided to let it be whatever it turns out to be. Its not a scale effort by any means, and that was never my intention. After doing lots of research on battleships in general, I came to the conclusion that none of the damn things are the same anyway, maybe the same class, but everyone of them are fitted different. So in the end I just decided to pick and choose whatever I liked from any type of ship. I'm quite happy with the end result, its different for sure. Only recently did I come across the original sketch that I made, and I was suprised how close they were.
So as construction progressed, I came to realize that its probably going to need its own trailer. Just moving it around my house became an ordeal. The final weight of the boat ready to float is going to be an easy 200 lbs. and probably more, so its going to have to load itself on and off the trailer in the water. Overall dimensions of the boat and trailer are approx. 7' long by 40" tall.
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The trailer itself was almost as much of a project as the boat!!...I'll eventually post construction notes on both, the boat and trailer. I'm hoping for a maiden voyage this summer...bonvoyageee...or Bonjourno....or whatever they say??
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