You never know with some people!
Previous experience always helps with no matter what RC related. I bought myself an early Christmas present last year with a little heli to mess around with. Going to the LHS ot get a few nuts, bolts and washers but ended up by spending about $150.00 in all, sneaking the heli in the house. I still don't think that my wife knows about it yet.
Anyway, the other LHS had a new RC nitro truck owner call having problems getting his new toy started and went through the list of problems until he asked the employee what octane gas he should run in it!
Avoid clutches as they're just one more thing to go wrong. Water pumps aren't needed either as long as you keep the speed up.
I see that you've been reading the other Deuce thread but the other Miss Vegas thread although huge is a source of a lot of info that can be used.

The Aquacraft site has the manual online plus a lot of other things if you haven't been in there yet: http://www.aquacraftmodels.com/boats...uce/index.html