stevenette

Hello, been coming here for help for years, but finally registered.

I am trying to make an RC boat that is NOT fast. Every single thread I go to wants the fastest boat ever made, but I want one that is both light, and efficient.

1. Would you suggest a single hull, cat, or trimaran?
2. 2 small props, or 1 large prop. 2 would get rid of the need for a rudder I hope, but 1 large is more efficient from my research.
3. What kind of motor (Trolling etc. ) could be used for a small boat to go slow. There is no information I can find on a small motor to run off of solar power. Everything is jet, water cooled etc. I will have about 15-30W of power on the boat depending on how big I want it.
4. Would you suggest buying a frame online, or building it out of balsa/fiberglass?

The goal is to build a small lightweight solar powered boat I can take backpacking with me. Has anyone ever seen something like this before? Thanks!

crapshooter

ZippKits.com have a nice simple and slow moving Tug Boat cheap . rechargeable battery power is better than solar power .

mfr02

The downside of solar is the big surface area needed for the array. For stability, that means either a cat or a fin with the heavy stuff in a tube at the bottom end. A while back, on one of the forums, there was a solar powered small boat that performed surprisingly well - making it slower would be a simple case of using less motor and a different prop to suit the motor characteristics.

stevenette

Thanks for the suggestions. The main point, however, is that I want to backpack with my boat for a couple of weeks at a time, so I really need solar power and rechargeable batteries hooked up to a charge controller. Anyway, still searching. Thanks.

crapshooter

can you take an international power point convertor with you so you can charge up batteries anywhere in the world that runs 110 to 240 volt power.?