shishtawoo

Well I’ve never built a boat before, but as I did with rc airplane planes, i like to start big. I was just wondering what kind of power plant would be necessary to power a vessel of approximately 7 ft. I was thinking of using two or three dynamite .32 2 cycle engines or a single ZENOAH G26 Marine Engine. Now I’m not interested in making a fiber glass hull so would making a ship of this scale out of marine ply ribs and mahogany skin make it too heavy to efficiently power and maneuver.

RW3D

Personaly I would stay away from a Zenoa or any gas motor in a 7' battleship. A battleship is not a race boat. I talked to a guy in NOVA SCOTIA that had a 9' battleship, he ran 4 Johnson 970's in his. This battleship is going to need a lot of weight to bring it to the water line, might as well do it with gel cell's. I can see your line of thinking coming from planes and going into boats. The plane guys think "light", boat guys don't have to worry about that, think "heavy". There is no problem with the wood you selected. Make sure everything is sturdy in the hull, batterys can weigh 7lb's for a 12v 7ah. And unlike a plane, you will fine lots of room to work in the hull once the deck is off. No tight fits in a boat that size. Roger

ScottOram

RW3D is correct. Your boat is going to weight between 50 and 80 pounds when done. So ballast is going to be a priority. I have an 8' aircraft carrier and use twin MACK 5045s with 4 50MM propellers on 3/16 flex shafts. This is all powered by two Hobbico 12VDC 7mah batteries wired in parallel for loooong run times (about 4 hours).

patmat

Stop whatever you're doing, and go right now to where the big boys play:
http://wmunderway.8m.com/home/home.htm

Look through the how-to's, gallery, and visit the message board... more big boat stuff than you can shake a stick at.

Pat M