Im thinking of building a small pushboat to retreive my speed boats. I dont want to get to fancy with it, but I was wondering if there is an steam engine that would be suitable for a pushboat about 20" long? I never built or had a scale boat so Im in the dark with this. But after looking at some videos on you tube, I thought it might be pretty cool to do something like that. How much am I looking to spend on something like this and is it even woth it? Thanks

Steam engines, and boilers are an art unto themselves.
They are not usually cheap. And cheap ones will not run with
the power you would need to go out, rescue a boat and bring it back.

The other issue, is that the boat will need to be kept steamed up in order
to be able to perform a rescue the instant something happens.
The next most likely occurance, is that when a boat does need rescuing, the
steam boat, have been keeping steam, and waiting,... will need to be refueled, and
need a fresh tank of water... which will need to heat up and produce steam...

This might all take two to five minutes, but if a boat is floating off, you may need that
time to catch it before it gets away.



However here are some links that might give you some ideas...

http://www.jensensteamengines.com/


These would probably have the power you require... [8D]
http://www.monahansteammodels.com/