Obviously I am quite the newbie to electric boats and RC in general. I have to questions. What is the deal with brushless motors. Why are the so nuch better? Will a 540 brushless go that much faster than say a 700 brushed? The other question is about ESC. I know it is an electric speed controller, but what kind of programming do they require? I know you adjust the idle but what else do you have to program. And why are brushless ESCs so much more expensive?

They are better because they are way more efficient in terms of speed and power saved. Also they last a lot longer because there are no armatures or brushes to wear out. I would probably bet that the bearings last longer too because there is no carbon dust from the brushes getting all over everything.

They require calibration to your transmitter's trigger swing. You can also adjust timing and on some, wether to have reverse or not and more. They are expensive because they are new to RC. Brushless systems aren't new, but the small size of the controllers is.

Most of the brushless ESC's are air related...made for helis or planes. These controllers will not calibrate to a pistol grip transmitter because of where the trigger is in neutral...it's in the middle of the trigger swing. You can use these controllers if your transmitter has a mechanical adjustment to take the brake swing out of it. ...or, rubber band the trigger forward for neutral.

...hope that answers some of your questions.

So if I have the transmiter that has two sticks (don't know the proper name but it's not a pistol grip) and it has a switch in the throttle side that makes neutral pistion of the stick to the back of the controler rather than the middle, I could use a non-marine esc?

I believe you can. I've heard of others using stick radios with aero controllers without problems. With the stick all the way back, it is the same as applying full brake (pushing forward) on a pistol grip radio which is why I had to rubber band the trigger forward. You shouldn't have a problem if you can take the centering of the throttle stick out.

If you want to have an awesome setup forget brushed motors and go for brushless they are so much better I have an rc car with a lmt 1930 8turn, mgm 120-12 on 4cell 2700 lipo
And wow doesn’t it hook, I’m not sure on the runtime I had a 2 hour run the other day but most of the time I was repairing it so I would say the total run time was about 15minuits

Most Aero controllers don’t have reverse or any good futures if you want a really good control for boats or cars I highly recommend a mgm controls http://www.mgm-compro.com/index.php?...ers-cars-boats their fairly pricy but if your into it their worth it and as for the motor I went for a lmt http://www.lehner-motoren.com/index.php?la=en because their just insane holding some world records too

Anyway just some thoughts