It feels like it has been ages since I started this project, but three months after find the plans it finally hit the water. My dad was good enough to come along and take some photos. The wind was blowing a bit, so we headed for the most sheltered section of the lake.

First a final functional check to test that the was moving and the motor was responding. Apparently I am not NASA material, because I didn't notice that the rudder was moving backwards, fortunately I was able to flick the reverse switch in the back of the remote easily enough.

You can probably see the problems in this photo already, but at least it's floating!

The boat sits a little low, but that shouldn't be a problem when it gets up to planing speed. Unfortunately, it just can't get there. There were a handful of reasons:

• The prop is pretty small (I am going to look for a 3-bladed 7x5, or something even more aggressive than the current 7x5
• The prop is nicking the water, so I don't think it is getting up to full RPM. I am going to try and raise the motor.
• The motor could be more powerful I guess, but I have no idea what this one's ratings are, and I don't have any others to try.
• I could run this motor on 3S (it is currently on 2S), but the ESC in its waterproof box has zero air-flow, so I would need to figure out cooling. Also, I don't have any 3S batteries.
• The water was quite choppy, which will probably always be an issue for this design. As you can see in the photo below, if the prop digs in, the boat suddenly tries to become a submarine.

On the upside, the balance looks pretty good and the rudder worked really well, despite the low speed

Nevertheless, it was nice to finally see it puttering around. If I had just made it look like a tugboat then I wouldn't have minded that it performed like one ;-)