I have started building radio-controlled boats when I was about twelwe years old. I built two boats, one was a originally a kit, but later became something else, while the other was custombuilt from the beginning. Unfortunately my studies at high school started to take so much time, that I never got further with the boat than that. It has stayed on my shelf since that without any progress, but maybe I'll someday find time (it seems more like after my retirement...) to complete it.
My smaller boat, which was the one I got firstly, was originally a small leisure cruiser from Graupner called Carina, very slow and with a small electrical engine. For a boy of thirteen, it was not enough, so I changed it to a missile boat. But now it was too slow to be a missile boat and I bought a bigger electrical engine. Then a little later I bought a bigger propeller, which again made me buy a new shaft, as the propeller would not fit anymore. This was a spiral which lasted a couple of years. I glued and glued, and changed the boat and now the only original part of the boat I received, is the rudder. Even the rudder was at one stage to be replace, but I never then did it. All other parts have been at least once changed, this includes even the hull, which became eventually too uneven of all the glue used. From the original 2 km/h it now goes about 15km/h, but when it was as fastest it went over 20 km/h. As the boat is light weight, it almost "flew" over the waves. It has almost sunk at least a couple of times, when water had come inside it. This has happened because of it has been jumping over the waves, which loosed the superstructure allowing water to enter the hull. The boat is made in scale 1:72, to be able to use ready made military figures. It has working lights and I have used it in darkness, which is quite fun, as you only see the lights of the boat.
When the smaller boat became too familiar I wanted new challenges and got as a present a new hull for the boat in the picture. I then bought plywood and started to design a new boat. As I was into military boats and made it a MTB, but as seen it was never finished. The unfinished status was no problem, and as soon as I had glued the deck on the boat, it made its maiden voayge. As they boat is bigger and the batteries were heavier, this boat never was as fast as the smaller boat. The original batteries were actually too heavy to get it to go rigth speed, and I had to buy smaller batteries. This is not anymore as bad, as I bought better propellers, but with the old propellers and the smaller batteries I get a higher topspeed. It is equiped with two engines, while the smaller has only one engine. The superstructure was finished to the current state very soon, and I started to make preliminary tests of the details I had gathered from here and there or made myself from some left over material. I added, using tape, lights and used also this boat in darkness. This is made in scale 1:33 also to be able to use ready made military figures and cannons. I have painted the figures and also reshaped them to make them fit better in their positions.