I have used ntm in planes, thet are very robust,
Boaterjim, here are the answers you want, same boat, with a load of testing etc, I only use brushless so am familiar with what you want, however 25mph is a massive ask for a 4 foot heavy old girl, mine is 22mph recorded with eagletree datalogging, faster and the hull gets very unstable. Have a read, all the answers are here, and get the watt meter dave suggested, I started with one of these, you cannot guess what your amp draw, watt consumption etc is, if you get it wrong your esc's will blow or the motors will burn out. Just getting the props wrong by a couple of millimetres is enough.
personal experience would have me saying 1400kv is too high revving, lower kv means more torque, which you need to get this heavy wood lump moving. Mine are 800kv, my Huntsman that will do 25mph is 850kv, higher kv usually is in very fast but very light racing boats, for example a tug would have low kv, so its a balancing act. When I was building my fireboat there was nothing out there for reference, lucky you
you have a full build to use as reference!
Any questions, just ask, but read this! (looks like some of the pictures have disappeared, you need to open new link an they reappear)
http://www.modelboatmayhem.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,39278.0.html