Having been playing around with 3D printable outboard motors design by Christian Pomeroy, I decided I needed to build a boat to put one the outboards on. As it is a working outboard, and approximately at 1/6 scale, a simple rowing/fishing boat seemed appropriate.
A number of years ago I came across a website full of boat plans for full size boats you could build using 2 or 3 sheets of plywood. If you're interested, google Hannu's Boatyard and you'll see his various designs. I had build a 12 foot skiff in my garage and decided to use one of his designs as the basis for my model boat. I took his 15 feet 9 inches fishing punt and scaled it down. The frames were cut from 6mm ply, the sides are 1.5mm ply and the bottom is 3mm ply. Seating and fittings are 3mm ply and all additional fittings are 3D printed, except for the fish, which come from a fishing lure, and the fishing rods, made from swing tips.
The rear seat is hinged and houses the receiver, a 30amp brushless speed controller and a 1500 mah, 2 cell lipo battery. The boat can run for well over 90 minutes on that setup, and as the outboard produced more thrust than I was expecting I have limited the top end throttle to 60%.
She runs great and is popular with the kids that come by the boating pond in Basingstoke. All in all I am very pleased with her. She was finished to look like she was built by her two owners in their garage (my excuse for being lazy in the paint work). Crew/owners courtesy of a couple of action man figures found on Ebay.