Finally had a chance to make a list of my boats I currently have, in no particular order, saying where I bought them from and any interesting things about them (all boats are brushless unless otherwise noted) I'm sure I will be buying more, so I will update the list when I do!:

Atomik Barbwire 17”: first brushless boat I ever got. Bought from AtomikRC at the end of the summer after saving up money from washing cars, yardwork, etc. Now a “shelf queen”, is it has been run countless times and the last few times I ran it there were some issues, and it almost sank. I’d be so sad to lose it so just a shelf queen now.

Traxxas Spartan: my favorite boat I have. Bought off an RCG member. Just throw it in the lake and rip. People love watching it the best out of all my boats…the screaming motor and rooster tail put on a good show! I added the RCBoatBitz parts and run 4s for long run times behind the 1:1 family boat. My most dependable and favorite boat.

TFL Genesis catamaran: I wasn’t in the market for a big catamaran, but when HobbyKing was doing a blowout sale I had to get one. I run the stock motor and a FlyColor 150amp esc on 4s, and it is a great handling boat. Probably going to swap out the motor this spring and run 6s and try and get it dialed in for some speed runs. (4s you can cruise around with zero heat issues)

Atomik Barbwire XL: best handling boat I have. Really fun to drive, self-rights, and is fast for its size. I got this boat for a ridiculously cheap price off RCG (there was a whole thread in Trader Talk about the seller and the boat…I can’t find it now, but someone bought it and returned it, and it went downhill after that…seller just wanted to dump it at that point, and I managed to buy it).

ProBoat Recoil 26”: bought at the very end of the season from an RCG member…might be my new favorite boat. Fast, stable, self-righting nearly instantly, and good run times. Runs on 3s…but I *might* have some plans for a 4s set up in the spring

Aquacraft Rio: brushed boat I got for family members/friends to drive, bought used from RCG member. Very long runtimes on a 4000mah NiMh battery. Great for people who want to drive something while I drive my brushless boats. My dad seems to think it’s “his” boat since he drives it so often lol!

Volantex SR-48: 17” self-righting brushless boat (very similar to the Barbwire 17”) that I received from Banggood for a review. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it is one of the best (if not the best) 17” brushless boats out there. This is my go-to boat to throw in my bag and bring with me to the lake if I am unsure about the water conditions. I probably would recommend this boat as the perfect beginner brushless boat, as it is fast, stable, self-rights instantly (if you can even manage to flip it to begin with), runs cool, and has a good runtime on the stock battery. And batteries are cheap and easy to get for it (I run 3s 1000mah Turnigy packs). Excellent “bang-for-the-buck” boat!

FT011: I bought this boat from Gearbest on a flash sale right after they were released for like $75…crazy cheap for what it is. Don’t run this boat very often (have others I like better) but it is a good boat for a beginner as well due to the self-righting.

Jet Boats

ProBoat RiverJet: 23” brushless self-righting jet driven boat. I managed to win an auction on eBay for a “v2” one like new for cheap; I have mixed feelings on this boat. It has a ton of torque and power on 3s, but that power also makes mine seem to “hop” or “skip” on the water. I have been debating selling this one, but I know I’ll never get one at the price I got it at again…if I could figure out the “hopping” issue I would love the boat, but the hopping drives me crazy. In the spring I will do more testing and tuning and go from there.

ProBoat JetJam: I have 2 of these, both bought not working off eBay. One I converted to brushless and the other I put in a good brushed ESC and added water-cooling. Bought them towards the end of the season (as I did the RiverJet), so have not gotten to fully enjoy them yet. The JetJams are really cool little boats and would be great for younger kids stock out of the box.

Sold Boats

18” Hydro: I “impulse bought” this boat on sale…very bad idea. I had only had the Barbwire 17” at the time and was way in over my head (no pun intended) with this one. Tuning and running a hydro is hard! I ended up selling it on eBay. It looked nice but was very hard to get set up right; I would not recommend a hydro to anyone who did not know what they were doing with boats!

ProBoat Blackjack 24” : my first catamaran, bought off an RCG member NIB. Very well-built boat, but a little too small for my lake. Probably going to sell it in the spring. **sold it, as I enjoy some of my bigger boats more and don't want to see it just sit on my shelf!

Videos

I realized I needed to add some videos, so here they are, sorted them by boat. I tried to add the better videos here

Spartan:

Traxxas Spartan with 1:1 boat (9 min 45 sec)

Traxxas Spartan Spring Break run (3 min 20 sec)

Make sure you watch to the end on this one...it gets crazy lol^^

Traxxas Spartan with full size boat (3 min 44 sec)

Traxxas Spartan on 5s (0 min 45 sec)

Barbwire XL:

Barbwire XL run (0 min 48 sec)

Barbwire XL and Rio:

Barbwire XL and Rio racing (1 min 49 sec)

Blackjack 24":

Blackjack 24 running on Lake Hartwell (2 min 36 sec)

FT011:

FT011 Brushless RC Boat (1 min 29 sec)

Riverjet:

ProBoat RiverJet maiden run (2 min 9 sec)

ProBoat RiverJet on the Apalachee River (2 min 13 sec)

Nice collection Pan! Might need to pick up a 17' "pocket boat" for the car. Living here in Minnesota, we have no shortage of lakes and such. The Volantex Sr-48 seems like your favorite? I'll have to look into it!

Cheers

Originally Posted by Vanka472

Nice collection Pan! Might need to pick up a 17' "pocket boat" for the car. Living here in Minnesota, we have no shortage of lakes and such. The Volantex Sr-48 seems like your favorite? I'll have to look into it!

Cheers

Thanks!! I love my boats

For 17” boats I definitely think the SR-48 is a great deal. It’s not quite as fast as a Barbwire 17”, but gets way better runtime and can run lower powered lipos in my experience. I ran a 30c 1000 mah in mine and got around 8-9 minutes runtime. Barbwire was hard to get anything over 5 mins, with a bigger battery too.

Here’s a good deal on the brushless version on eBay if you are interested! https://www.ebay.com/i/183488435546?...35643efff24de3

Thanks for the link! It was showing discontinued on Gearbest. Tempting to buy...will have to think about it. lol I have 2 boats on the way to my house right now, but man I can't stop myself from buying toys.

SR-48- I wonder if there is a new version to this? Maybe not, I was just thinking because it was discontinued. I love those runtimes, and with batteries that small and cheap, you can really have fun all day with something like that. And it seems easy enough to upgrade to a bit faster motor and what not. O and a metal prop! (granted its hard to justify a $30 prop on a $100 boat. lol)

I saw that you can buy the bare hulls for $20 on Banggood! Might just do that in case it ever does get discontinued.

Just do it if you start thinking about it then you know you have a problem LOL

I don't think it's discontinued...Gearbest goes through a lot of stuff they stop selling. Maybe check Banggood? Yeah I need to pick up a hull for $20. That's a good price.

I don't think you'll need a metal prop for this boat. The stock prop is really good. It has great holeshot...the boat will pop up out of the water! And you can get a replacement set of props for like $8 for 5 props if I remember correctly.

The wife is going to kill me if she finds out. LOL

But yeah at that price, it's worth just using plastic props doesn't seem like a heavy boat at all. Did you do any upgrades in it at all? Or is everything pretty stock.

Also 2S or 3S 1000mah batteries?

Just ask her how many shoes/purses/dresses/jewelry she buys

Mine is stock except the rudder and turn fins. I had a little accident with a submerged rock and knocked off a turn fin and dinged my rudder. I replaced the turn fins with metal ones (ones used on a Barbwire 17") and upgraded the rudder to a generic metal one from eBay.

Electronically it is 100% stock. I run 3s 1000mah 30c blue Turnigy lipos.

Not bad not bad! Seems like a blast of a boat to go zip around with. Nice that the Barbwire hardware will work on this guy. Loving all the Chinese stuff, its cheap and hobby grade is getting to be less than $100. It's WILD. When I started in RC, everything was so freaking expensive, granted I was young too but quite a lot has changed in the last 10 years.

For sure it's fun! I need to see if I can post some of my videos in my thread for each boat I have.

Yeah, RC stuff is coming way down in price. I also started young (I was about 15 or so...almost 23 now), and it seems some stuff is slightly cheaper now than when I started...batteries are one thing that comes to mind as decreasing in cost.

Yeah I'd love to see some videos!

I saw in the classifieds you sold the Blackjack, I agree with the size issue, I ended up ditching that idea for the same reason.

I also started young probably around the same time as you (16-17, I am 27 now). Batteries have had a huge price drop with the actual performance gain. Even cheap Chinese batteries, are really not to bad if you don't get a dud. I'm a Gens Ace, kinda guy, but mostly because I don't wanna wait for Turnigy to get to me. Haha

I always thought the Genesis was as listed 1040mm or so, but somewhere I read someone call it 30 in? What's the actual size of this thing? The same as the spartan?

Originally Posted by Vanka472

Yeah I'd love to see some videos!

I saw in the classifieds you sold the Blackjack, I agree with the size issue, I ended up ditching that idea for the same reason.

I also started young probably around the same time as you (16-17, I am 27 now). Batteries have had a huge price drop with the actual performance gain. Even cheap Chinese batteries, are really not to bad if you don't get a dud. I'm a Gens Ace, kinda guy, but mostly because I don't wanna wait for Turnigy to get to me. Haha

I'll work on adding some

Oh yeah, you are a little older than me so you've seen more improvement for sure. I was thinking you were about my age until you mentioned your wife lol

My personal fav lipos are Floureon. They are Chinese but some US sellers on eBay have them. For the price hey are great. I run 4s 5500 Floureon in my genesis.

Originally Posted by Vanka472

I always thought the Genesis was as listed 1040mm or so, but somewhere I read someone call it 30 in? What's the actual size of this thing? The same as the spartan?

Not sure about that. Next to my Spartan it is about the same length. It looks bigger because it's wider than the Spartan. I'm going to the lake house this weekend; I leave my boats up there and will get some pics!

Ha, yeah the days are catching up to me, lol unfortunately 30 is around the corner, but I'm trying to stay young at heart! Haha just been married for 5 months so trust me, that's all new to me too. LOL.

Dude, so glad to hear someone actually talk about Floureron. Sometimes they are better priced than the Gens Ace on Amazon, but I no one in the forums raves about them. Only Gens Ace (like apple fans but of knockoffs?! LMAO) but none the less, if you like them, I might need to try them out. You mentioned eBay, so possibly better pricing on there, than Besos world.

Can't wait to see the pics! You are a lucky dog, the family lake house for us is cold and frozen, and I avoid at all costs during the winter, ice fishing my a**...

Good to know on size, I am thinking of building a carrier just to bring it around in the car, and wanted approx. numbers. Here is the video. Painted, it should look cool enough!

RC boat hauler (PVC STYLE) (5 min 8 sec)

Only 5 months? You are still in the honey moon phase...you should have better things to be doing at night than looking at RCs

Oh yeah, love my Floureons. Definitely check out eBay!

LOL ice fishing is a terrible idea! I hate the cold weather. We usually get the family boat out in early April...jet skis in May. And sometimes still are swimming at the end of September.

I added some videos in the first post. There are a couple of the Spartan with the 1:1 boat you might enjoy.

HA! I already feel like an old man. Now that I don't have to worry about planning a wedding (actually 2 for us, since I'm from out of the states and we traveled for a second wedding for the family that couldn't come) it is so nice to spend time daydreaming/window shopping for RC's. The ADDICTION IS REAL.

I'll look into Floureons! Let's see how the price compares.

Ha, tell me about it! I hate the cold as well, I am a warm-blooded person through and through, but this is my life now. lol pretty excited for spring none the less. and yes to getting out on the water for some skiing!

I watched 1! Will watch the rest. Pretty fun to run it behind the real boat and ride the wake!