The Backyard – Buy Me A Boat

Hello all and Happy Friday! Welcome to The Backyard!

Here’s a question I’ve been asking myself lately: why is it that I just can’t seem to get into R/C boats?

Because the weird thing is, I actually like boats. Quite a bit, really. Just maybe not in the way the R/C boat market typically leans.

For starters, I’ve always had a soft spot for working vessels. Tugboats, barges, commercial ships—basically anything that looks like it earns its keep out on the water. There’s something cool about the purposeful look of a tug pushing a massive barge around or a harbor vessel slowly maneuvering through tight spaces. The same goes for naval ships. Destroyers, aircraft carriers, old battleships… I’m fascinated by that whole world.

Even when it comes to faster stuff, I still find plenty to like. Offshore cigarette boats and catamarans have a certain undeniable cool factor. They look aggressive sitting still and even better once they’re up on plane. And hydroplanes? Forget about it. Something like the old Miss Budweiser race boats absolutely rules. The noise, the rooster tail, the way they skim across the water—it’s hard not to appreciate that.

So by all accounts, I should be prime R/C boat hobbyist material.

And yet… somehow I’m not.

For all the time I’ve spent driving R/C vehicles over the years—and we’re talking hundreds if not thousands of hours behind the wheel of cars, trucks, and crawlers—I’ve maybe driven an R/C boat for a grand total of ten or fifteen minutes. That’s it. I’ve never actually owned one. Not a cheap toy grade one, not a ready-to-run performance boat, nothing.

Which is kind of wild when you think about it.

I’ve come close a few times. A while back I almost picked up one of Traxxas’ catamarans. The styling is great, the performance looks fun, and it seems like an easy entry point into the water side of the hobby. I’ve also hovered over the buy button more than once on one of Horizon Hobby’s tugboats. That one really speaks to me because it lines up with my love of working vessels. A scale tug just slowly chugging around the pond? That sounds pretty relaxing, honestly.

But every single time, something stops me.

It’s not a lack of interest in boats themselves, clearly. And it’s not that the models aren’t cool. There are some really impressive R/C boats out there these days, ranging from scale builds to absolutely ridiculous high-speed missiles that skim across the water like they’re trying to break the sound barrier.

Maybe part of it is access. With cars and trucks, I can walk outside and run something in the driveway, the yard, or the street in front of the house. Crawlers can hit a pile of rocks. Monster trucks can rip around a field. There’s always somewhere nearby to drive.

Boats, on the other hand, require a little more planning. You need water, obviously, but not just any water. Ideally it’s somewhere you’re allowed to run, somewhere you can retrieve a boat if things go wrong, and somewhere that isn’t completely packed with fishermen or kayakers. It’s not impossible, but it’s definitely a bit more of a “destination” hobby than surface vehicles.

Another part of it might just be the lack of steering-wheel time. With cars and trucks, you can learn the limits quickly. You see the terrain, you feel how the truck reacts, and you adjust on the fly. Boats always seemed a little more… distant, I guess. They’re out there on the water, far from you, and when something goes wrong it can go wrong in a hurry.

Of course, that might also be part of the appeal.

The funny thing is, despite never quite taking the plunge, I still feel like I will eventually end up with an R/C boat at some point. There’s too much overlap with things I already enjoy for that not to happen eventually. It just hasn’t been the right model yet.

Maybe it’ll be a catamaran. Maybe it’ll be a tugboat slowly pushing imaginary barges around a pond somewhere. Or maybe it’ll be something completely different that just clicks the moment I see it.

For now though, boats remain one of the few corners of the hobby that I’ve somehow managed to avoid all these years.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk!

Until next time keep it on all oars…er 4’s.