Chris, I have a 46" Sea Queen, fitted with the old Taycol Double Special motor from the 1960’s. To this I have fitted a modern radio set and an Electronize ESC with a 12v 7AH SLA battery. Even though the battery is quite heavy she still needs extra lead ballast. This set up comes close to planing, looks good on the water and does not come anywhere close to oveheating. It seems to me that if you are experiencing overheating it is likely that the motor is having to work too hard to even get to the speed it does now. My suggestion would be to go to 12volt, still with a SLA battery (the smaller batteries in some of my other boats do not give much of a run time and the batteries also get hot). The current draw on 12volts should then be less resulting in less heat. The other thing to play with is prop size and pitch. A smaller prop or one with less pitch will allow the motor to run at less load, draw less current, perhaps rev more to be in a range where it works more efficiently and produces better power to get up to planing speed. Hopefully my ideas will give you some thoughts to start with and some others will chime in with their ideas which is why the forum exisits! Cheers, Ian.

Chris, I am familiar with the Commander having had one thirty years ago! The Sea Queen is its big sister, looks very similar and is now re – released by Jotika. I like to use the original type of motor in my older boats just for the sake of nostalgia but that does not extend to the radio gear as I suspect the old gear would probably interfere with every other boat on the pond. Best of luck with your experimenting.

Key your data into this and see what you get,Chris.

CP. So it was the ESC as suspected!  The NiMh batteries are about 1/2 the weigh capacity for capacity (ish) so the bigger the better. Probly 3700`s are an economic buy, although if you are considering getting something else, or making something, then Maplins are selling those 6v 4.5Ahr SLA batts at only £3.99 at the moment, so an alternative ploy may be to get a few of those and simply change them out when the performance drops, or a little before so you dont knacker them. The only other consideration is that NiMh batts deliver a lot more current, together with a small increase in voltage may make you go a bit faster. Hey, what the hell….get 3 x  7.2V  3700 MaHr NiMh batteries and have done with it !  You are not going to have too much running time anyway with that heavyish boat and a speedy motor! (could try a slightly smaller prop, would take slightly less amps and so increase running time, at a small loss in performance)    Ashley.