Things are going from bad to worse.

A battery powered drill-driver (one of the best inventions of the 20th century) is always worth having on board, and dual purposing is a great thing, but...

And a description of the electrics. he uses the same electrical system for the outboard.

Electric mini airboat first open water run!

Anonymous wrote:

Gary, the link doesn't work. I suspect when you copy-and-pasted the link, you only copied part of it. I would like to see it.

Gary, if you are interested in this sort of thing, and seeing as the thread is actually meant to be about electric outboards, maybe the following would also interest you:

Here is a photo of an electric motor grafted onto the bottom end of a clapped-out outboard. I would like to do something like this myself - but I don't have the link so I don't know any more about it. I found it on the web, but I forget where I put the link.

What I want to do is find a suitable L-drive, like this,  for a 10kw electric motor.) I think the above is probably 5kw or less - not big enough for what I want). Any advice would be appreciated.

Here are a couple more that might be about the right size for a small trailer boat, if you are interested in DIY. (I have an idea that a decent trolling motor, these days, might be quicker and cheaper in the long run.)

Inside the box here is a 48V, sensored brushless DC motor with a top speed of around 4,000rpm and a power of 1kW - grafted onto an old 1974 2hp Johnson.

A very extensive write-up on this project, including controllers etc. can be found in PBO here.

Another interesting home-made job which looks rather fun, it looks a bit like a home-made sail drive:

I found that here 

I know it's not electric, but I contacted Amberlea and this is her reply:

Hi Gary. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. My out board started with a 2.5hp parson 4 stroke with a dead engine. The lawn mower engine I used was an Agrigro" chinese engine, the cheapest new engine i could find on Trade me, about $180. The drive shaft on the leg is splined, so I simple cut the end of the crank shaft of the parson engine and simply welded it on to the lawn mower crankshaft. alignment is a little tricky, mine is not perfect, but mounting the engine on flexible mounts and letting it move around a bit compensates. The conection between the engine and leg is welded up from s/s box section. As long as every lines up, pretty much any thing goes! This motor has so far been trouble free, easy to start and runs most reliably. I have done a number of these now, from weedeater engines to a 12hp ride on mower engine! Always happy to help. Amberlea

Anonymous wrote:

What I want to do is find a suitable L-drive, like this,  for a 10kw electric motor.) I think the above is probably 5kw or less - not big enough for what I want). Any advice would be appreciated.

Any particular reason for 10KW? In a lot of places there are legal rights given to motors under 7.5KW (10hp).

Here are a couple more that might be about the right size for a small trailer boat, if you are interested in DIY. (I have an idea that a decent trolling motor, these days, might be quicker and cheaper in the long run.)

While trolling motors have extra drag caused by putting the motor in the water. There is a loss of frontal area in a trolling motor but the OB lower end gearbox probably has losses to match. There are advantages as well. Cooling is right there of course but more than that, the prop has been designed for a low speed high torque motor.... unfortunately also a relatively low water speed. Perhaps a trolling motor with a higher pitch propeller would be a good start.  You will never plane with it but planing is still the place to use an IC at least for a few years yet.