Project · Jul 2026

Custom RC Fishing Boat

A custom made RC fishing boat that carries bait out to sea and drags it off the deck to cast it far.

This is a custom made RC fishing boat with a 3D printed hull, started as a remix of another maker's design and reworked into this version. Two fishing rods connect to the boat: one is fixed to the boat and used to reel it back in, and the other holds the bait, resting in the black mounting box on deck. Once the boat is out as far as I want, a small pull on the bait line is enough to draw it off the box, since the box's back wall is intentionally shorter than the front. This lets the bait drop free with a light tug, even from a long distance away, casting it into deeper water where more fish tend to be. The boat is then reeled back in on its own fixed line.

I originally planned to steer it live with an RC radio controller, but a standard hobby RC link only reaches about 300 to 400 meters, and turning a small boat around at that range is impractical. So instead of live steering, I built a point and go system. Two fixed rudders at the stern are aligned by hand before launch to set the heading, and the boat then runs on a simple PWM signal to the motor rather than a live radio command. A single button starts the motor for a set number of minutes, and since speed and time are known, that timer works out to a target distance. In practice, the real limit on range is battery life rather than the timer itself.

The control chain: the joystick is read over a COM port on my laptop, where a Python script picks up the signals and forwards them to an ESP32 connected to the laptop. That ESP32 sends the commands wirelessly to a second ESP32 on the boat, which drives the motor.

Hull is printed in translucent PETG, chosen for its water resistance and because the translucency makes it easy to spot leaks. The whole interior is also coated in Mapeguard waterproofing membrane, the same product used under bathroom tiling, so even if water gets through the plastic it's stopped before reaching the motor.

Hardware: ESP32 WROVER modules with external antennas, an Okuyonic 540 brushed motor with 320A ESC, and 2S 2200mAh LiPo batteries. Controller is a repurposed secondhand Thrustmaster flight simulator joystick, with its input signals reprogrammed to be read via a Python script and transmitted via the ESP32 chip.

ESP32
3D Printing
Embedded Systems
Mechatronics
Python
Robotics
Electronics
Fusion360