The HMS Terror Gets A Propulsion Upgrade: Cold Start

Cs Terror Okuda
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Ever since I first got my shitty canoe in the middle of the pandemic to give my kid Otto and me something to do, Otto has wanted it to be motorized. We’d be on the lake, paddling like. a couple of filthy animals, and someone would whiz by in some sort of motorized watercraft like a fishing boat or jetski or paddlewheel steamboat, and Otto would fix me with a gaze of mild disgust. As a dad, I’m used to those looks, but it doesn’t take much to convince me to stick a motor on, well, pretty much anything. So I finally did.

After an abortive attempt to convert a two-stroke weed whacker, I found that you can get electric trolling motors for small boats like canoes really cheap. I found one for about $110 and ordered it. I grabbed a battery from one of the too-many non-running cars I currently have, and installed it in our canoe, the HMS Terror.

Cs Hmsterror 2

Holy crap, this thing works great! I don’t know how aware you are of the state of cheap-ass boat trolling motors in modern America, but I’m happy to report that they’re surprisingly good. The 30-pound-thrust motor will get the canoe moving at a good clip, and even though I was stupid and kept the battery connected while I had the canoe in the back of my truck, accidentally turning it on and draining about half the battery, it still managed to let us tool around for a couple hours and still have about 30% battery left.

Why didn’t I get one of these sooner? They’re great! Oh, and in that picture you can see how compromised the backup propulsion system is, since my paddle broke and I had to do a whatever-I-had-in-the-back-of-the-truck repair.

Oh, and to commemorate the fact that the HMS Terror finally has a propulsion system, I made a nice, technical-looking Star Trek-style Okudagram/Master System Display of the crappy canoe.

Also, I’m up way too late and need to pack because David, Matt and I are meeting this week to discuss Business Matters. Wish us luck!

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Mercedes Streeter

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69 thoughts on “The HMS Terror Gets A Propulsion Upgrade: Cold Start”

  1. By the way Jason, there are legitimate ways to carry a canoe on the roof of any car without the wood bars and u-bolts. There are foam blocks that go on the gunwales so the canoe just sits on the roof. And they cost about $25

  4. Three ways to upgrade your ‘power-boat’ experience.
    1- Fit a power propeller instead of the weedless kind for a free 15% thrust bump. Don’t do this is you are always in the weeds, obviously, though many are ‘semi-weedless’ $25
    2- Make sure you have the modern version of speed control which is digital/PWM, as the older cheaper motors had resistance coils to bleed off the excess power for slower speeds, which is just crazy.
    3- Bit the bullet and go lithium-ion, twice the range and half the weight. The $$$ you spend will make sense when you don’t get stuck on the downwind end of a lake or have to portage to the put-in.

  9. You could just put that battery back in the aforementioned non-running car and go the battery-powered drill route:
    https://youtu.be/Y7JlwriI37g
    If you don’t already have a battery-powered drill then this is as good an excuse as any to get one, especially since you could’ve possibly used one to help with extricating the Chang-Li’s batteries with less exposure to lead dust than the chainsaw method.

  11. Torch, that look of disgust or disappointment on your child’s face is something you need to learn to filter out. I think my daughter rolls her eyes at me and says UGH at least 5 times per day, but I only notice it about once a week.

  13. I converted an old 13’ plastic sit-inside kayak 2 years ago to what sounds like the same motor and it’s a lot of fun when it’s not picking up weeds (I use the backup paddle to reach back to clear the prop). Hits its modest hull speed at about 1/2-3/4 throttle. I run it with a lifepo battery through a PWM for better efficiency and because I wanted a more variable throttle rather than just steps. The motor steers off the original foot-control rudder mechanism and it can raise and lower via a lockable control stick in the cockpit (using the original Minn Kota mounting) that pulls a cable under the seat, through a set of pulleys behind it up to the rear deck, and to the vertically extended rudder (sticks up about a foot higher than the deck when the motor is down). The throttle is an old bicycle bar end shifter pulling a bowden cable that turns an arm on the PWM dial. The arm has a return spring to return to 0 when the throttle is released. Were I doing it again, I’d use a push-pull cable. Runs for far longer than my attention span. Technically, it’s supposed to be registered as a power boat, which is f’n stupid as hull speed is probably under 6 knots, but you know, it’s The Man.

    1. Forgot to specify that the battery and PWM are in the sealed stern compartment. There’s also battery and motor fwd-off-reverse switches in the cockpit.

      1. I dunno, Adrian: I can totally see you in BMW’s glassed-in pontoon. I mean, it’s small enough that you could command the audience-and all the glass makes it a performance space.
        -just get a giraffe-head water ring, paint it black, and glue a Mohawk on it

      3. I don’t see anything wrong with Torch’s grammar, but then again, my second grade teacher insisted we speak American and not English (Alabama schools – 49th in the nation! Thank God for Mississippi…). My opinion may not be valid in this matter.

        Of course, we won that American Revolution thing, so I don’t care if King Chuck thinks my grammar sucks.

    3. Clearly Torch thought he was writing for the “old site” where that kind of garbage grammar is specified in their style guide.

  18. Many moons ago, my dad bought an aluminum canoe. He, too, was not satisfied with rowing speed, so he added a motor.

    But instead of an electric trolling motor, he cut the back off, fiberglassed in a wood transom, and bolted on a 30 or so hp gas outboard.

    There’s a reason canoes are not generally powered by gas outboards. And the reason is you shouldn’t take them out where all the people with ski boats are blasting around, making big wakes. Dad’s canoe flipped easily, and all his gear, including his glasses and car keys, went to the bottom.

    Thus ended his adventure in high speed canoeing.

  21. Rather than addressing the many safety and technical issues with this post, such as the use of the term “canoe” to describe this vessel, which is actively attempting to scuttle itself, I would like to correct a detail that actually matters. Your Okudagram is reversed: ship schematics are always oriented with the bow facing to the right. I would also add that you should be showing at least Condition: Yellow, given the hull breach, but perhaps that system has been disabled.

    1. It doesn’t leak! That’s not water in it, the bottom is painted darker for some reason. I mean, yes, it’s crap, but it’s water-tight crap.

      2. Alright, stand down yellow alert. It was the darker color plus the label on your Okudagram that reads, to be fair, “Snack storage-soggification unit” which lead me to believe a hull breach was in progress. I stand by my pedantry about the orientation of your schematic.

      3. Boats don’t leak – they take on water. I know it’s a technicality, but one every skipper I know insists on pointing out when bilge pump kicks in.

  22. I always thought you were being a little rude to the canoe, but that thing truly is crappy. one seat and full of water? I love it. A crappy canoe in use is far better than all the Kevlar canoes that never get wet.

  24. “HMS” would indicate your vessel is British. And you put an electric motor in it? What were you thinking? Oh, right, I forgot who I was reading for second there…

    At least you’ve got a backup paddle. Maybe I should get one of those for my Triumph.

      1. “If something is shit enough it automatically becomes British.

        Also see British food, British industry and the British Class System”

        I was watching one of those BBC live-in-history shows many years ago. I think it was “Edwardian house”. The interviews with the subjects were illuminating. The ” help” of course had it the worst, working from sun up till long after sundown cooking, cleaning, fixing and getting filthy doing all the work. The kids hated it, no makeup, no electronics, uncomfortable clothes, bad food, boring boring boring yuck. The wife hated it, too many clothes, too much work overseeing the staff, playing hostess etc.

        The gentrified oblivious lord of the house OTOH absolutely loved the constant pandering and not having do to anything. His take: “Why doesn’t EVERYONE live like this?”

  25. Everyone else on Friday nights watched Family Matters on TGIF, but some of us watched Business Matters. A CEO father living with his mother, wife, sister, and daughter constantly interrupted by an annoying anarchist next door who would interrupt serious family budgeting negotiations. The anarchist had a catch phrase where after irritating the means of production, would say “Did I disrupt the industry?”

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