I and my two neighbors all purchased battery operated RC boats recently.  Here are some pitfalls we found to watch out for or at least be aware of.

LEAKS All three of these boats leak some water during operation. All are different models. It should not hurt anything during normal operation.  BUT.......if you hit an object in the water and the water inside slops enough to get on the electronics inside what will happen?  Water and electric do not mix. The other two boats came with oring gaskets on the access hatch but they still leak somewhere. We have not found the source yet. My boat had no oring and adding oring material I cut from shorter ones helped a lot but did not stop the water.  My boat is a twin engine and says NQD on it. The othe two boats came from Radio Shacks. If you sop out the water between battery changes and you don't upset the boat you should be OK.

NO WARRANTY The response from my seller, who I suppose I better leave nameless but the boat is twin engine and says NQD on it, when I mentioned warranty in an email was " There is no warranty on this toy".  So I guess my only option with this seller would be to complain about defective product to Paypal.

TWIN ENGINES    My boat was advertised as hitting 20 mph. Sounds impressive but the twin engine version is only maybe 25 percent faster than the single engine ones from Radio Shack. And my batteries last nuch less time.  But all the RC boats on eBay are a lot less money than Radio Shack.

NO REVERSE Make sure your boat has a reverse. Picture getting stuck against a partially submerged stick or against the far shore on a 20 acre lake.  Either a long walk or hope you have a rowboat available to go get it!  My NQD has no reverse but the radio Shack versions do.

The pistol grip hand controller on mine has a large extendable antenna and I seem to be able to control the boat at a greater range than the Radio Shack versions.

Remember, this is a toy and what do you want for $33.00(for mine) or $40.00(the Radio Shack ones).

Chasing the Canadian Geese around a lake is absolutely hilarious!