Trolling motor + gps to test board speed/drag?

[FloridaWindSUP]

Has anyone ever used an electric trolling motor to test the speed potential of different boards? I think even better would be a trolling motor on a stick with a backpack power unit, kind of like a cross between a paddle, a weedwacker, and a snowblower.

Seems like it would be a good, unbiased way to see how much power it takes to get a given board to a given speed with a given rider weight, etc, etc.

[Bulky]

Like the idea.  Might help with some comparison on boards, fins, etc as there's no way to consistently duplicate the effort.

Of course, then the debate will be about the impact on an individual paddler on a setup.  I suspect that even if we determined that one particular board was the fastest, this doesn't mean that it would be the fastest for every single paddler.  And that's a good thing--it will keep the Zone from becoming obsolete.