I don't have an aesthetic problem with this proposal and I do welcome new thinking about business in Duluth.  I also like to hear about guided tours in Downtown.  This is something that has been missing from the scene and if I knew as much as say, Tony D, I have often thought about offering walking tours of Old Downtown myself.  Duck Tours would possibly be great, too. 

Barrett is only partially right about the Wheel Fun critiques.  These boats will need professional drivers with at least a commercial drivers license and probably a commercial marine license of some sort, too.  That should minimize yahoos.  Make no mistake, they will still p. people off, that's Duluth, but I don't think it will be the same kind of annoyed as you have with Wheel Fun.   

The other business example that I would forward is the scooter guy who had a rental operation in 2004 and quickly lost a lot of money despite a great deal of interest in his service. (That was the same year that 3 other new businesses launched in the general vicinity and the only one still operating is Wheel Fun.)  Scooter Guy used to come and visit me at Speedy Wienie and I got to know him pretty well at the time although we lost touch and I don't even remember his name anymore.  If you want to write a successful business plan then you would want to track that guy down and talk to him about what happened. To hear him tell it, powerful business interests harassed him and undercut him on prices, etc.  I don't know if that is true or not, but I do know that I felt a certain amount of pressure to stay away from certain "turf" and I was told that you need to be in with the Canal Park Business Association if you want to make it in that part of Duluth.  This was a few years back and things have certainly changed since then, I don't know how much though.  

Then again, there's always the St. Louis River or Superior.  And St. Louis River minimizes a bit of that "Don't swamp the duck boat" factor.  As the river is smoother, shallower and a bit warmer if you do dump one.  

Finally, I don't know a huge amount about the vehicles themselves but I would want to know more about their fuel and efficiency.  Gas goes up in the summer months, right when your peak business season is.  I'm not being discouraging, just want to sharpen the idea a bit.  In fact, buy me a coffee sometime and I would gladly sit down and share some thoughts from my own (failed) business experiences with you.

I'm pretty sure it was a different guy. This guy rented scooters and was based at the steam plant.  This is about 8 years ago.