Looking for tutorials or guidance on Static Mesh PAWN creation

I am trying to create a pawn from a static mesh. I want to just list the issues I am getting, some of the steps I have taken to resolve, and then ask for advice, pointers, gotchas and possibly good tutorials on the subject.

Goal:
To create a player blueprint pawn from a static mesh (Ship/Boat) with movement and collision.

Additional information:
This is not meant to be complex. I don’t need buoyancy or water physics. I would like to create generic animations to the static mesh to simulate floating. This is for kids so it does not need to be super high tech.

Stretch Goals:
Use an animated water mesh. By doing that I need to mask the interior of the boat somehow so that the water don’t end up inside of it. In addition, learning how to use decals or particle fx to simulate movement trails and water rings around the boats.


Issues:
So far, I have been able to create a basic pawn that observes reasonable movement. I got the best results using default pawn as the movement controller is a bit better but it has a mesh and collision component that are inherited that I cannot get rid of and they are useless to me.

No matter how I create the pawn, the static mesh that is the basis for it, has no collision. The model itself DOES have collision but no matter how I change the settings, it will not collide with other objects or land for instance.

I am not accustomed to using timelines for anything but it was suggested I could use that for the faux animation of the boat sitting or moving in water.


Any help or pointers on this would be great, so thank you in advance for your time.