Many people who explored Canada liked his ideas but they were not very useful to most other people. He tried to show the Royal Navy that the boats could be useful to them but did not succeed. He also could not sell them fishermen and people that hunted duck. They were commercially unsuccessful. Only two Halkett boats are still known to exist. One belonged to Orcadian explorer John Rae. The other is in the Hudson's Bay Company Museum Collection at the Manitoba Museum.