35' cat concept for the inside passage.

Well B things are looking up......3 years ago a GB32 woodie had an asking price of $65-75k......today that's the asking for a woodie 42'.....

The asking prices continue to spiral downward and more boats appear on craigslist every week.......one can only feel sorry for those who "held off putting her up for sale until the market improves".....

 

ya I'm seeing that as well. I keep looking for something I can salvage parts off of. But its kinda hard to know what parts I need when I'm still up in the air about what to build. I really like that one I lofted earlier in the year before I found myself stuck rebuilding the truck. But now that I'm almost done with that project I find myself wishing I could just build what I really want, which is the retirement/tour boat. Day tours, nothing to extreme.

 

Tour boat ? Hmm, they look different from a regular boat.....half dozen toilets, minibar .... Might be an unworkable compromise.

Better The classic charter boat configured for two couples . Customize the design to cater for guests over 65 ....the age group with no debt , free time and a desire to see the best. Two week runs work best.

 

its just going to be a six pack boat. nothing huge



My major concern at this point isn't the build but the upkeep. Parking fees are a primary concern as well as haul out fees, stuff like that. Its takes a while to get a captains license and rightfully so. So I have to be able to afford x period of time before I can hope to even begin recouping costs.

I'm getting close on the funds to build, but where the hell do I put the damn think, and how much is that going to cost me?

Oh and one last word on cats

Once again its horses for courses, I'm not sure this course would run a cat as effectively as a mono. But it was well worth learning about, at least the little I did learn. Thanks peeps, B

 

one cat I really liked because it was so modular looking was this one. OK the solar panel is ridiculously small but I loved that it was a three piece 7 meter 6 person rig that looks like it could be trailered if disassembled pretty easily



the rounded hull forms don't look that conducive to plywood construction but I really like the styling of this thing. And I don't like to many modern looking boats.

It would be fun to kinda work out a construction plan that I could do to end up with this thing. I'm not to inclined to work with fiberglass all that much. Molds and epoxies just aren't my realm of expertise but it would be a fun little thought project to figure out how it could be done. Someone proved me way wrong about the cost of the solar panels, which I was happy to accept. So it would be kinda fun to figure out if a plywood one of these is feasible. If nothing else just as a weekender.

 

If youre considering charter you must build to the market. Locally the market is dominated by mega horspower , state of the styling art, Italian motorboats These boats are extremely expensive to maintain. Below the mega hp gang is the trawler type. A mate of mine runs a plastic asian built 18 or so meter trawler and ...makes a killing. Over 90 days of charter last summer. The plastic trawlers deliver low operating cost and an endless line of repeat customers who enjoy going slow and quite. Its possible that you could do it with a woody...but questionable. Running hard , day after day, on charter is abusive to boats

 

Boston, round chine hulls and successful plywood charter cats are not impossible at all:

http://www.multihulldesigns.com/pdf/cm/CYLINDER MOLD MULTIHULL CONSTRUCTION.htm

You can even get it inspected for more than 6 pax.

This is my designer's specialty. Look at Charly's kurt Hughes 36 day charter thread to see how it's done.

 

that particular cat I'd just use as a weekender, once again I'm just daydreaming away the holidays. But I did like its style and its modular nature. I could build it out of ply I think, not sure if its worth trying to keep it solar or not if I did. Kinda a big weight penalty.

Like I said my truck project is just about done and I'm stupid to get started on my next project. I was thinking of doing a gasification system for the house but now I've got this new wood stove and it seems like no one else around here ever heard of collecting wood out of the alleys for fuel. don't have the flue hooked up yet cause I want to run a heat exchanger off it. Gotta build that yet. But its a lot less complex than the gasification system would have been. So I'm thinking "whats next"

 

Hi Michael, ya thats why I was thinking plywood on a sharpie style bottom. Easy to fix and maintain. Reasonably efficient, and I could have hidden the simplicity with some stylish design, which I failed utterly to achieve with my rather pathetic attempts. I'm just no good at thinking cat like I guess. I can draw up a commuter mono in a heartbeat, but a cat, damn those turned out fugly

 

having reread the thread I might have been a little to hard on myself. I'm going to try a few things. Take Richards advice and knock 6 inches out of the tunnel ( brings it down to 30". loose the back porch cover and replace it with a cloth enclosure, and do something about that front elevation looking so blocky. Oh and loose the skylight, its kinda heavy looking. But I am going to go back to the sharpie type bottom and spend some of that weight savings on bottom bulk, for those rocks you mention

Oh and I know no one will like this next idea but its just an exploratory so I can do whatever, its not like if it doesn't work I don't have this here eraser all ready to rock and roll.
I just put in a bid on a warp9 motor ($100 lets see if I get it, they go for ~$3500 new ) 72V 335A ~34hp and might consider a diesel hybrid system using wind, solar or tide to help charge the battery bank. Not sure it would work out at all cause its so heavy a system but its always fun to see if I can jam something like that in. Its never worked yet, but what the hell.

compare that to the lightened version just running alternative fuels through a diesel. Put in a few calls on cheap diesels as well. I think we decided that 80hp would do the trick, and that the engine isn't called the 300D but something else ( I really should go back and look that up )

 

Fallacy

You have to cut out damage
Mix resin
Wet out glass
Fair patch in
Mix paint

I have to do the same on a strip planked boat, foam cored and balsa cored.

 

I'm pretty nuts about woodwork mate. If its compromised, it will drive me nuts till I dig in and fix it. Call it a personality flaw. But screwed up wood weighs on me.

I've found a nice little cove about 17 miles outside of Ketchikan. Looks very protected, I gotta check the depth but there's a piece of land for sale with a long slopping short right next to what looks like a great mooring site. 20K, if I want it, heavily forested, no utilities or even a prayer of utilities any time soon. Free parking and a place I could build a ramp for hauling out. Hell I'd build a rolling dolly with a nice winch and roll out whenever I wanted to park and forget the mooring. Unless there's some regulations I'm not aware of, which there just about always is.

 

My logic on going back to the sharpie bottom goes something like this

from a cosmetic point of view its bellow the water line, so no ones going to see it anyway.

From a pounding point of view I don't really think its going to be much different. I'm thinking this thing won't be bashing through the waves anyway. that and I'll keep that forefoot full depth from the stem back to the deadrise, where ever that starts.

From a draft point of view I get the same displacement but with a slightly shallower draft.

From a building point of view, Its half the jointery, = half the opportunity for a leak. The weight I save in chine logs I can add in thickness on the bottom. I realize thats not "saving" anything in the end but its a rocky world out there and I don't want any holes in my nice shiny living room. I can make one ~90° degree joint very strong using about the same or less wood than I'd use in a 45° joint and I can better protect that end grain and with a better rabbit on a 90° than on a 45°. Its easier, its faster, and my chances if I do have a strike of damaging the chine are less, if I have less chines. As a kid I fixed a few rock splintered chine logs and what a pain in the *** that is.

Also for a vehicle only doing 8~10 knots I'm not sure a rounded form is really all that much more efficient than a Bolger style hull would be. The guys hulls though ugly are pretty well known for being very easily driven. Given the trade offs I think I'm safer with a thicker shallower hull that weighs about the same. and has less joints to split should I ever plow into anything. If its a slightly noisier ride, I'm OK with that.

 

looks better a bit wider and works better a bit longer, so I've rescaled everything to 19' wide and 38' long

did a new set of forward studies

 

I'd say you're starting to close in on it nicely, Boston. This thread was part exploring technology and part exploring what you want out of a boat. You're getting there...