classic runabout.. Ken hankinson vs Glen L marine

[genesis]

hello folks
i require advice on choosing between the 2 designers, ken hankinson vs Glen L marine wrt a classic mahogany runabout ...cold molded construction. Glen's design have a slightly wider beam at 6'7 where as kens have a beam of 6'1.. im not so sure wrt hull design diferences.

Kens design is the barrelback 19' http://www.boatdesigns.com/cgi-bin/s...634#barrelback 19

Glen's design is the Riviera at http://www.glen-l.com/ go to catalogue then inboard design then see Riviera.

please advise on which would be preffereable in your opinion

[dgrason]

At the risk of talking about something that I don't know about, I can only go with my own gut feelings. Of course, you posted your query back in December and now it's Febuary. So, you may have become so tired of waiting that you went ahead and made a decision, but what the heck.... here goes.

I'm a first time builder and have purchased several plans from Glen-L. Barry is usually the man I deal with when I call on the phone and he's great. He's helpful and courteous. I have settled on a design for my first boat and it's NOT the Riviera. However, the Riviera is turning out to be one of Glen-L's most popular designs. There is definately a Riviera in my future. This design has become so popular that many of the completed ones are showing up on the web. One builder, a gentleman named Mark Bronkalla, has documented his build all the way from tracing the frames to wake boarding with his kids. Here's his website, if you haven't already found it:

www.bronkalla.com

Also, Glen-L now has a forum with the same format as this one. You can go directly to the Riviera builders there and ask specific questions. Glen-L has a webletter every month and Mark Bronkalla is a regular contributor. With all of this help and input available, I feel that the decision is a "no-brainer."

As far as the Hankinson design, I'm very sure it's an excellent one. The barrelback certainly has a charm all of its own. However, the Hankinson builders don't seem to be as computer savvy, I find the Hankinson website harder to navigate and contains a lot less info and does NOT have a forum. There are very few photos of the mahogany runabouts and to me, it's a little dissapointing. It may be that there simply aren't enough people building barrelbacks because there seems to be a serious lack of feedback for this design. If I can get a boat or 2 under my belt, I'll build one of those barrelbacks and maybe I'll be the first to do a website for those like Mark Bronkalla did for the Riviera.

Finally, the covering boards for the barrelback would have me intimidated. The sheer goes from being very sharp near the bow of the boat to nil at the very stern of the boat. I personally want to build a couple of other designs before I try to fair that hull.

I hope I've helped.