Lowest speed planing

[rayk]

Originally Posted by yotphix

....At the harbour speed limit of 5 knots they adopt a bow up attitude and generate enough wake that the police often seem to hassle them to slow down.
so... is there a small, light boat that could plane at say 6 or seven knots with the above load? Or is there some minimum speed at which it is possible to plane?
Or should these guys be using an outrigger canoe or rowing shell with an electric motor to sneek around the harbour at 6 or seven knots with virtually no wake?

Noise, wake or planing seem to attract attention no matter what the speed limit is....

Long, thin, electric and non-planing could probably cruise around the harbour at over 5 knots and draw comments of admiration instead....

[messabout]

Planing or not planing has been the subject of much discussion over a long period of time. The definition of planing itself is inexact and fraught with argument. I think the idea here is to go briskly with a bare minimum wake. Never mind what we call it.

Two ways to do that. Long skinny hulls and very light, wide, flat bottomed ones. Emphasis on the word "light". Have you watched kids playing on skim boards? usually a round disk of ply about 36" diameter. The drill is to run and jump on the board in very shallow water. Done skillfully the disc takes of in what appears to be a planeing attitude. I think this is the result of weight versus area. There may be a shallow water effect at work too. In any case a Bolger like box, about 6 feet wide and 10 to 12 feet long would plane without much fuss. It would be cheap to build and provide a good working platform. A very long and skinny boat would not be sufficiently maneuverable or stable for the assigned cleaning work. The catamaran, as suggested would satisfy the need for small wake and moderate speed, however it would be clumsy and present some danger to those mega yachts being serviced.