One man fishing boat

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by Mountain man, Aug 7, 2010.

  1. Petros
    Joined: Oct 2007
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    Location: Arlington, WA-USA

    Petros Senior Member

    Hey mountian man,

    I would not go the foam route, unless you have a sourse of that stuff cheap (or free), it will cost you quite a bit.

    I would build two skin-on-frame kayaks, and attach the deck. I have built them from salvaged lumber, but even if you buy the lumber you are still only need about $25 worth at retail prices. Build two short Greenland type kayaks, 10 or 12 ft long, about 2 ft wide each, cover with any heavy nylon, polyester or even cotton duck, paint with polyurethane floor finish, or any oil based paint, and you have a fishing platform.

    I have built 16' long skin-on-frame kayaks or open canoes for $50 to $70, the most expensive part is the fabric covering. If you can find some 7-8 oz fabric with a tight weave for under $2 a yard (bargin basement stuff), it can be done for even less if you salvaged the lumber. The frames are lashed together, and without a coaming to make it should be fairly quick to build. That last one I build took about 30 man hours starting with uncut raw materials from the lumber yard. They are also very light, usually in the 20 to 30 lb range.

    They are fun to build, take shape fairly quickly, are light and durable, and look great.
     
  2. ThomD
    Joined: Mar 2009
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    Location: TO

    ThomD Senior Member

    That should be very stable. That isn't the best hull shape, though not a lot worse than the pro model. One advantage is you pick up displacement rapidly with inches immersed, but don't add a lot of surface area. Long hulls are good if you are going fast. With Kickboats, and boats that are being propelled by inefficient oar arrangements, while fishing with one hand, simple may well be good enough. I have a design I am working on now, which is a remake of the waterwagon. Not efficient at all, but a fun design to play with, and to bring back summer memories.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/49936846@N08/

    Original was in the Sept 71 issue of PM, now in google books.
     
  3. portacruise
    Joined: Jun 2009
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    portacruise Senior Member

    Yes, I can the the attraction of waterwagon type in very small protected areas. But I was thinking long hulls can get you back when you get blown across the lake, and give a smoother, dry ride when one has to suffer wakes mentioned....

    Guess it just depends on how it will be used.

    Porta

     
  4. ThomD
    Joined: Mar 2009
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    Location: TO

    ThomD Senior Member

    The idea with the WW was to use a motor to get back from the far side of the lake. Though I will not be doing that myself. I have a much bigger boat for the far side of the lake. This thing will be for my pond. My favorite thing for intermediate distances, conceptually, is the Freedom Hawk kayak. Going to build something like that soon. Sorta like the transformer aspect.

    I have hulls in ply for a small cat, they are 8 feet long. I attach a DXF of it, but I don't have a CAD program here, so I am not too sure what it is. Should be an 8 foot cat hull designed for low waterline.
     

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  5. marriemb
    Joined: Aug 2010
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    Location: Sydney

    marriemb robinson crusoe

    two floating boaxes and a chair i think you can build it at home with some effort
     
  6. Mountain man
    Joined: Aug 2010
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    Location: Calgary

    Mountain man Junior Member

    Thank you all for your input!

    Portacruise - I was thinking of using foam because it is lightweight and floats.

    Petros - I had not considered skin-on-frame. Though I would not do the Greenland type kayaks, it seems a bit fancy for my needs.

    ThomD - How heavy do you think your water wagon will be when you are done?That looks exactly like what I am trying to achieve.
     
  7. ThomD
    Joined: Mar 2009
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    ThomD Senior Member

    It is going to be pretty heavy. It looks so simple, but the problem is one is building a boat, shaped like a box, with a deck on it! That is a lot of heavy stuff. I only had access to 5.2 mm plywood. If I was back in TO, I would use 4mm max, probably 3. I would probably adhere the top skin in the seat area to an internal piece of foam with another piece of 3mm under it, and get rid of a lot of framing, and it would be really stiff in the deck area. All the rest would be 3mm. This thing has a good bit of 2 sheets of ply in it, which are @ 20 pounds each, so that is 30, and the glue ads up fast. But it could be built much lighter. I will probably mostly use it out the back of my pick-up, and it will take a hit.

    I would look into the skin approach if you want something similar to the inflatables in weight. I saw one in a magazine, and it was lightweight wood framing and some kind of skin over it. Could be something almost paper like with epoxy on it. Or the ubiquitous dacron.
     
  8. Mountain man
    Joined: Aug 2010
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    Mountain man Junior Member

    Paper with epoxy over a wood frame? Has anyone ever built a paper boat before, large enough to hold a man?

    Obviously not loose leaf. but like card paper. What about a corrugated plastic?
     
  9. portacruise
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    portacruise Senior Member

    Yes, they have cardboard boat racing contests in the USA. In NZ, they even have a pedal powered cardboard boat compete:

    http://www.reocities.com/m.battley/hpb/icarus.htm

    P
     
  10. ThomD
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    ThomD Senior Member

    I bought this kayak once that the owner had configured with a panel of coated cardboard as a bulkhead, rather than a float bag. In those days is was probably poly resin, not epoxy. Was a heck of a job knocking it out.

    You got to figure you have something like 4000 square inches of surface area, and like 200 pounds, not a lot of pressure per square inch.
     
  11. Mountain man
    Joined: Aug 2010
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    Mountain man Junior Member

    I went to my local Home depot and found some prices. I can build 2-12' pontoons for $50 at aprox. 20 lbs each.

    Thanks for all your help! I'll post some pictures when I am done. :)
     
  12. ThomD
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    ThomD Senior Member

    Sonotubes it is?
     
  13. Mountain man
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    Mountain man Junior Member

    No, not sonotube, ha ha, I will sacrifice some weight but I can get a 4x8 sheet of 1/8" hardboard for only $9.25 CAN. Sonotube wouldn't give me the displacement I was looking for. I would need like 4 of them.
     
  14. thudpucker
    Joined: Jul 2007
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    thudpucker Senior Member

    I can see your fixed on the idea of a pontoon boat.
    As a kid I fly-fished all over Washington state and a lot of B.C.

    I had an 8' plywood pram. I think it was a 'one sheet' design. light, rowed very easy, would spin around on it's own keel. I duck-boated it in a wind, skidding across some really ugly water.

    It weighed about 70 Lbs. (about as much as an 8 yr old kid) or about 32Kg.
    I carried it 1/4 Mile into some really great fishing waters. Up in B.C. I carried and dragged it. Up in Alaska I dragged it across the brush. It went really easy, like a sled, over that dry brush.

    It had immensely more room than your pontoons and made a pretty good shelter for my overnighters as well.

    If I had that to do over again, I'd make that middle seat removable so I could nap in it while out on the water.

    I'm willing to bet, if you could ever compare, you'd forget that pontoon boat or those inner-tube things.
     

  15. lewisboats
    Joined: Oct 2002
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    lewisboats Obsessed Member

    Hardboard will dissolve.
     
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