Pocket Caravel, asking too much?

No doubt. Or one weekend being barked at by crowded uncomfortable parents will...

 

Considering the length of a project as robust and garnished as this, the discussion about unplanned pregnancies, will become a bigger concern, come it's completion date. You'd be best advised to find a 20' - 25' sailboat in dire need of some love. These can be had for a song in active sailing areas. I can get Catalina 22 lookalikes for 500 to 1,000 pretty easily. They'll need new sails, rigging, cushions and other fabrics, most of the hardware may be serviceable, though will probably need to be rejuvenated. With some 1x2's and plywood, you can dress her up to look very pirate like. Given some help a new more pirate like sail plan could be made, using Tyvek sails (house wrap). You'd get on the water sometime this year and shouldn't feel so bad, when you have to drag it to the landfill in a few years, after they discover girls/boys don't actually have cooties. The more you spend for the derelict sailor, the less you have to buy to get her going again, though the pirate lipstick will still cost some.

 

"Kids will have comfortable sitting headroom in three feet,"

Which is loads more room than they get in a discarded refrigerator carton, which usually is used as as space ship or pirate ship.

 

Good points all around. Yeah, I have read that it is actually better for kid's developing imagination/brains for things to NOT be perfectly realistic as it exercises the creative centers more...

I donno. The sketch represents as much my "requirements" as much as it is does the kids. LOL.

 

Adults enjoy mental ************ as much as kids enjoy , playing with toys

Buy a new fridge , stock it with brew,

give the shipping carton to the kids,

A real WIN WIN!!

 

That sounds like a plan!

 

The biggest problems I see with the proposal are that it is to big to be finished while the kids still have interest in it and too small to fit the proposed 2 adults and 2 kids. The obvious solution is mutiny and setting the adults adrift! If you have waterfront property you could make a toy out of floating dock. If you don't have the water I suggest you go with your original idea of a playset in the backyard. Maybe add some attacking fleets of cardboard boxes and water canons. Paper mache is a great medium. You could get the kids involved in the design and build -then move them on to real boat building when they are older!

 

James, something you wrote earlier has been nagging at me and it may have taken this long for me to realize what it was.

You said that you didn't want to haul your playhouse to Macon so that means you must live somewhere near the edge of Bibb County to qualify the all-the-way aspect of your comment in the OP.

If that's an accurate assessment would the Conservation Ranger station in the adjacent county be closer to you if you could go there instead?

Also, I was wondering why not split up the project into a land-based pirate playhouse that can suit any shape you desire and a proven home build sailboat design, like Bolger's Light Schooner (description of a build: http://carlsondesign.com/projects/b...ctorial-of-my-1999-phil-bolger-light-scooner/ ), that will not only come together faster than the complex design you're proposing but, also having better performance and capacity, will remain of interest/use for family outings as your kids grow up?

 

West Central GA is served by the DOR office in Macon. I was going by their boat registration web page. Mainly I just don't want to deal with the PITA paperwork and inspection.

@skyak- We have a "lake" (pond) a few doors down the street. Big/close enough for a canoe, not enough for anything with sails or to leave in the water. Sadly. Mini-pirate ships built on those cheap sit-ok kayaks, with water "cannons", now there is a possibility....

The opening rough sketch represents the extreme optimization, literally the maximum classical caravel that can get squeezed down into 12 ft. irregardless of practicality (or sea-worthiness). Everyone is right, it isn't practical on a lot of fronts. But it was fun to draw.

Yeah, what I might do is use it as a basis for the backyard playhouse, just roughed out with MDF and pine ply. Definitely put the 6 yr. old to work (as much as her attention span will allow, lol). Perhaps as a workup of skill and tolerance for building a real wood boat. Who knows. My interests for a real, serious boat is in cats (wife doesn't like heeling).

Thanks again everyone for your feedback!

 

I thought I would provide a (rare) followup/conclusion to this thread. I did decide to take the sage advice of the board and built a conventional swingset thing, as well as a WalkerBay 8 that occasionally sees water, but is mostly just a backyard plaything for the kids.

 

Cool beans. Enjoy!

 

Good solution. Saves a lot of time and money, and when they get bigger they can still sail the WalkerBay, and your grand kids can use the swingset.