river boat progress

progress

The vessel comes along nicely. My wife passed away a week ago and working on the project is good therapy. I will post photos if it ever stops raining.

ryland

 

My condolences on your loss.

This week I went to the funeral of a patron, a sort of a father figure to not only myself but many others - a larger than life personality. He gave me my largest projects and was the reason I went on my own 15 years ago. Not the same as losing a spouse but the need for "distraction" is still there.

I look forward to seeing some new pictures of the river boat.

 

Progress

The vessel comes along nicely. The wheelhouse is weather tight, airconditioned and the head is installed down below. We are installing conduits and boxes for the electrics now. The glass guys finished installing the portholes and windows in the wheelhouse, too.

I made a major engineering change a couple of weeks ago.. I weighed the vessel and found that I would only be able to take on 8000 lbs at my ideal waterline. So I made a third pontoon raising the deck capacity another thirty thousand pounds. This could make the difference between a boat and a submarine.

I had hoped to get this finished by end of summer, but have extended the goal to next Spring.

Ryland

 

Good to hear the project is still moving along. I worried a little when we didn't hear from you for a while....

I still have my wife, but lost both my parents not that long ago. Not the same, I know.

 

Glad to hear from you again.

Do you have pictures that show the whole boat?

And is that an M1911? And a German Uniform? Kinda caught me by surprise.



Wayne

 

That wheelhouse is going to scare mothers with small children - I love it.

 

masthead

I just received the mast head for the vessel.. what do you think?

 

As bikers say, "****!"

About 40 years ago I built a 3 frequency dome out in the woods, but mine didn't have a basement like yours.

I accidentally discovered that if you got down on the floor in the exact center and talked it had an amazing reverb effect.

How's the boat coming along?

 

reverb

You are correct about the reverb effect. It's like surround sound but with one speaker. When building and before any interior, we did the Thunderdome thing with ropes in the center. Two men enter, one man leaves.

The vessel comes along well. I just finished installing a 4000 lb deck crane and fabricated the anchor yankers and associated components. She has both a bow and stern 100lb Danforths. All of the AC and DC wiring is done.

I'm now fitting fresh water tanks, fuel tanks, and associated plumbing. We are experimenting with woodland digital camo finishing. We are making templates of F-18 fighter jets to paint on the deck for curious air traffic.

Ryland

 

Hi Ryland,
I just got back from a visit to Thailand, and I'm thinking of building a 'floating house/cottage' over there, and maybe one for here in the USA. I visited one place in Thailand that had a lot of floating 'rafts' and houseboats built on cylindrical floatation tubes much as you have there.

A few questions for you?
1) What was the bases for your cylindrical tubes? (I assume they were an existing basic form?)
2) What is their diameter?
3) What corrosion protection did you seek for the interior surfaces of the tubes?
4) Approx what cost for these floatation tubes?

I've attached a few photos, but I have many more that I will likely post over on this other subject thread that I have previously contributed to:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/retirement-houseboat-floating-home-23987.html








PS: you are going to get a big kick out of the diesel powered 'tow vessels' they use to move these rafts around. I'll post some pics of those later today.

 

The tubes

Brian,
The 'tubes' as you call them were not surplus anything. They were fabricated for this vessel. They are sixty inches in diameter and 3/8" thick steel. The overall length is 56 feet. There is a bulkhead every ten feet with an 18 X 24 inch access hatch. The hulls are welded inside and out and pressure tested. Inside the hulls, we finished the bare metal with a light coat of zinc chromate followed with three coats of white urethane. Deck boards are fitted for all chamber interiors. There are bilge pumps in each, totalling 18 including the center hull. Both the starbord and port hulls have 120/240 volt AC power with outlets, a DC bus and both AC and DC lighting, compressed air supply and fresh water lines.

There are both bow and stern thrusters, hydraulic.

Multipurpose hydraulic capstans are fitted forward and aft to haul the anchors, help cargo aboard via the landing ramp, etc.

A telescoping deck crane with a capacity of 4000# is installed. It will reach out 20 feet, rotate 360 degrees, boom up/down and hoist.

There are five battery banks to maintain a balanced DC bus.

The outer hulls cost 22K USD each to produce. The center hull cost approx. 12K USD. The cost of the finished vessel will be about 250K.

I hope this information is helpful.

Ryland

 

Sounds very strong....built like a tank.

You might recall that I posted a photo of your original floatation cylinders along with some photos of 2 floating 'houseboats' over here, one with alum tubes, one with SS steel tubes (the contractor who built these vessels was involved in city utility works in Canada as I understand it):
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/retirement-houseboat-floating-home-23987-4.html#post531819

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/retirement-houseboat-floating-home-23987-4.html#post531834

 

Dot matrix camo and longtail redefined

The vessel is down to shipfitting now. The major structural stuff is finished. I am working on vent funnels, anchor rope lockers, below deck decking, you know.......the details..... Also experimenting with a new camo paint scheme. I like digital, woodland and flectar. I have developed a new pattern which can be called dot matrix digital flectar.

Also in the works is a tilting carrier for the engine and long tail drive. It is stainless steel, tig welded and 60" in diameter. The turntable is finished. It has a 6000lb capacity hub bearing with eight tracking rollers to handle the moment arm induced by the cantilever. The yoke for tilting is next. Rather than calculate the center of gravity, I am making an educated estimate with wiggle room in placement. Also, when finished, I can locate the hydraulic tank to fine tune the c/g.
The longtail carrier is modular, carrying the engine, hydraulic tank, fuel tank and transmission. The result will be a plug-n-play unit that can adapt to any similar vessel. It can also rotate far enough to bring the entire drive onboard deck. I will build a long tail shaft and prop unit that can be easily exchanged with a spare onboard. This may redefine the concept of the long tail. If not this and now, then what and when? Just saying..........

She has 18 bilge pumps, one for each compartment and now in progress are installations of anchor wash pumps. We just installed six fresh water tanks totalling 240 gallons.

Please know that I am armed only with ignorance and a dream.

Ryland

 

Progress

The "Sebastian Marie" is almost complete. The ship fitting is more extensive than I ever imagined, but every detail is addressed with attention to function and detail. She has been fitted with fuel tanks and the related transfer system, tested and fuel onboard. We can transfer fuel between tanks (totaling 900 gallons), and deliver to the generator, diesel toilet and diesel heating systems for compartments below. She has dc and ac systems for light, heat, compressed air and hot water supply.

We have perfected a method of applying a new camo paint scheme, a dot-matrix digital flectarn. It's a river boat so those colors suit her.

Question........what can we expect regarding condensation in the steel hulls when in the water? Each compartment has two funnels looking in opposite directions, and the compartments expecting humans and cargo have one vent fan on a funnel, too. I'm not sure if we should insulate the hulls.

Ideas?

 

What size are the pipe vents?