Riverboat designs

Closed cell foam is spec'd in the plans. If you use the cheap stuff from the big box store a 1" thick panel is R-7.

A 2 ton unit on this square footage is typical. You could probably get by with a 9,000 - 10,000 BTU roof mount if the boat was tight.

 

The blue stryofoam ( used for floating docks or anywhere for flotation ) has an R value of 5 for 1" thick. As Par said you can buy some foam where you get an R-7 but with the stryofoam you get 2 benefits, insulation and floation. One cubic foot of blue stryofoam floats 55 pounds. That is 1728 cubic inches = 1 cubic foot of the blue stuff would be about a 1" x 24" x 73" = 1752 I'm going to ask my son if I use a layer of very thin aluminum over the foam would I pick up any benefits. He designs heat and air systems.

 

You can spray on radiant barrier. That would help.

And, it would help a lot if you added an inch of foam in the roof .... and upper part of your cabin. 4 inches is probably best.

wayne

 

The roof is also insulated, but surrendering 4" of headroom for this feature is absurd in a boat of this length. A reflective barrier and an inch of foam is adequate.

 

Hi PAR,
I posted a link to your Egress and Floom designs over on this Trawler forum
http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=184393&postcount=3

...and in this discussion I have going on a little bit bigger canal crusier, a redesign of the Pilgrim 40 trawler
http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s3/redesigning-pilgrim-40-trawler-canal-boat-11212.html

 

I'm hoping to use Plascor PP honeycomb in leu of foam for the core in the decks and superstructure....we will see.
http://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=179504&postcount=127

For insulation value I seem to recall a steel boatbuilder, Wynand, swearing by the virtues of ceramic bead coatings. Got to run right now, but perhaps this might be a consideration??

 

Just looking back thru some subject threads that I posted a reference to the Pilgrim trawler design on, ...and noticed no one posted anything new since I made that last posting?

What has happen with several of the projects discussed here?
Troy, did you ever get your vessel completed??

 

Brian, I'm embarrassed to admit I haven't even officially started it yet. On top of everything else, I wound up with my wife's beloved old Dodge Conquest parked in the middle of my freshly-built shop, to avoid the zealots in our county's building and safety department. It has a cracked block, and they informed us that because it was non-operable and visible they were going to cut the locks on our carport and have it towed (welcome to the 21st century version of America, Land of the Free). So I rolled it into my newly-built shop as a temporary measure. Big mistake....

My son insisted that he was going to put it back on the road again when he got out of the Army, so the wife threatened to go berserk if I moved it out of my shop. But of course when he eventually came home from Korea and did the math, he realized the cost of a replacement engine, plus replacing everything that was time -rotted (tires, belts, fluids, etc.) would cost him more in time and money than simply buying a decent used car and driving away into his civilian life.... especially since he didn't have the know-how to do it himself, and I didn't have the time. Meanwhile I had spiraled into a pattern of seemingly endless overtime at work (over 700 hours a year for two years running), and sometimes went a month or two without ever making it home. I slid into a funk, and stopped posting on boatdesign.net - I guess basically because I felt like I was here under false pretenses.

I did a restart last month. I officially transferred into a lower-rated, 40-hour a week position, from which I can't be forced to work 'uphill' as a station operator (although I'm still D.O.T. qualified, and can volunteer whenever I have the urge for an overtime check). I bought a canvas parking structure for the Conquest to keep it from the sight of prying official eyes, and started straightening out and organizing my shop. Some of my stationary tools haven't been used since I stopped doing construction and woodworking for a living years ago, and they desperately needed to be gone thru, so I've been grimly cleaning, adjusting, de-rusting, re-wiring, etc.. Among other things, my radial arm saw had mud dauber nests in the motor. My thickness planer had stood outside since my son and I used it to build his flat bottomed canoe before he went into the Army (473 lbs. is a lot to move single-handed), and the cheap tarps covering it sun-rotted and let the rain in. It took me an entire day to get it back to being completely functional, and it'll never be pretty again. Of course, it was an ugly old beast to begin with lol....

I'm almost to the starting line. Next week when I get home I'll build a platform at one end of the shop, to lay out and assemble my boat frames on. I have a stack of lumber, and I've found a local source for epoxy where I can will-call what I need as I go along, instead of having to make a bulk purchase to save money. The world's slowest build thread is about to lurch into gear again, and painfully crawl forward a few steps...

 

Troy, thanks for sharing this, and good to see you on the forum again. Life has a habit of getting in the way sometimes for most of us; Its a comfort at least to know we're not alone in that predicament. I too, am hoping I've turned a corner today, after struggling under the cosh for too long.

 

Erie Traveler - Google Drive https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B33YksImXG0DSW1IR2EyYkMxdXc Not exactly a river boat but one that navigates narrow waterways. This is a site that might be interesting to some of our members and guests.