trailerable riverboat cruiser style plans?

[adamanderr]

im interested in the feasibility and or plans/ ideas for a trailerable house boat in a riverboat canal cruiser style. maybe boston whaler hull style or catamaran built around two vw 1.5na diesels in each pod(would it be called pod?) plus an outboard for manuverability.

hopefully something that could be used on the mississippi small bays rivers lakes etc

28-35 feet maybe. id assume it could only be allowed to be eight feet wide because of the over the road restriction. maybe it could be pushed to 8.5 feet wide? shallow draft. does that mean depth below waterline?

is there a section of this forum that clues mewbies into general terminology and styles of boats, designs etc.

and or does any one know of existing plans to reference.

someone suggested i build it around pontoon but i didnt want to lose that room below, want a low center of gravity. where is a good place to even look for pontoons even.

i dont even know what to call the style boat ive seen to clue anyone in to my intended goal, sorry

[tx57]

Bateau has a design called the GT27 that is a flatbottomed monohull. For a boat of this type it should yeild the shallowest draft possible. It was designed to use a bracket mounted outboard for power. Check it out at Bateau.com, there are several other designs out there the problem with this type of boat is most of them look like a barge with a house on them.

[PAR]

This is Floom, a 33' on deck, low power riverboat and one in a series of riverboats, all intended for protected waters and economical cruising. It's powered by a single outboard and has excellent maneuverability as a result. This is the wide beam version (9'), but there is also a narrow version (7') which sips fuel like a bird, but has less accommodations understandably, because of the reduced hull volume. Email me for more information.

[tx57]

Par, how is the Floom constructed? It's a real cool looking boat.

[adamanderr]

thanks floom is exactly style i was looking for. how hard is it to scale up the design to 8 ft or at least maximum legal load width. maybe oversize load @9 ft.
could it be twin hull for my little diesels.
is asking questions like this rude to designers.

[adamanderr]

is there info on the max's as far as trailerable goes...a thread...maybe 33x7 could be 40x9, even better...
someone told me i should talk to the coast gaurd directly as they have guidelines and paremeters

[PAR]

An oversize trailering permit is usually just 50 bucks a year in most states and some hoop jumping, but no big deal. This isn't a boat you want to drag around behind your Suburban. Now, I have a 454, four wheel drive Suburban, I wouldn't feel uncomfortable hauling this boat with, but most do have this. It's not the tow vehicle, so much as the size of the tow. A 33' boat needs a big ramp, a long trailer tongue and not many places can accommodate a boat of this length, without a travel lift or crane. It's not very heavy, but it's big. Boats of this general size are intended to be splashed in the spring, putter around all summer then hauled in the fall. They don't lend themselves well to trailering around and splashing at the local puddles every weekend.

The 7' version of Floom is easily under the trailerable limit, but again it's considerably smaller internally.

Floom can be built as plywood plank over sawn frame or taped seam over bulkheads, partitions and some frames.

Making her a "twin hull" boat would require a completely different approach and considerably more freeboard as well.

I see no reason to clutter up her stern with twin diesels, when a single outboard works fine, is a lot lighter, substantially cheaper and is more maneuverable, with less drag too.

[FAST FRED]

An oversize trailering permit is usually just 50 bucks a year in most states and some hoop jumping, but no big deal.

This (or similar) is the requirement for EACH state so an East coast person wanting to see Seattle might need to jump thru 15 hoops , and pay for EACH state transited.

For many states 8 ft 6 in ( no permit) and 65 ft from front to rear end is all that is allowed. Some are shorter,

FF

[tx57]

PAR, do you have a study plan that would elaborate on the building method. I know how to build stitch and glue over ply frames and how to build fillets and tab. Is this what you are referring to when you say sawn frame?

[adamanderr]

i thought the twin diesels would be nostalgic, quieter, simpler to run a bunch of odd pulley driven attatchment off plus i already own them. still i can see how theyd be a hassle. plus the possibility of using wvo as a fuel

[ezrollin]

Since you mentioned trailer-able & pontoon you might be interested in the project I've started a comparatively light,yet solid unit that can be build relatively cheap.Here's pic of a proto type ,the actual siding and window placement can be altered to suit your needs.I sold my prior pontoon boat and trailer because it was too small for my purpose but keep the 90 hp motor.I then bought the pontoons/trailer below and built the alum. cabin frame.

[Milehog]

Originally Posted by adamanderr

i thought the twin diesels would be nostalgic, quieter, simpler to run a bunch of odd pulley driven attatchment off plus i already own them. still i can see how theyd be a hassle. plus the possibility of using wvo as a fuel

As Floom is so shallow it seems to my untrained eye you'd have to build doghouses for the diesels. I'm thinking you'd have to pretty work hard to make them quieter than an outboard engine.
It is an intriguing design.

[PAR]

A pontoon or multi hull form forces the deck structures (cabins, pilothouse, etc.) to be considerably higher then they appear on Floom, which is one reason she has the looks she does. If you attempt to place these structures on a set of pontoons or that of a multi hull, then you end up with a Winnebago on a barge look, which was what I tried desperately to avoid with Floom. Also, because Floom has a mono hull configuration, the machinery spaces can housed below decks and the weather decks can still be self draining. On a pontoon boat, everything needs locker to live in, eating up valuable cabin sole real estate. I don't know about you, but I don't like eating my diner sitting on a box that has a fuel tank in it. All this is below decks on Floom.

As for twin diesels, well it'll work, but I'll take the thrust steering of an outboard, over a fixed shaft any day. Twin outboards would be far better then twin fixed shaft diesels, again for the maneuverability issue, but also weight, which (maneuverability) on a long, narrow boat isn't something that should be discounted too much. Now, those twin diesels you have, would be a nice option if tied to outdrives, though a tad heavy for what they offer. Another option would be to stuff the diesels into tunnel mounted shaft setups. The hull could tolerate this modification though you'd lose a fair bit of cockpit room to engine boxes.