One man fishing boat

Hello, I'm new here and I haven't read 100% of the posts. So if there is a thread with the answer to my questions please feel free to point me in that direction. So I found a really a really nice fishing hole not too far from home. But fishing from shore is not my cup of tea, and I can't really afford to buy a boat right now. I would like to build a PWC like the one I saw at the Bass Pro shop (attached) out of wood and polystyrene. I would like to keep it light enough to be able to carry it aprox. 50m, but stable enough that I can use it comfortably. Is this possible? Would I have to use polystyrene or could I build a pair of wood pontoons (1'x1'x8')?

Thanks for your input.

 

I would use foam but not styrofoam...more like the colored stuff at the box stores. It is a closed cell extruded foam rather than an expanded foam. I would shape couple of pieces of 1/4" ply for your pontoons then run some bolts through it. Glue the foam to the bottom and shape it. Bolt a couple of 2xs to it as crossmembers and mount a cheap seat. Wear a life vest, bring a paddle and go fishin. There is a joke pic around here of just that very thing...but expanded a bit bigger and it gets to be a viable solution to your problem.

 

Look around on the other pages of the Texas forum below, this page has some pictures of such boats:

http://texasfishingforum.com/forums...4541900/new_foam_pontoon_kickboat#Post4541900

Porta

 

Yes, I have seen that picture. But about the foam/styrofoam thing. Which one is made up of the little balls that makes a big mess if you don't cut it with a sharp enough knife? I can never keep those two strait.
I am fairly good working with wood, would making the pontoons out of wood be more beneficial? Or would they just add weight?

Thanks!

 

Look at my post on that forum on making one in wood. Just got started. I also have pontoon files for the boat type above in wood.

 

Styrofoam is the bally stuff...like styro cups etc. It is usually the cheapest and you can tell it right off. 99% of the time it is white. The other stuff is much finer grained and usually colored...pink or blue or purple-ish. You can make wood ones too if you want or sandwich the foam between two sheets of ply. Many ways of skinning the same cat(-amaran). You have to seal the edges of the ply though...I have found that you can smear PL Premium (with a gloved finger) and it works well, especially under a coat or two of paint. The less the wood and more the foam...the lighter it will be.

 

Great, thank you! I have a idea of what I want to do.



By my calculations I should get 835.6lbs displacement. Is this a reasonable place to start? And if I wanted to turn this into a 2 man boat how much bigger should I make it (50%)?

 

835 is huge, what does that represent? You sorta want to start the other way around. Start with the load, you , your stuff, your estimate of the boat's weight, everything you can think of. That is the number you want to work with, so you design your hull for optimal performance at that weight. You may come up with a range of weight, as in the case where a boat would be used with or without a motor, or a companion. That is a little more complicated, which condition do you optimise it for.

 

835 is the total displacement of both pontoons I drew up for mt last post. It does not include the weight of any thing. I would guess that this would be 1/2 the size and weight of the "jemwatercraft pontoon boat" from the thread you had mentioned, so that would be 75-90 lbs. My self, all my gear and what I need to safely operate this boat could be 300 lbs. So if my understanding of buoyancy is correct, the pontoons would be almost 1/2 under. I'm not as concerned with speed or distance as i am keeping my pants dry if another boat passes buy. Or is that way to much extra buoyancy?

 

That is about right... You don't want more than 50% of the pontoon submerged. You can {almost} never have too much reserve buoyancy. I can't see your drawing though as I am not a gmail member.

 

How do I attach a picture, it only asks for a URL?

 

If you look at the floats on the kickboats they are often not quite 50% submerged. Sounds like you are only about 1/3rd of the way there. I normally wouldn't want to be more than 4" under. You will probably be deeper than that. But having a larger boat is another issue.

With float tubes the displacement of being waist deep in the water is significant, but on kickboats it isn't all that great.

These are pretty funky, but there is an advantage to having the stowage.

 

Re attached picture

Here is the picture I was trying to attach.

 

I played around with it a little more. What is your opinion; will this be stable? And if I wanted to have less of the boat in the water like ThomD said, should I make the pontoons wider or longer? Should I sacrifice height of the pontoons for extra length or width?

Thanks!

 

According to hull speed theory, the efficiency to propel will improve as you go to longer hulls. Something like sculling shell hulls would be easiest to propel. But you would have to strengthen the foam with a coating with long hulls. Seems like essentially all narrow pontoon designs should be as stable and faster than monohulls of the SAME width because of wetted area. What is reason you want to use foam?

Hope this helps.

Porta