The Mighty Mekong expedition boat

Richard the consummate professional, always bringing it back to what the customer wants.

I vote for the helicopter option

best of luck
I'll be following along with great interest to see what your final decision is and watch the building process.
cheers
B

 

Well I'm back from my jaunt up thee Nam Ou. Fantastic. Went with 4 Khmu guys in a 25 foot plank boat with a 10 hp Honda long tail. Got about 80 Km up river before we ran out of fuel! Was a very interesting trip back.

There really are tigers and bears in those hills makes the whole sleeping in a hammock thing a much more exiting experience.

Anyhow I learned some things.......

1. There are passages that are less than 5 M wide which would be navigable with less than 400 mm draft, exiting if they are several hundred meters long and you meet someone coming down stream, skinny is good;

2, We hit two rocks at low speed and had to stuff the resulting sprung plank / hole with river algae. Serviceable but not sustainable, I still like the steel hull idea...

3. Need reserve power for raceways;

4. Need to be able to sleep on board for security reasons further up the river;

5. Need some water / food storage to prevent the involuntary loss of weight if you get my meaning.

Am very tired, thanks for the advice while I was away.

BTW looked up the Armacraft website ( www.armacraft.com/ ) one of those reapers might work out here or even the CROQ, bit above my budget tho.. and would probably attract RPGs like flies up near the Chinese border... But maybe the good people at Armacraft might like to donate one in the interest of the furtherment of scientific knowledge hmmmm

 

FYI, those boats are designed in Thailand, by us

 

Rolling Barges

Some food for thought...plastic drums for floation, framewoirk of steel
http://rollingbarge.com
...lots of pics here
http://rollingbarge.com/party-barge.htm

When I was last in Thailand about two months ago (my Thai wife lives in Khon Kaen), I participated in a forum discussion on Thaivisa forum about riverboat possibities....or maybe that was on another Thai forum

Anyway there are some possible 'government restrictions/formalities' you may want to investigate concerning travel on the rivers there. I'll try to find those discussions for you.

A belt driven prop might be a good solution for you as well...

 

Plastic Bottle Floatation

Then have a look here...plastic bottle floatation
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/need-advice-building-houseboat-lagos-nigeria-35580-2.html#post422783

 

No different discussion, never heard of Thaivisa....can you give me a link to it so we don't have to reinvent the wheel?

I am aware of some of the river restrictions that you speak of. They are mostly about the sensitivities regarding borders on the Mekong or transgressing "military zones'. The title of my thread is a bit misleading, my intention is mostly to explore the medium sized rivers in Lao. I am a resident of Lao and have a Lao ID card so things are a bit different for me, also I do a fair bit of business ere and I know a lot of people along these rivers.

My foremen is an ex Lao navy skipper (yes there is / was a Lao navy)who spent 12 years on the river, and my head welder was his mechanic / maintenance man. Strangley they are also driving these inquiries from me.

The have many times "volunteered" to build a large river cruiser for me (at a river port in Vientiane) but they both express dissatisfaction with the small boats that are used here because they are (in their words) unstable and uncomfortable for long journeys.

We (the three of us) think that this is a consequence of the fact that in the past they were always built with single plank sides and that is what constrained their shape. There are no big trees available to locals anymore so the size is going down. The small steel boats that are used here are just replicas of these plank boats but badly built in steel. Another issue is that there are so few skilled welders. I think I employ every one in Luang Prabang, and if I find someone else I will try to grab them also.


So .. please send the link you spoke of...

 

Lets see...this is what I saved on my gmail acct:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/400960-places-to-park-a-houseboat-on-the-mekong/page__pid__3908665#entry3908665

http://picasaweb.google.com/pramaprow/Raft#slideshow/5179203670784945714

Sounds as though you have a good 'inside track' on cruising that area.

 

Thanks I read it.. I will respond to him / her . Sounds like some one obsessed with security, you live in SE Asia you accept that nothing is permanent. Its just the way things are. The old Buddhist thing about non attachment applies not that I am a devout Buddhist but there are some strong lessons in that faith in context .
Ask too many questions and you will get the wrong answers half the time. Best to just do what you want and wear the consequences, and in my experience there are not so many of those as long as you act responsibly and show appropriate respect.

Thanks for the info.. come and visit with your wife some time

 

Mae´s still exists? To remind on my question......

If the situation on timber is as you describe it (and I have no doubt you know the market), a long and narrow design close to the FAO, Gulbrandsson boats would be the lowest cost / highest value approach imho. And easily done in steel.

To the approach on SE Asian manners and habits, I dare to disagree.
I built several projects in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia (to name just the surrounding countries), and was fine with a bloody German approach.
Do or die.
I never accepted less than German quality, and never paid less than German wages!
Always, I got much more than expected by the so named professionals. (they did not know how to buy crop, cows and seedlings to get the people healthy)

So, whats your aim?

Getting a steel shop into a business, or to establish a job for more than ten of them?

Regards
Richard

 

Hmmm I don't know if Mae's exists, I have never actually heard of it. Is it / was it in Luang Prabang ?

I was not referring to the quality of work, we achieve at least an Australian standard here at my workshop. I also pay decent wages but not quite to German standards. The monthly wage for a skilled (Really!) welder here is $100 / month. Most of my people were trained either in Russia or in Thailand.

I was referring to fears about the legalities of living on the river. I have been visiting here since 1982 and have found that in Lao in particular people are remarkably tolerant as long as you behave a I suggested and you do not do anything really stupid. I find the Thais more complicated but still not unmanageable. Bu I would not try this in Vietnam, but you could not get below the Cambodian border anyhow. And I too have worked in all these locations.

 

I believe they are most concerned with the problems that can arise at the boarders, particularly if you are western origin...sometimes it can be good...sometimes troublesome. And of course there is always the problems with thief in Asia

I'd like that and may see if I get a chance...but the wife is affraid of the water. I don't live there full time at this time.

 

BTW GreginLaos, have you seen some 'luncheon' rafts like these photos I posted on another forum??
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/general-yachting-discussion/5554-bali-thai-style-houseboat.html
They were on a lake up north near the Megonk river but well west of Nong Khai / Ventiane.

Here is a nice slideshow of a house raft that made a trip along some rivers in Thailand. Here is the owner's quote;
"Forget the Mekong…get whatever rig you want and stay on any of the many rivers in Thailand…I just sold a raft I lived on for four years on the Mae Klong River (think up and down from Kanchanaburi (Kwae Yai, Kwae Noi))…loved it, miss it…needed the dough or I'd still be there…many photos at":http://picasaweb.google.com/pramaprow/Raft#slideshow/5200805602663299730


Wondering about some of the details on that vessel?? Looks like a steel skirt of some sort supporting a wooded floor? Wonder what those floats are??

 

I've heard a roumer that drums on these party boats is going to be made illegal here, simply because they are the cause of too many capsize accidents. It has to be a proper hull(s).

 

Your project and its goals intrigue me enough that I had to think trough how I would handle it with my experience in automotive design, prototype, manufacturing, and boating on inland waters (I live in Michigan in the US). As long as you’re looking a wave heights under 2 feet a steel hulled pontoon would be very easy to build, very stable, with very flexible propulsion options. To build the boat I’d start a ladder frame built of 50x100mm square tube with the rungs of the ladder spaced so that a 55 gal steel drum can lay length wise between the rungs , at a guess 5 per side given your dims. Once you have the frame and drums welded together, skin the drums with 1.5-2mm sheet steel by bending a 90 degree flange along the length then weld the flange to the frame rungs inboard of the drums. Warp the sheet steel around the drums and weld it to the outboard frame rail and the end drums. I also would button hole weld the sheet steel at several places to the ribs on the drums. Fab up nose cones by welding sheet steel to the forward end of the drums creating a U shaped channel then pinch it off on a 45 degree angle at the front and weld the seam . Finish the nose cone by welding a triangular piece of SS to the top of the pinched U channel to close it off and add lifting strakes to the sides of the NC. I would also add a piece of sheet steel under the frame to close it off, although it’s not absolutely necessary. From here you could mount your engines inside the rear most drum or deck mount them. Other drums could be used for fuel / water storage or left intact for buoyancy in case the outer hull gets pierced.

 

pontonn links

Just to give you an idea of whats been done with pontoons.

http://www.crestpontoonboats.com/

http://www.pontoons.com/

If you want to stick with a mono hull a scaled up Airbout hull might be just the ticket.

http://airboatfl.com/?gclid=CKH8xYTQ0KUCFQS7KgodbCGJmA