New cabin top on pre-exiting hull

I have a plywood Hartley 18 which has, over time been converted from sailing to motoring. Now, I am considering keeping the hull and putting a 'houseboat style' cabin on top. Has anyone done this - built a cabin onto a pre-existing hull?

Peter

 

Significantly raising the CG on your boat wouldn't be a wise thing to do. You could raise the roof, maybe as much as 18" and though it will have quite box like appearance, considerable headroom would become available. Much more then this and you probably make the boat unstable. An 18' boat in a houseboat configuration, needs a wholly different hull shape than that used on an 18' sailboat. You just don't have enough initial stability to screw around with the CG that much.

 

I suppose you can do just about anything your concience will allow insofar as turning a hull into a houseboat. This last weekend I spent a few hours walking the docks in Juneau, and they were full of these types of conversions. Probably the most memorable was a converted 32' x 10' Radon Craft that was sporting a beautiful two story house! I should have taken pictures because I'm still don't believe I saw what I saw...lol.

Once you go down this road though you might as well trade your rope tie-up lines for chains and shackle that baby to the dock because it's life as a boat has ended.

MM

 

Being trailerable I anticipate launching it near to where it will stop. The boat would be used on the Murray River (Australia), basically for camping. You only have to go around a few bends and its about as remote as it can get. I have a proper sailboat for 'adventures'.

I used the term 'houseboat style' and that probably scared a few people off from commenting (probably questioned my sanity).

What I would like to do is keep the hull and remake / modify the cabin and cockpit to make it a better camp boat.

Has anyone done that?

Peter

 

deck redo

First as always post a picture or 2 to see what you have got now and any scketchs you might have done or picture of what you looking at trying to do .
Couple of options is build out of ply and wood and glass over or build with a glass foam 15 mm core and glass maybe for panels and have a glass top / deck sides etc etc and everywhere else .
Glass hull ?? or wood ?? :?:

 

It is a ply boat. The COG should not be too big a worry on a river, especially if he makes the cabin out of foam/glass, keep it light as. Will look like crap, but no one will be too bothered.

 

Keep it the same !!

If its a ply boat stick with the same build in ply and pick the ply carfully theres light and heavy sheets same with timber as well use light timber for things above the deck and keep the weight down low where is should be !!.
can glass over the outside surfaces to make it last longer and no leaks but not the inside just resin coat maybe !!

 

Alright, stick with balsa ply.

 

You are right !!,can make some nice light panels using thin ply each side of a balsa core and glassing the outside when its finished . not cheap but light and ridged and a good insulator from the sun and heat !!. Because its laminated can do a curved roof panel with out batterns across from side to side so dont hit you head . Same doing the deck use thicker balsa and a thicker outside ply !!. could use foam as a core but balsa is more robust and less chance of the panels coming apart if you get hit orif you hit anything .

 

Just check what the best glue to use a wood glue is ok not pva !! need to be a 2 part . balsa soak liquid so remember !! I think we used resorsenal glue
OR caskade one or the other or both !!
Used to make boat interiors with curves in the panels used balsa . doors walls all kinds things !! Did the cabintop for a 25 foot launch same way to but vacuumed it over and sheet of aluminuim that had a nice curve in it .