Concrete Canvas Junk Voyager - design and assistance

The gear alone would be worth that.

 

It's because the dream has not met reality yet.

Designing your own off shore cruiser, reality is that you're putting your life and perhaps others a great risk. I can have a dream about owning Central Park, then I wake up, but it's not going to happen!

This kinda reminds me of me when I first got here, wanted a 30' landing craft for my motorcycle. You'll find that everything about boats is a compromise! I'll be buying a used boat that is close to what I really need and buying the smallest I can make work!

For my hobby, I'll build a smaller boat to knock around in on protected waters serving as a small camper, it won't be the main bang.

Insurance was mentioned, cement boats would be harder to insure than a wooden boat!

One reason to conform to more acceptable materials and styles is insurance and don't think you can just float into any marina and drop a hook without insurance! They will run you off.

You'll also find that in yachting there will be some noses up in the air, egos and a bit of contempt to a degree. Translated try converting an old school bus as an RV and then trying to get a space at some KOA next to a million dollar motor home, reality is, you're not getting in there! A floating cement truck is like an old school bus.

Beyond naming a few boat designs and nautical parts, I'm no designer, I can use a boat.

The SOR PAR mentioned is where you really begin, thinking about the real requirements means waking up from the dreams and specifying requirements in reality as to actual functions required and that drives the design process. After you really examine your needs in a practical way you'll probably find that what you really need is nothing at all what was in that dream.

You can always modify and personalize an existing boat, you can be as picky as you like but you'll need to accept the physics and design requirements for any craft.

A small budget = small boat. Big budget = big boats. Any boat is a whole in the water in which you fill with money, some require more money than others.

And, when you buy a used boat, you'll be getting all kinds of equipment, buying a radar, electronics and gear is really expensive, even scrounging used stuff and you have no business (IMO) of being off shore without the proper gear.

Anyway, welcome, read, listen to these guys, learn and accept the path of least resistance.

 

...could it be that a complete laymen & nautical greenhorn that is seriously considering not only building his own boat but also DESIGNING it is so far out of sync with reality that no matter what we write isn't going to influence him??? I figure the underlying attitude basically is "nothing much to it!" which would mean a gross disregard/disrespect of & irreverence to anybody else's "nautical achievments...

 

Magnus,

You can see you are not going to hear what you want to here.

But there are a few first steps already suggested you can take to gain experience.
The suggestion to make a concrete/ canvas plate and compare it to more established construction is very reasonable and cheap.

You say you want to learn and accomplish something - so start.

3'x3'x ??? thick "skin"

Concrete/ canvas (or polyester- a much stronger more durable material, or even fiberglass) That is now 3 panels.

A piece of plywood (marine)

A piece of fiberglass

Make them all about the same thickness so you can get an idea of the relative benefits/ stiffness.

Now how would you test them? You need to start reading engineering texts.

I forgot - what kind of concrete? Do you understand there are different kinds?

 

You have gotten some good advise here. I built my first boat (the Glen-L Flying saucer)
when I was 15. The year was 1957. I cut all the frames in wood shop and glued them up in are garage.
Start with something smaller and out of wood that you can give away to a friend or relative and buy a set of inexpensive plans to build by. FORGET CONCRETE.......................
This is called self education..... good luck

 

I have owned many boats and built a handful. All the boats I have built have basically cost many times what thought in money and time. I too am picky and know what I want in a boat, but I have 30 years experience building stuff and heck of a lot of tools and skills. I ditto the idea of start building the dingy first. As far as concrete as a building method.. why? Almost every other material is better and easier to work with. Building in concrete is very difficult, and btw I am a retired concrete shell builder. Only way to build a concrete shell is monolithic one pour with the right additives, and the steel should galvanized and be of sufficient structure. A concrete structure is a system, made up of different parts. Oh btw, concrete expands and contracts more than most materials, you have to deal with this too.

 

Jesus Cripes. Another one of these threads.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wishful_thinking

 

I'm sorry I don't have a very high opinion of specialized elitists. On a purely practical level, in my experience, most highly specialized knowledge is so out of touch with reality, that while, yeah, they make things that work, they don't apply any common sense to their designs. Because my specifications are so out of their specialization, they say it can't work. Well, if this is to be my Spruce Goose, so be it. I will relish the opportunity to prove you naysayers wrong.

Perhaps if I reframed my statements to make this a theoretical exercise, rather than reality, I would have been given more useful feedback? Not that I will, but that's kinda what I was hoping for in terms of responses here. How to make it work, not, whether it should be done, or if there's anything that's a better option for some presupposed problem I never asked to have solved, or even claimed to have.

Because the value of that advice is akin to telling someone asking for advice on a good beauty product to use, "don't bother, just get a total makeover." It doesn't answer the question, and it assumes a bunch of things the advice-giver could never know. In other words, it's attempting to solve a problem that doesn't exist, or one that doesn't need solving.

I don't think I can put my life and others at any more risk then I do whenever I get inside a car and start traveling upon the roadways... Do you?

Because you've already chosen not to put forth the work or effort to make it so.

This is actually good and useful input, thank you. Sounds like a problem to be solved, so, shall we all solve it together then?

To do this, is the reason why I made my thread in the first place.

Also good knowledge for me to know, thank you. What types of equipment do I need, and how much they usually cost, would be also helpful. I know about needing an autopilot, radio, charts, depth meter, gimbal compass, sextant, and battery system. Is there anything I'm missing here?

Thank you for your courtesy.

Absolutely not. If there's no resistance, there's no gains.

Yes it is reasonable, and I may do it.

Naturally the best kind for the job, all things considered. That's one of the reasons for this thread.

This is good information for me to consider, thank you. Could you perhaps elaborate?

 

Magus, the reason you're receiving friction is you ignorance of basic engineering principles, approaches, material properties understanding and an assumption that those of us with multiple degrees, must be elitists with no practical or common sense. Then you list the Spruce Goose (over 2 billion in development in today's money), which was one of the most highly engineered structures of it's day and a true (series) of innovations in practical manipulation of physical properties, that you can possibly imagine (obviously you haven't). No one hair brained their way through that project.

Would you fly in an aircraft designed by the pilot flying it, that had no engineering background or even flying experience? Your grotesque misinterpretation of the basics and fundamentals of materials, physics, hydrodynamics and general engineering and the professionals that practice it, is precisely why you're recieved so much flack. We see this countless time each year, with folks wanting to know how to design this or that and arguing, inappropriately, about things they clearly haven't the slightest grasp about. You are just the latest example of the pie in the sky dreamer that hasn't the remotest clue, as to what you need, nor how to go about getting it.

Maybe you can google your way through, but fortunately the rest of us did it the right way, got the appropriate education, experience and practical understanding necessary, so novices like you can dream about creating the seemingly infantile design elements, you're taking for granted, every time you wake up, from one of your daydreams.

 

I don't know how your driving is

Now seriously, would you consider building your own car from your own invented materials for use on the freeways?

 

Magus, I have one request:
Report here when you are done and have built your boat.

We see this format quite often. People who think that boats are unnecessarily complicated and expensive and that nobody before them thought of thinking outside the box. People who think building the hull is 90% of the boat and that the smart way to "get the real experience" is to start boating by building a massive blue water capable boat of self engineered structure. Getting a cheap camp cruiser with a tent and portable stove to start with wouldn't be "the real deal" you know.

These same people get annoyed when their unanswerable ignorant questions don't get the answers they are looking for. At the point of criticism they pull the Wright brothers card. After all Wrights met many naysayers too.
I have a news flash: it is true that some people doing something totally new succeed thanks to not listening to naysayers.
However:
A) it does not work in reverse. People calling your ideas bad does not prove them being good. Very bad ideas get called out as bad ideas on genuine merit far more often.
B) the Wrights were venturing in new areas. What you are suggesting is something people have been doing, studying and optimizing for ages. There is solid and broad experience AND practical knowledge. No unsolved mysteries and unfound shortcuts here.

So prove us wrong and post here when you are done.

 

Read this meanwhile:
http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/boat-design/affordable-seaworthy-cruiser-33980.html

You could also read about raw faith (name of ship) or flying hawaian:
http://www.xssailing.com/article/crew-rescued-65foot-homebuilt-catamaran-flyin-hawaiian/

Three examples of blaming people as elitis naysayers and ignoring the word of experience.

Its not that I like being negative - the contrary! Its just that unrealistic plans are no fun! They result in wasted years and piles of money down the drain. Buy a used cheap boat, use it for a season, sell it next year if you want something else. That will take you closer to the real experience than anything else. I promise it will almost certainly be fun - and if NOT then you learned that its not for you with very small amount of time and money wasted.

 

Magus,

PAR was being kind.

I don't want to be a part of this kind of a dangerous failure.

You realize that the Wright brothers were actually systematic engineers who invented a large portion of the basis of modern flight?

I'm sure you are the equivilent - I'll leave you to it.

 

Magus,

I'm confused, are you asking professional naval architects and builders for advice or are you giving it?

If the former, I'd shutup and listen to a lifetime of empirical knowledge (that means hard won through real life experience). If the latter------ crickets

 

The Spruce Goose had engineers experienced in building conventional planes.
It also had a large budget compared to yours.
It still didn't get built until it was too late to use. It ended up more theoretical.

It's common to start building a boat and not finish. (I've started and not finished two. I had to relocate and never got back to it to finish, so I know!)