Long Boat for Mekong River

Would appreciate any feedback or design ideas. Need to design, loft, supervising building (with existing local boat builders) a shallow draft wooden river long boat with additional safety features including anti capsize extendable and retractable stability pontoons both sides? Hull would have to be impervious to rock grazing at a cruise speed of maybe 4-6knots. Any designs you have or ideas outside of a thicker bottom for protection, access to building supplies. Will be utilised for charity work. Thank you.

 

Um... any of the traditional junk or "sanpan" boats they have been using there for centuries? You're kind of in the wrong spot if you are going up the Me'kong and worried about safety. lol.

 

I thought at first you were talking about those long & thin small riverboats with outboard motor, but that's no small boat in the picture. Obviously what can be done really all depends what budget. But sounds like this is really about adding some of the features you've talked about to mitigate the main problems. The pontoons can probably help the stability/safety problem, and probably cheap as can be too. It's heavy ship, so you probably want to make sure they don't just falloff like when the boat is righting heavy and half the mass loads up the pontoon. They'll definitely add some drags too. And perhaps can mold some PVC armor plating to protect the bottom? go the full length and you may even have a double hull.

 

Yes, these are "ships" for sure. Boat will be required to go up and downstream slowly, rain season brings high waters and heavy currents with many possible rocks. Pontoons are to add safety as needed even when tied to shore as the concern will be having primarily children on board, these will be school boats traveling to remote villages. The photo shows a typical boat here. Need to modify as needed. Thank you

 

Is steel an option for hull material?

 

It would be helpful if you could concisely list all of your requirements and purpose instead of just teasing them out, otherwise you aren't going to get very useful advice

 

Let me guess, that's a boat about 16' x 98'.

 

The long overhangs on the craft pictured only deepen the draft, making bottom contact more likely.
A more barge-like design could provide shallower draft, improved stability and load carrying capacity.
I understand that boats of this type must be pretty “slick” to make way upstream with limited power.
There are many discussions on this forum about the benefits of long waterline, which the traditional designs obviously do not adhere to.

 

Thanks everyone for your feedback and thoughts, just getting started on this project, good observations and feedback. I apologise not not having more specifics at this time. Yes steel hull is an option. Not sure yet what budget we have to work with. I will post later when I have a more detailed idea. Thank you kindly.