Surfboard into small 'canoe' like boat

Guys,

Quick stupid question..... I can get my hands on a free surfboard. How about making some sides to it to sit in it and use it as a row/play boat for my kids in the ponds next to my house ? would this work or forget the idea ? Sides made by plywood glassed over and attached to sanded edges of the board. A board can take at least a 100 kg person and the sail/mast, so I would say max 20 kg floatation, right ?

Thanks !

 

You could make a punt with less work. They can paddle or row on the surfboard as it is. Have you seen the SUP (stand up surfboards)?

 

Yes seen them, but they are 4 and 8 years old .. do want some safety so some sideboards. And sure it is quicker to make a punt, but not that much challeging and not re-using a wasted board

 

Here is an idea. Sew a tarp shell fitting the outer contour of the boat kind of like the covers for cheaper inflatable boats. The sides can be column shaped with the diameter to fit the largest foam pool floats you can find, or maybe multiple ones if you want more floatation. The floats will be sponsons that would stabilize the surfboard. You could probably put it all together with a grommet kit and a little bit of rope too minus sewing. You could leave holes in the tarp so it would drain sort of like a SOT kayak. It still won't be too dry but at least difficult to flip. You've got to plan on the kids flooding any boat anyway ;-)

 

The sideboards are not going to give much safety. If the lean on or over the side the whole contraption will capsize. A surfboard at least can't trap you under.

 

Dear all,,,

I think you and myself have convinced me of building a stitch and glue Dinghy... I like the D4 for its simplicity and a nice first build.

 

Stitch and glue is much more work than a more conventional building method, particularly for a flat bottom dinghy. If you put chine logs and transom frames, you can build a boxy punt in a couple of hours.

 

Alright... any suggestion for free plans in that building method ?

 

I've never built a boxy bunt like that not using stitch and glue. You can take a look at duckworks or simplicity boats?
http://www.duckworksbbs.com/plans.htm
http://www.simplicityboats.com/

 

I thought whole point of Stitch&Glue was easy building.

Any good side by side compares with conventional VS S&G?

If not easy, what is advantage of S&G?


But I agree just keep the board a board. Anything else will just be a mess. Put PDFs on the kids, and PDF cushion for seat and kayak paddle and that should work fine and you can use that stuff elsewhere .

 

Stitch and glue is mainly a marketing pitch. They tell you that you can build a boat with no skills in very little time. It is more less a rehearsal of the plans from the 50s and 60s for plywood. The OP wants free plans though.

 

Gonzo "Stitch and glue is mainly a marketing pitch" ???

Interesting comment but a tad trite - care to make some qualified - skills-based - assessment of facts - please ???
I'd be very interested - after building boats for a few years now.

Sure would like to learn what you can teach us. Thanks, ciao, james

 

I think taped seam has some merits, but only on small craft. Stitch and glue (one of the taped seam methods) is typically part of a process to "fold" up a set of panels, usually quite loosely arranged, until the athwart stiffeners are in place. Boats up to about 18' can be built on the garage floor, literally, then are folded into shape, taped and reinforced. It's simple, easy, fast, a bit "free form" and requires little carpentry skill. You can hack the pieces out with an ax, tape them together and it'll work just fine with limited tools. This all said, it's high on "goo factor", which is to say you'll be playing with epoxy, fillers, tape, cloth, etc. for a fair percentage of the build. Eventually, the taped seam build gets enough of the athwart stiffeners installed that the boat can be treated as a more conventional build and placed in a building cradle to finish out. This method all but eliminates the usual host of frames, floors, stringers, butt blocks, etc. seen in a traditional build. This means you don't have to buy, cut out or install hundreds of feet of futtock stock, stringer stock, neatly marry deadwood sections, etc., all saving built effort, cost and skill sets.

Traditional builds have only one thing going for them; little to no "goo factor". You can cut out and install each piece and move onto the next, until it's a finished boat. It's simple to understand how things go together and many are more comfortable with the idea of a big 'ol fastener holding onto a part, then some hardened plastic and fabric. Of course, the traditional build will be heavier and you'll have a lot more parts to buy, cut out and install, but they are all easy to visualize and understand, also often much easier to repair too.

In the end, making the choice between taped seam or any other building method is dependent on several things, such as; tools available, skills sets you can rely on, method familiarity, project goals, build speed and other considerations.

I don't think taped seam is as much marketing tool as it is just an exploitation of this new build method. I've seen some wonderfully clever approaches using taped seam, that aren't possible with other methods. The incorporation of the building jig into the finished boat for example, so you don't have to toss a fair percentage of material, just to hold up the project during construction. I will agree in that taped seam has seen much hype, some of which is just not realistic, particularly build times and speed, but this is typical marketing and I'm as guilty as the next when making descriptive comments about one of my designs. You want them to get built, so pure honesty will not be helpful in this regard. I do admit I always qualify my comments with "if I built her, she'd take 300 hours", then suggest this wouldn't be my first rodeo, so my time might be faster than yours.

 

I use a combination of taped seams and chine logs/transom frames for dinghies. It only need a very rough fit of the timbers and it is much faster than stitch and glue. It is also much cheaper than the epoxy, fillers and tape on the inside.

 

Small boats can tolerate this build method, though larger or more highly stressed craft need some thought in the load paths and panel attachment considerations, particularly as the preformance envelop increases.