Finally some picks on the boat

Reid - I'm with you mate. I have been there, and I have been through this creativity phase. Good on ya -

BUT

These guys are really giving you terrific advice, and we are keen for you not to go through the pains of having a bad experience.

You know those times you gave your mum a painting you did, and she said "That's lovely dear," and hung it on the fridge ? Well, this is the stage you are at with boat building.

You CAN do much better, safer and more effectively, IF you are prepared to dig in and take a bit of free advice. It WILL be worth it.

Your work is inspired by the free timber you are getting. If you are brave enough to try to make longer lengths that you can use, I and a dozen other people will be happy to walk you through the quite easy process.

We will then be very happy to advise how you can make it into a craft that will do something useful. Give it some thought. Cheers.

 

What most are attempting to say is that isn't even remotely close to a boat. It's a composite of pieces, poorly arranged, poorly attached,without regard to water tight integrity, hydrodynamics or any of the other things a boat builder might worry about. It's literally a handful of pallets that have be stood up and attached to each other in such a fashion, that it can't possibly do anything well, including float. How do you expect to seal those planking gaps, 'glass? How much does it weigh, though it looks quite heavy, you likely have enough freeboard to keep it from flooding on launch day.

Each one of those short boards could have been made long enough, to go completely around the boat, with out any disjointedness. You could have scarfed them, Payson butt jointed them or even the simple traditional butt joint, which would have made each 4' long board, as long and seemingly continuous as you needed.

Given the complexity of all the issues you need to address, on this "legitimate project", you should stop, take this as a learning experience and use some of the wood as jigs and station molds for the next attempt. Given you don't have much in it, but your time (which is free) at this point, not much of a lose, but that is a embarrassment, that should be left in the garage, never to see light of day, let alone the water.

Plans for a simple boat, even using scrap pieces of wood are available for cheap, some free. Seek these out and build to the plans. Don't add stuff or build it a little "better" (read heavier) as you deem fit, just stick to the plans and get a boat built under your own hand first. With this under your belt, you'll have a much better idea of how things are done, on the next build and there will be a next build, as you seem to have the bug, at the same age I developed it. Now, many decades later, I still have the bug and still build boats. Its an illness with only one cure. You'll figure things out and look back at this project and laugh, probably being very grateful you didn't splash it too.

 

If you do end up putting the bottom on, block the hull up solidly and don't rely on hydraulic jacks to hold an overhead load.

 

Those seams on the short planks you use are a major structural flaw. The plank ends should be staggered. The shape is not ideal, with flat surfaces and sharp edge transitions. However, if you laminate enough fiberglass over it, the thing should float. The expected speed for about 20 feet waterline is about 5 knots or about 5.8 MPH.

 

I usually try to encourage people building boats without plans and little knowledge of boat building. But I hate to say it what you have there looks like a disaster waiting to happen. With all those seams lined up like that there is nothing holding it together. You would be relying entirely on the fiberglass sheeting and that would mean it would have to be very thick. From the pictures it looks like right now there isn't a bottom in the boat yet so that means your going to have to be working under the boat which unless you can come up with a way to safely support it with enough room to work under it then this is very dangerous. I'm guessing you have very little if any experience working with fiberglass and resin. With the boat right side up trying to apply fiberglass to the bottom is going to be a real problem and one heck of a messy job. Right now you have little money invested so my advise is scrap what you have and start over after you have done some real research on boat building. If you are serious about building a boat make sure you use a common sense approach. Build The hull upside down first and then turn it over after you have finished the bottom completely and then build the top. The wooden part of the boat needs to be strong enough that the fiberglass is only for water proofing and abrasion resistance.

 

Lots of good advice, comments, and warnings here.
As a member of a local marine rescue station I have occasionally seen similar UFO's (Unidentified Floating Objects)... sometimes amusing... sometimes not.
Might make a good kids playground toy.

 

Reid might have gotten a bit overwhelmed by the "discouraging" views.

Just in case you are thinking Reid, I have attached two illustrations of the ways you can join short planks together into longer ones to create some decent sized planks.

Woodworking can be fun.


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Perhap my deleted comment was a bit unsporting, but Tom says it all. This should not be treated seriously and it takes advantage of the good will of the BD community. Reid your boat is a joke, if you want to build a proper vessel that will keep you safe either go to the library or even get the West boat construction book. What you have created is either lawn art or a danger to innocent parties.

 

I think that you can point out flaws in the boat without being completely disrespectful. It is not a joke, but a serious effort at boat design and building. I am sure the OP learned from this experience and would correct many of the flaws in the next attempt. Nobody creates a masterpiece the first time.

 

We haven't heard from Reid in a while. Probably because of the negative comments. Hopefully he will not be too discouraged and will start over with a much better design and build something that he will be proud of and that will be safe and much easier to build.

 

I hope Reid won't mind if I mention that sent me a couple of private messages, and he is going to "finish" the boat.

He has promised to try it out on a calm lake with lifejackets first, which with a steel internal frame, might be a very, very good idea.

I suppose we cant blame him for wanting to finish the project. Once that is accomplished, no doubt we will hear about the next more "thought out" attempt.

We all learn differently, and perhaps this is his way to experience the process. He certainly has a lot better idea than I did at his age.

 

You should keep the boat Reid , it is a work of art, it shows pure desire to make something that is a first shot at floating on water . It looks like a young persons adventure sparked with full power imagination , writ grand.The next phase , covering it in fibreglass would spoil it completely, it is very expensive [masses of glass and weight] and requires working with stinking chemicals that would spoil its abrupt lines with plastic crap and be extremely difficult to finish.. Make a timber outboard mock up of the 60 horse outboard you want. This is a quality piece of art that will take on more meaning as you get older. In a shed like that you can build something exactly fitting your requirements, people here really enjoy boats too and will help with free quality advise, go for it. Start with a small model, you will have a ball.