first boat/summer project--22' "viking," comments?

Hi,
I am new to boatbuilding, but am possibly interested in constructing a family runabout over the summer in time for our beach vacation Actually, we usually rent a house with another family that is close friends with ours. So I need a boat that can carry a max. of 10 people. Something open, it doesn't need to be luxurious, just attractive in a simple elegant way and functional. At this point this project is only a couple weeks in my imagination and totally up in the air.

I was looking at the 22' viking walk-through from clark craft. I am a 16-yr-old, thus I will have nearly two full months of summer vacation and all day during that period to work on it, many hours. Hopefully enough hours? Say 60 days, X 8hrs/day, 480 hours? While I get the summer off , the disadvantage of being a 16-yr-old is that I have a tight budget. If I finish it and it looks great, my dad will probably buy the motor for me, the biggest budget-buster. But oak deck planking, seats, the steering mechanism, not to mention yards of fiberglass and sheets of plywood, they add up. What ballpark figure are they going to add up to, so that I can save up, or even drop the thought of this project right now if it's much too high?

Based on these considerations, how long would something like the walk-through viking take? What would it cost? If these are excessive for my situation, is there something else that you would recommend? A simpler design? A smaller design? And also, is clark craft a good plan source? Thorough and exhausting in detail, as I have no previous experience specifically in boats? And efficient, so that a smaller (cheaper in price, cheaper in gas) motor will provide the same speeds to the same size vessel as a larger motor on a less efficiently designed hull. Right now were I to buy plans it would be to look over and consider, so I won't spend much; but come the beginning of summer if I'm ready and serious to begin, when I would be putting in hundreds of hours and in excess of $1000 or even triple that (hopefully not, but probably so :-( ), then an extra $100 for a very good design, if it will save $300 in a smaller motor, or save dozens of hours in labor, or give better handling and higher speeds for double the fun in subsequent hundreds of hours of boating, that extra for a good design is well spent....

But again, I've been thinking about this for only a little bit, and it's totally up in the air depending on your input, whether I'll go for it this summer, change designs and go for that, or wait a while until I have more experience and more resources before beginning even my first boat.


thanks for your comments and advice!
-Bernard Arnest

 

or, what about catamarans?

Hi,
I was searching clarkcraft again, and found the powered catamarans also intriguing. Just a thought. Are there any huge performance differences between a cat and a more traditional smaller planing planing powerboat like the "viking"? What about time and simplicity in construction, construction cost? We'll be using it in the atlantic ocean and also the chesapeake bay, if perhaps the cat is more stable for waves.. and also, with wide open waters, we're not using it in tight and shallow riverways, to give an idea of the considerations that I have in mind. A deeper draft is not a problem, a wider turn radius is not so much a problem, waves might be, and it definitely must be trailerable. Then there are the time and cost concerns, I don't know if there is a significant difference between the 25' "bear" catamaran from clarkcraft, or their 22' viking? Both are open, so no plumbing, no kitchen, no interior to be concerned with, a good thing for a first boat attempt... Two hulls on the cat might be harder, or they might not.... someone with more knowledge on this than I and my mere speculations, what do you suggest?

thanks!
-Bernard

thanks!
-Bernard