A Modular Riverboat

If this venture proves successful, and you want/need to upgrade, you might look into truckable barges. These barges are typically 40'x8'x8', designed to be hauled down the road by a semi rig, like a standard 18-wheeler going down the road. The barges are then connected upon launch (using heavy-duty within-hull connectors), and disconnected prior to retrieving. They are typically made of steel, although you could probably get them in aluminum. Steel will typically last longer than wood in freshwater, whereas wood probably has the edge in saltwater. Also, the barges come with the advantage of spud poles, so no worries about weight balance while at anchor.

If the wood thing doesn't work out, you could probably get a decent 40'x100' used steel barge for not too much money - just need a tug to push it around, and you won't be able to trailer it (will have to have a place on the river to keep it moored). Again, should have the built-in spud poles to make for solid anchoring.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. But one of the main incentives for this project is precisely to avoid that type of thing. The whole idea is to keep everything in modules where each module is an easily launchable small craft from a car and trailer at a standard river dock.

Moving beyond this is a major break away from the original goal of the project.

We don't want to lose sight of the motivation that actually gave birth to this project in the first place.

 

About speakers, I would recommend that the barge only have monitors for the band and that the PA for the audience be placed near the audience. This is how all professional venues work and the sound can be phased so that there is no interference due to distance. The only difference would be the mix would be done onboard and wirelessly transmitted. I would also recommend that one quiet high quality generator be used for everything. Noise and vibration will be a problem. Be super careful about grounding. Look into wireless connections for the entire band. You might find that one muti-channel unit will cover the whole band and eliminate loads of problems.

 

Hi Skyak.

You have some really good suggestions concerning the audio and the band. I'm sure there are going to be lot's of ideas and suggestions along those lines. And it's great to address those issues.

But at the same time I think that delving into the band and audio issues on this boat forum is actually going to end up being a bit of a distraction from the issues of actually designing the boat.

I explained how we intend to use the boat more in the spirit of offering some insight to how the boat will ultimately be used. Otherwise I'll be getting all sorts of comments like, "Do you really need fancy paddle wheels and all that gingerbred just to go fishing?" Or "How do you intend to pull a skier", etc.

The basic idea is that it is indeed a "Showboat" and the ultimate purpose is entertainment and show. Yes, it's true that a band will be on-board performing music. And possibly some dancers as well. But those issues are in a very real sense separate from the issues of "Boat Design".

I offered one potential solution to some people's concerns over "band equipment" being on board the boat. They appear to have been imagining that a band will just climb on board and set up standard band equipment however they like. This picture naturally leads to imagining Fender Bandmaster amplifiers falling overboard because they were just randomly placed on the barge with not thought of stability etc. Someone even suggested that other boats and people could splash water onto the amps etc.

Those issues can be dealt with quite simply, and are not really part of the "Boat Design" in general.

The issues you bring up are far more subtle and aimed toward audiophile perfection. And that's great. Those kinds of issues are certainly something the bands that perform on this boat may want to consider. But like I say, those are separate issues from designing the actual boat.

We got this idea originally from floating down the river in canoes playing acoustical instruments, bongos and a vocalist with no PA system at all. So any amplification is going to be an improvement over that.

What you are talking about is indeed highly "professional". It's certainly the type of equipment and set up we would love to have. Whether we can realize that dream or not is a whole other story.

Right now we just want to see a boat in the water.

It's going to take several years to build this boat. The band can consider all of these audio performance questions as the boat is being built.

Having said this, I do very much appreciate your suggestions and comments. And I'll pass this information along to the band.

Also, for whatever it's worth: There are many festivals in this town with bands playing outdoors all the time. Sad as I must say, they seldom have ideal sound equipment set ups themselves. So people in this area are used to hearing bands with lousy sound systems.

But yes, I agree, it's worth shooting for the best possible result if it's within our reach. We would all love to have the sound systems used by people like Tina Turner for example.

Proud Mary



But that's not always possible.

 

Boat design advice? Yours is horrendous. Your craft is to designed boats as a porch is to a Porsche in autos.

Boat design starts with what it needs to carry and the conditions it will need to carry them in. Then it goes about creating the most safe and effective craft for the purpose. Your craft seems to start with a massive waste assumption and then looks for cheap crude solutions to the massive problems that were assumed in from the start. The result will inevitably be a monstrosity that spends 99% of its capacity managing the monstrosity that it is.

It appears that you are starting off with a negative design spiral. You were way ahead with the acoustic instruments in the canoes. For a few hundred dollars per line your band could buy the wireless gear to connect to a professional hired sound system. This would be superior to your stage in every way.

My comments were not about audio perfection, they were about step one of boat design and standard practice for professional sound at the scale you are implying by the size of your stage. It is customary to assume the audience is bigger than the stage -is this wrong? Sound systems at this scale are almost always hired locally and I don't think anyone would be foolish enough to put them on your craft.

 

Sweet Dreamer is looking for knowledge

Sweet Dreamer is not a marine designer, he just was looking for some knowledge and advice here. It often surprises me that people on the forum seem to overly critisize an individual who is just asking questions because he is not a marine expert. Isn't that part of what the forum is susposed to be about?

Four simple barge like hulls, about 8 x 16 each, can indeed be tied together to make a trailerable platform, and it can be pushed around with relatively low horsepower, regardless of the propulsion system, be it outboards or real paddlewheels. Someone with a decent structural background, and some knowledge of boat design could work that stuff up.

Just because Sweet Dreamer does not have that level of technical knowledge does not mean all of his thoughts are worthless.

 

Yes, this is dramatically wrong in this case. I'm almost sorry that I even bothered to reveal how we will be using this boat. I did not come to this boat forum to discuss opinions concerning bands or band performances. If I was interested in doing that I would go to a Band forum.

I merely offered an explanation for how the boat will be used so that people can have some idea of why we are building it and how it will be used. So with all due respect I'm simply not interested in opinions about the band performance or how well any imagined audiences might be able to hear the music. I'm just not interested in discussing those issues on this boat design forum. Those issues have to do with the equipment the band will ultimately use and that is a totally separate issue altogether.

In short, there is absolutely no reason why we couldn't build these boats just as I am proceeding to design them, and then rig the band up precisely as you had described. We would not need to change the design of the boat one iota. Everything that you had suggested musically can easily be implemented without any need to change the basic design of these barges.

Again, this is merely your personal subjective opinion. One that I personally don't share. But I thank you for voicing your concerns.

If you can show where your audio equipment suggestions would require a major change in the actual design of the boat, then please describe that in detail.

I just don't see where my current boat design would prevent the band from using the type of audio equipment that you had recommended.

This is why I don't want to get side-tracked into discussions about band equipment. It basically has nothing at all to do with the design of the boat.

 

Heh ... "Where do you plan on putting the acoustically perfect concert hall shell?"

 

That's a separate project. My cousin is designing the boats to carry that around. They will navigate beside us being very careful to always aim the concern shell in the direction of the audience.

 

I am sympathetic and did not intend to be overly critical, but is it not true that the only load this craft is required to carry is four musicians their instruments and possibly one crew? In function it is geostationary -a pole anchoring would eliminate the need for crew during the performance. So a ton max? What you are proposing is sized to carry many times that amount.

Of course it is possible to build what he wants. It's floating dock. I don't see why you are so upset at my suggestion of a dramatically simpler smaller solution. I never criticized his boat design abilities. In fact I simply suggested a solution to all the problems he has and is going to have.

 

BTW ... SD, if you look in that Hydrodynamics book I linked to I believe you may find a chapter on estimating loads that may be of use.

I've got an another book I'll link to that I know gives an example of how they determined stress in vessels -- the older version looks a lot like a civil engineering approach to me, just with waves thrown in.

Here's the most recent edition that you can download as a PDF that I know of: http://books.google.com/books?id=aRU0AQAAMAAJ but this edition, the 12th, doesn't deal with the issue in as much detail as this earlier one, 8th edition, http://books.google.com/books?id=K6ANAAAAYAAJ

It may be there's a whole separate book they wanted to sell folks for that that hadn't been written (by them) yet earlier on.

Boy ... that sounds cynical....

Since your stage is a compound structure I'm thinking you'll need to pay some attention to where they tie together and i'm sure it won't be found in Gerr's Elements of Boat Strength.

 

Yes I agree. This is a major concern I have as well. Exactly how firmly these barges can be tied together and precisely how to go about that will be one of the major engineering challenges.

These are also challenges that are difficult to simply calculate away even with expert knowledge. Although I'm sure that engineers who have worked with these types of issues would have lots of practical experience to offer.

My first "desire" is to attach these craft together fairly firmly. But that could easily be a grave mistake when they start ripping each other apart because sufficient play wasn't designed in. So the "desire" for a really firm connection is most likely unrealistic.

A better approach is to anticipate quite a bit of movement between the individual boats. Tying them together (or chaining them with chains that are provided with some sort of elastic or spring loaded give) seems like the easiest approach, and then of course providing sufficient bumpers. To keep them from crashing into each other. Working out the details of exactly how much play needs to be designed in is the question. Of course, the design can include a way to manually adjust that tension as well. So some "seat of the pants" adjustments can be made in the real-world situation. Probably starting out with fairly loose connections and then binding them tighter until a point is reached that further tightening makes no sense.

Another design that came to mind is to use some sort of two-way "knuckle joints" between the crafts. This would allow the individual boats to bob up and down and move front to back to some degree independently, whilst maintaining a fairly precise and consistent lateral separation.

The first method of just tying together with rope or chaining them with spring loaded chains is without a doubt the simplest method and may even be the most effective in the end.

This will certainly be an area I'll be researching great depth.

And of course the points of anchor for these connections will need to be attached to their respective hulls in a way that helps to spread tensions and forces out over a larger area so that the rings or posts used for this aren't simply ripped off the barges, etc.

So yes, this is without a doubt one of the most critical parts of a modular design like this.

The other thing I'm going to strive for in the basic design is to try to keep all of these individual crafts fairly well balanced at least in design so that they tend to sit level in the water naturally. This way all corners that are being connected should be very close to wanting to seek a common height in that water under natural load conditions.

But yes, this is definitely one of the greatest challenges of a modular design like this. All four of these boats are going to need to work together in harmony and not be fighting against each other in any major way.

I've also take this into consideration in terms of steering. I'm planning on coupling the rudders together when these craft are bound to one another so that only one steering wheel controls all rudders.

I would ideally like to have the paddle wheels connect together too. And while that's certainly doable, I'm not sure if it's really necessary.

In fact, I can see where it might actually be advantageous to keep them separate. Controlling the speed and forces on each paddle wheel individual could aid the whole shebang in turning.

These are details that will need to be worked out much later in the design stage. But they have not gone unrecognized.

Reading the books you have referenced on determining stress in vessels will be sure to help shed some like on these issues. So yes, those will definitely be worth taking a look at.

Thanks for the links.

 

What your craft carries and how it is used are the most important thing discussed. My suggestion about equipment is important because it eliminates tons of expensive sensitive equipment your boat would have to carry allowing the boat to be orders of magnitude smaller.

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Instrument-Wireless-Systems-Wireless-Systems1.gc?nce=1

Sorry for the negative vibes in trying to tell you how boats are designed and how it could save you tens of thousands of dollars and years of your life. That is how boat design (or any engineering design for that mater) is done. As you embark on your new career as a 'crazy dreamer' I recommend that you get used to forgiving the world for offering sensible solutions -we can't help it! It's what we are trained to do! Just smile and thank them for their consideration and say " Thanks, but being whimsical and impractical is the whole point!"

Before you go you should ask how your vessel will be licensed. If it is considered commercial (the band is paid) you will need to consider that in construction. Then all you need is 'scantlings' that tell you how it needs to be constructed. If nobody answers here ask in the "class societies" forum.

 

Google "modular floating dock" -there are loads of solutions. It is very common.

If you want higher performance look at barges designed to accept tugs directly in the stern.

 

No, the band is not paid. It's not a commercial boat. The individual boats will all be registered as individual small craft. In fact, I'm not even sure if the powerless barges will need to be registered at all. I don't think that powerless boats need to be registered on our river.

I'm beginning to be sorry that I ever even mentioned that a band will be playing music on this boat because I didn't come here to get advice on that. Nor to obtain anyone's permission or approval to do this.

And just to end on a positive note, I have not even rejected your comments about the band and music. On the contrary I even said that if we can afford to go that route we'll be more than happy to do so.

So I'm not even rejecting your ideas. I just don't see where that has anything to do with Boat Design.

In fact, for all intents and purposes I'm also not even remotely interested in discussing possible legal issues concerning this project either. I'll deal with that on my own. The legal authorities on our river are very friendly people and they aren't out to harass people over technicalities. So I don't foresee any harassment from legal authorities. I could see this being a problem on other waterways where the authorities are extreme sticklers. But I don't believe that will be the case in our area. So I'm not concerned about this and have no desire to entertain those imagined scenarios.

All I'm interested in on this forum is the mechanics of this project. I will deal with all legal, acoustical, and band issues elsewhere.

This is all I'm saying. I'm not rejecting your suggestions in these areas. I just didn't come here to discuss those issues. That's all.

If we can afford wireless audio equipment we'll do it. It's a great suggestion. Happy now?