Buttocks

You have chosen wisely sir.
My first wife thought boats were stupid. I should do residential construction. (which admittedly pays far more)
The love of my life is pushing along here. Woke up my capacity to dream. She keeps bringing me back to reality, as in, timelines, material costs, commercial use of an expensive investment. The things that turn decades of fantasizing into a year of very hard work. And a boat at the end.

As far as the dimensions go, I have the use of an excellent space for the next year, but the largest I could reasonably build in there is 25 by 10. Vancouver is hideously expensive these days. Renting a space for a bigger boat would literally take all of my income, after my daughter (and her mother) were looked after each month. Leaving Johnny to choose between epoxy to build with, gasoline to get to work with, or dogfood to eat, so as to not die.

John

 

A comment by, I believe, PAR lead me to the TX18 on Bateau.com. The description seems informative. I imagine enough of those have been built that some qualitative and quantitative analysis can be reasonable expected. Anyway, I'm obsessing. I should probably stop pestering folks whose obsessions differ from mine.

J

 

What are the typical conditions on the stretch of water to be traversed ?

 

Professional Boatbuillder magazine has had a discussion of Hickman sea sleds in recent issues.

 

Until

Until or if I can track those down, DCocky, what did they say?

 

Search for Professional Boatbuilder magazine. They have an online index. Back issues through 2017 are available online. More recent issues may need to be purchased.

 

I was just there. Issue 178 and 180 have some intriguing content. But in the searchable range, I found nothing. Still, the fact that the articles exist is hopeful. Credit card time.

 

Generally calm, but the area is mountain, islands, fiords etc. So occasionally Gale force winds at sunrise or sunset, in certain areas. Tides very moderate, at least compared to the Bay of Fundy where I grew up. Not much in the way of large waves, since the fetch is so limited by Vancouver Island.

 

This may be of interest:The Hickman Sea Sled and Boston Whaler http://blog.tadroberts.ca/2010/05/the-hickman-sea-sled-and-boston-whaler/
It is the ride that would concern me, and the writer is seemingly not an optimist about that, with this:
"To be sure the box shape and flattish bottom would pound itself to pieces in a sea"

 

The story is confused, to be charitable to some of the sources. I’ve also spent hours on the phone with Marcus Lee, in Sitka, who built one because he was inspired by the same Woodenboat article I was. Folks saw it, and rode in it with him, and wanted one themselves. So he built them one. In the end he built around a dozen, before he retired. In a small community like Sitka Alaska, the stink of a bad boat would spread pretty fast. Too fast to build that many before he ran out of customers. Read the two Dave Gerr articles, and the Bateau.com study plans for the TX18. Maybe you can find that Woodenboat article. Around 1990, but I lost that issue maybe twenty years ago.

Anyway, I’m grateful as hell for your concern and interest. I’m going to follow yours and AdHoc’s advice and not treat it like rocket science. Straighten those bottom chines, maintains the width and final angle of the bottom chine, and invite you gentlemen for a ride, in a bit. Hopefully a comfortable one.

 

Searching the PDF index for Hickman returns 8 entries including issues 49 and 119.

 

Dang. I went for Sea Sled. Superficial searches return superficial results. Okay. Searching again.

 

Search right here on this forum.
It's come up before, a few times.

 

Yes. Good stuff there. Thanks for the finger, pointing the way to the moon.