Design thoughts?

[Stumble]

You don't have many goodies to cut to save on budget . Anchor winch could go , hand line on that size boat , half top instead of full hard top , half glass with no hinged door , that would be only a couple 100 bucks . Any real savings will be on the motor , labor , materials , so that will be in the sourcing and not so much in your design . I was working up the Mobile River a couple years back and got checked by Coast Guard in one of our work boats , a horn would be nice to have on a boat .

I am at about $11,000 in parts give or take, so I had the budget for some small toys....

- The anchor winch is just a person favorite, particularly if you are dropping anchor a lot. Not so much for being lazy, but so you don't end the day covered in mud. the bottoms here are nasty.
- The material costs on the top are about $1,600 (its a soft top not hard btw, just a pipe frame and sunbrella). Making it smaller once you have the frame saves some, but not very much I think it was about $200. Most of the cost is in the uprights, and there just isn't a good way to avoid that bill without removing it entirely.
- The door is planned to be sheathed plywood, I have the cut line planned such that the doors are scrap from the frames... Basically it adds a little glass and hinges, but not much in parts. Labor however...
- Ya I have a bag of required goodies personally with absolute CG minimums. I plan to duplicate that for the boat.

Thanks for the thoughts.

 

[Stumble]

Autopilot can hold position. The electric trolling motor just adds weight. You'd be better off going with two smaller engines versus 70 and electric. The battery weights are non-negotiable.

The desired draft for flats boats is all one foot or less to skeg bottom. The Skoota draft of the hull alone is 14". The problem is the hulls have rocker and while this makes for some great bay boat and offshore business; flat or skinny water ain't havin it. The hulls performance would be another matter; if the bows lift, the engine lowers, etc.

Anyhow, a catamaran hull is not ideal for skinny water.

An autopilot is much more expensive than a trolling motor and far less effective since they typically can't control the throttle as well. I would love to include one, but it comes down to budget. The ones I know of run about $1,500, substantially more than a top of the line trolling motor but with less required functionality. But if there is a cheap way to make it work I would love to hear it.

As I mentioned this design has a hull draft of slightly less than 6" and a skeg draft of 11.75. Any larger motor and you necessarily have a deeper draft. With the exception of some of the jet drives.

For a push boat yes a flat box will always be shallower than a catamaran, but if you constrain yourself to the draft of the skegs catamarans do very well in the marsh.

 

[gonzo]

Have you considered a surface piercing propeller? That would allow a shallower draft. They are not very good on reverse though.

 

[Stumble]

Here is a 2" hull draft design.

https://www.boatbuildercentral.com/StudyPlans/XF20_STUDY.pdf

Have you considered a surface piercing propeller? That would allow a shallower draft. They are not very good on reverse though.

I don't have anywhere to put an inboard, and for an outboard you run into intake problems. I guess you could go with an air cooled long tail mud motor... but it wouldn't work for this application. For a really shallow water flats boat its an option, but not one most people want to live with.

 

[rberrey]

We deal with about the same mud in the Mobile delta as you do , but ours doesn't smell as bad . I take it you are not looking for a flats boat which I think is the assumption , but a boat that can take some chop near shore and deep bayou,s , and run shallow,s . you might add a couple of rings and poles to anchor in the shallow's , cheep add on .

 

[rob denney]

Greg,
Off topic, but did anything happen with the kit ply fishing boats you were sending to Haiti?
Rob