Does anyone actually run the seas in earnest?

retrosub~ i'm going to be looking for that shoosh!

I have a deck on the back that i can sit on, but i prefer to stand though i may sit for a few minutes every hour while under way. The extention is about 12" long and it allows me to stand out in front of the engine. I keep the engine trimmed so while underway it has a bias toward me and rests gently on my hip. (the way to refine the trim is to cast a wedge on the skeg--a science unto itself~) i don't have to hold the tiller, i push into it with my hip or let it follow and that reduces fatigue over time.

The 59" dimension is the widest point of the bottom, chine to chine--that widest part of the hull is the impact point 2/3 forward of the transom> 54 gals of fuel nest fwd of that point. The sides are not flared very much. Flare means weight leverage against the chine and that reduces stability. The gunwal at the widest point is 76". The height of the sides are 31" at the transom to 38 at the bow.

When i built the skiff, i was lucky enough to find a couple sheets of 5' X 9' X 3/4" marine plywood. I scarf spliced the sheets (6") end to end to make one sheet 17.5' X 5'. Those two sheets determined the length of the bottom. Desiring that the skiff be 19' LOA determined the angle of the bow stem

{that gets into a whole new design paradigm > allowing one dimension to determine another...}

man--now you got me going on design! (sigh~) I have 3 stringers inside and 3 stringers outside. The (outside) stringers on the bottom are 1" thick and mirror the inside stringers which are 3/4". The centerline stringer is 10" wide and the two outbd stringers are 5" wide. The hull is 2.5" thick where the stringers are. I put the 6" window through the center stringer.

when i designed the housing for the window, i made it two pieces with 1" flanges that screwed together to captivate the hull inside and out. When you put a hole that big in your hull, you want to make darn sure that the load passed thru the hole and you don't create a stress point..

Anyway, i had better stop now!

thank you very much for the kind words retrosub~!