How much boat?

I've been reading and browzing through your forums for days, now I finally worked myself up to a question? How much boat can you put in 40 ft X 8ft X13ft?

My interest in boats was sparked by BBC's Top Gear and their crazy amphibious cat stunts. From my reading, I've learned that long and deep hulls are "better" than shorter ones.

So if you were given the volume of a motorhome to work inside of, what kind of boat/amphibious vehicle could you have?

 

The simple answer is "a lot"

Here are some examples, though watch the beams...

http://www.hartley-boats.com/sport37.html

http://www.bruceroberts.com/public/HTML/descriptions/Coastworker37_description.htm

http://www.selway-fisher.com/Mcover30.htm

The Selway Fisher's are particularly well suited for narrow beam applications as many of them are based on European canal boat designs and some are only 6' beam.

And one more from my favorite designer...

http://www.cmdboats.com/yacht.htm?

 

Long and narrow is not better than short. You need to take the whole design into consideration. Seems like you are answering your own question: you can put a boat that fits in the space available. Motorhomes have different parameters than boats. A boat with the equivalent volume will be longer and wider.

 

Thank you cthippo, I never thought to look into narrow boats. I suppose that I should have been more clear in my first post that the beam can not be more than 8.5 feet, which is the typical maximum width of road vehicles.

I'd like to add another thought to the mix: Class A motorhomes have about a 400 to 450 hp engine. What boat type would best make use of 450 hp, considering 40 length and 8 ft beam?

 

That is a LOT of HP for a 40' boat.

I suppose you could use that with a planing hull though.

Keep in mind the relative velocities involved. A motorhome needs to be able to do 70 mph on the freeway; for most boats 20-30 mph is just fine. Most 40 footers seem to be in the < 200 HP range.

Someone had a picture of an amphibious motorhome recently, I'll have to see if I can find it.

This thread went into this topic in some depth...

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/bo...erable-power-cruiser-looking-ideas-34652.html

 

This is actually a very easy question to answer. You can fit EXACTLY this much boat into a 40x8x13 space:





http://www.containeryachts.com/

 

I've seen pics of the floating rv, and it looks like fun for a weekend on a lake. But will that rv take to the open seas?

My goal is to have a long distance cruiser for a land/sea around the world trip. Since I'm not patient enough for sailing, I've tried to glean as much infomation abot fast/express cruisers/trawlers/trowlers.

Thank you for the "boat in a box" photo ( can I get that at IKEA?). It helps me to see these boats out of the water and compared to something I can relate to.

I've also found stories about the "Half Safe" an amphibious jeep that took 8 years to go around the world; I would like to go faster than that.

 

Bigger than what you're looking for, but this might give you some ideas...

http://www.georgebuehler.com/Idelwild.html

 

Another newbie question about cats...

The question: Is there a maximum hull length for a given beam, say 8.5 feet, for powered catamarans? Or is the maximum hull length related to tunnel width and height?

I've seen a few posts that warned about a catamaran or trimaran being "too narrow" and I haven't found trailerable catamarans that were longer than 39 feet. Or...:idea:... it could be that trailerable implies maximum width and length.

So, should I look for ovenable, or microwavable, consumables as presentable on a trailerable, weekendable, floatable, encloseable boat?

 

Looks like I need to get my tape measure rechecked , that is a good looking boat.