Packable Sailing Boat

I tried the pouchboat link but nothing was there. As the boat gets larger it rapidly passes the point where it can be carried by hand or packed onto a car trunk.

There are a lot of SUVs and minivans around however. A boat that broke up into sections to fit such a vehicle might have a future; these are often called nesting boats since the sections can be designed to nest. This reduces the weight of the individual parts that must be carried and also reduces the overall length, but assembly time is kept minimal.

I have seen some that date back a hundred years. They have never been common and I have not seen a recent one. Back then they were all wood and the sections were sealed to one another. It seems to me that sealing is an unnecessary complication; one can have bulkheads on the ends of each mating part that is a bit higher than the fully loaded waterline. If the gap between the bulkheads of 2 mated parts were kept small the water would not slosh around enough to reach the top edge and spill into the boat, and a seal at the top for extra security would be simpler to make than a seal all around the hull edge.

Bulkheads can be placed under seats, decks and mast supports. No reason why such a boat could not match the performance of a regular boat of the same size, and its total weight would not be much more either.

There is another thread showing such a boat that was implemented as a skin boat, but a hardshell boat is practical.

 

Folding rib and inflatable surfboards

Hi, this is my first post also. I am no expert, just an interested by-stander really.

Steven Callahan has designed a folding rib which fits in a car. It is about ten feet long, so maybe the pictures on the linked page will gve you some more things to think about. http://www.landlpardey.com/Tips/Tips_2003_January.html


I think with enough time expenditure etc. it would be possible to build a fully inflatable hull (which doesn't resemble a rib). There are inflatable surfboards in production up to 11 feet in length. http://www.uliboards.com/index.php


Good luck with your project!


Wes

 

I fixed the link to my folding kayak essay, there was an extra ")" at the end of the address. so it works now.

A pure inflatable, as it gets bigger, will need higher pressures to keep from folding. The air takes the "compression" and the fabric the tension in an inflatable "beam". As they get bigger they become impractical without some kind of a rigid frame, otherwise they get heavy and are difficult to inflate, and they do not have as much interior room.

Also I agree, as the boat gets bigger it also get more difficult to launch. Consider a 16 ft boat. You assemble it on the beach, and than have to somehow launch it without doing damage to the skin. It will also weigh perhaps 400 lbs without your gear in it. A wheeled dolly might allow the loaded boat to launch, but that means more junk to haul along.

 

How about an inflatable catamaran? Two inflatable pontoons fixed to a collapsible aluminium frame.

Edit: This guy beat me to the idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlzRDvfGs2c