Quidnic shanty tiny house boat

Discussion in 'Boat Design' started by Quidnic, Apr 19, 2020.

  1. Dejay
    Joined: Mar 2018
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    Dejay Senior Newbie

    Would love to be part of something like that too! I'm unfortunately better at spouting off grand ideas than following through with the execution haha. I have to sort out my workshop and some issues first and then want to start with building a smaller tender first to get some experience.

    BTW have you seen the CaraBoat 750 or the BoatAHome EscapeII? Both designed as trailerable houseboats and tiny houses.

    I think it would be good to put a number on what you want to / can spend on the boat. Designing with salvaged materials is smart but if you can't count on it or need to get lucky you should base your decisions on what it would cost to buy them.

    How long is the boat? You wrote 12ft / 3.6m which seems a bit short to me. Your model looks more like 6m. You can use normal box trucks to transport 6m tiny houses or 7.5m with overhang. 8.6m on tiny house trailers.

    Is there a study of material comparison focused on low cost boat building? Comparing cost, weight, durability, tools and amount of work needed for a barge houseboat. For things like cheap plywood and fiberglass, strip planking, steel, ferrocement, foam core.

    I believe at least some insulation is absolutely necessary in the humid climate of rivers especially in rainy Brittain. So even "just" for a warm and dry and comfortable bed with a log stove like Silvertooth mentions, something like much cheaper 2-3 cm of EPS insulation might be needed. Otherwise you get condensation and possibly mold on the walls, or when the stove is out dampness everywhere, just from of breathing and cooking. There are calculations for this so the dew point is inside the insulation which is dependent on the local climate.

    The detachable tender is a really cool idea! But why not just have one instead of two? I'd make the main boat so that it is 24ft / 7.5 meter long and one have tender that can be attached to the front and acts like a bow and as the deck. Or as a terrace in tiny house mode. Instead of on the roof you could also flip it vertical and attach it flat against the front.
    If you'd have an outboarder or electric motor on the tender that can either rotate 360° or has a reverse gear, you could design it so it works also to drive the houseboat both forward and backwards.
     
  2. Dejay
    Joined: Mar 2018
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    Dejay Senior Newbie

    Just wanted to share an alternative concept I played around with a while back:
    A power trimiaran with folding amas could work as minimalist boat that can move only using solar panels. Square U shaped hulls and a T shaped profile wouldn't be much harder to build than a box.
    The interior would be a long corridor with lots of desk or kitchen counter space that you could separate into gallery, seating area or bunks. Upside is you never have to stoop to access anything haha. Although you could have storage and the battery below the floor.

    This sketch is 15m long boat with a 3m wide cabin so I can fit 3 rows of standard solar panels. But it could also be designed with 10m length and 2m wide cabin which would still be trailerable and work as a tiny house. Maybe a weird tiny house, but it could be quite cosy.
    For narrowboat canals you could fold the amas in below the cabin. Not sure if that would still give enough stability. With expanded amas I believe this could be designed to be offshore capable.
    Inspired by the harry proa you could have a tender that becomes part of the deck between the hull and the amas. This is only a rough sketch, the front could be prettier and more aerodynamic:

    ProaMinimal v5.jpg ProaMinimal v4_overview.jpg ProaMinimal v4_interior.jpg
     
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  3. Squidly-Diddly
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    Squidly-Diddly Senior Member

    "These sections will be useful small boats in their own right. Either as runabouts or working fishing exploring boats. They can also be amphibious trailers like a hand pushed cart or even a roof box on a vehicle and even a bike trailer"

    Neat idea. I'd suggest you make the whole houseboat semi-amphibious, with a built-in and minimal means of putting it on wheels for at least slow and careful towing short distances. Just some full length PVC pipe that house a simple solid axle carried by wheel barrow wheels. I just think you are going want to haul it out (and store/park) on a semi-regular basis and its going to be hard to find the right sort of trailer. Also, how you going to get it to the water after building?
     
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  4. NomadOmad
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    NomadOmad Junior Member

    To make it semi amphibious the weight would have to be kept right down, it’s just to difficult to keep it that light and take axles/wheels with you.

    why not just use a good trailer or car transporter?
     
  5. NomadOmad
    Joined: Aug 2020
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    NomadOmad Junior Member



    I absolutely love the look of that, especially the ability to bring in the sides so the it could use canals
     
  6. NomadOmad
    Joined: Aug 2020
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    NomadOmad Junior Member




    I have changed it a little based on previous posts




    Quidnic is a cosy, comfortable, rugged, affordable, mobile tiny shanty houseboat that is immune to zoning restrictions and floods.

    The name comes from the two boat designs that inspired this modular bespoke system. First from the Quidnon houseboat designed by Dmitry Orlov and second from the Gorfnik designed by Andre-Francois where the inspiration for the bow and stern pods came from. So we have the Quidnick best of both worlds.

    A shantyboat is a small crude houseboat (also called a flatboat, broadhorn, barge, scow, or ark). There is a long forgotten history of people living in homemade shantyboats, a reasonable and cost-free solution for displaced people in rural areas and workers in urban areas.

    This design of shantyboat can be built for next to nothing. Sheets of 8'x4' shuttering ply or chipboard can often be salvaged from building sites which were used for a temporary fence or wall. There is also an endless supply of suitable material for free from premises that were once boarded up to prevent looting or squatting.

    All you will need to build this tinyhouse boat is a hand saw, and basic tools it can be glued and screwed together. If you really want to build for almost free from only what you can salvage and reuse this can be done. If you only need it to be a tiny house and never on the water then this is will be much easier. If you want it to be able to float then either some type of tar as Noah used to water proof the original ark or some waterproof sheeting to water proof below the water line will be required.

    The main section of this design is simply a 12ft long box that is 6ft high and 6.6ft beam. The beam is the maximum amount to be able to navigate the canal system in the UK. There will be a bow and stern section that are removable and can be placed on top as roof beds and extra storage when in tiny house mode. When in tiny houseboat mode the roof sections can be bolted on to the bow and stern making a 24ft tinyhouse shanty boat. A waterproof sheet will need to fixed over everything under the waterline.

    These pods need to be waterproof with resigns or epoxy.

    These sections will be useful small boats in their own right. Either as runabouts or working fishing exploring boats. They can also be amphibious trailers like a hand pushed cart or even a roof box on a vehicle and even a bike trailer. Or even sleeping pods in the ilk of Japaneses capsule hotels. You see these sections are 6ft by 3.3ft and can be bolted together to make the 6ft by 6.6ft bow and stern sections.

    Individually these 6x3.3ft pods can be used as stand up paddle boards or sit down rowing boats. Using a drill as an outboard motor.

    To fit out the main section websites like freecycle are going to be your best friends. A wood-burning stove of some kind is going to be essential as is a galley area with gravity fed sink. Rainwater harvesting and water storage tanks. The heads should be as simple as possible which could be the bucket and chuck-it method in a small room which could also be made into the shower room with a gravity fed bag which can be filled with warm water from the log stove. A comfortable seating area which could double as sleeping area with the common drop down table design as needed and plenty of storage space. The sleeping pods on the bow and stern sections will always be useful for both sleeping and or extra loft storage at all times.

    As the main section is 12ft long it can be half seating dining area and half galley storage and heads. Shelves midships can double as a ladder which can access the two skylights which can open to walk on the roof or climb into the sleeping pods when they are in place on the roof.

    Tiny house boat - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwq24ai-Jd3vEOOSficoXxeXwW2SvRcaC[/QUOTE]
     
  7. NomadOmad
    Joined: Aug 2020
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    NomadOmad Junior Member


    This is pure gold info, yes cheap and easy
     
  8. Squidly-Diddly
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    Squidly-Diddly Senior Member

    True the weight would need to be kept down, and/or the boat unloaded of heavy stuff, but IIRC wheelbarrow wheels are rated for about 500lbs EACH so your min # of 4 gives about 1 ton, but 6 or 8 might be needed. One reason is if for a true shanty built out plastic sheeting and trash wood, how are you going to get up up on a trailer without destroying the water-tightness? Last I checked big flatbed trailers were about $8000 because they are all rated to safely haul up to full size vans across USA at 80mph. I'd just want to be able to winch it up a concrete ramp and tow it at 3mph at 4am to a parking spot 2 miles away on flat roads.

    When in the water the wheels could be removed by removing one nylock nut or pull one cotter-pin and placed on vertical posts at the four corners to act as bumpers so the plastic sheet doesn't hit the canal walls, and to prevent bearings from rusting.

    I just thing being able to get it out of the water and rolled a mile or so without major expense will the difference between the shanty lasting 5+yrs and having to "give up the ship" and maybe paid a vicious fee for the pleasure for someone else to "professionally" do the ship-breaking. Authorities tend to not be so keen on such projects and always on look out for reason to put you on notice.
     
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  9. Quidnic
    Joined: Apr 2020
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    Quidnic Junior Member


    Put it like that, yes it makes sense

    you could bring wheels and everything with you on board so you could land her anywhere
     
  10. NomadOmad
    Joined: Aug 2020
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    NomadOmad Junior Member


    Yes true shanty boat style keep things cheap and simple

    So that PVC pipe and wheelbarrow wheels could be attached while she is still floating with a couple of U bolts?

    then tow or winch her in.

    when putting her back in the water, everything could be taken off and taken with you on board.

    this means you could approach any island or unreachable place and pull up your floating home to a new campsite and maybe camouflage her, until you decide to move on

    brilliant thinking
     
  11. Squidly-Diddly
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    Squidly-Diddly Senior Member

    figuring out a slick way to make running gear work with simple sheet plastic outer hull is gonna take a bit of thinking.

    Maybe mount the PVC axle housing under a 2x4 with brackets and wood screws, which has carpet pad on top of 2x4. Then ropes from the 2x4 ends (which stick out a couple inches) up to gunnels and maybe across the beam (one big loop, like how you tie a kayak to roof racks).
     
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  12. Rurudyne
    Joined: Mar 2014
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    Rurudyne Senior Member

    Absolutely love it!

    My own not-at-all-towable (which is very cool of your concept) "similar idea" would have at least a 20m main hull with a 6:1 to 7:1 LBR and feathered paddle wheels between that and the amas. A shorter / pudgier (5:1 LBR main hull) version of that is in my gallery (which is probably still too big for me to afford to build).
     
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  13. NomadOmad
    Joined: Aug 2020
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    NomadOmad Junior Member


    What are feathered paddle wheels?

    I like the sound of the PVC pipe as axles, and they could double up as masts with with generators on top when not using as axles
     
  14. A II
    Joined: Jun 2020
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    A II no senior member → youtu.be/oNjQXmoxiQ8 → I wish

    See Google Patents: Feathering paddle wheels 1886, there's 4 drawings and a lot of explaining text at the linked page, have to scroll down a bit for that.

    In short: ‘‘ Propulsive elements directly acting on water of rotary type with rotation axis substantially at right angles to propulsive direction ’’

    See also the threads: Concerning feathered paddle wheels - & - Modern paddlewheels

    P.S.

    See also Wikipedia: Paddle SteamerFeathering Paddle Wheel
     
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2020
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  15. Tiny Turnip
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    Tiny Turnip Senior Member

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