Texas Dory

There are advantages to the well but I think most are over selling them to promote the styling improvements again oversold to me …. but most don't like the look of an exposed outboard.

Pericles I really like your links. However re the Redwing if she was driven to plane she'd show her bow to the sky and probably do a lot of porpising not to mention giving a pounding ride. I like the boat but she appears to be FD to me. PAR's Cooper Jr. looks like a better candidate for planing and I like her very much. I've seen the "Fast Launch 26" before and think the treatment of the bow to generate flare has real possibilities. One could call it very creative design.

I've always liked the William Hand derived modern designs like Handy Billy and Top Hat. There was some criticism of these boats on BD some time ago. Anybody recall what it was or have their own critical opinions of this type?

 

Cooper Jr. is a full plane mode hull form. It can get on plane with a 50 HP outboard, but really likes a 70 HP+, to handle chop, winds and currents. She can take up to 250 HP, before her hull drag limits any real improvements in speed.

 

PAR looks like windows are small. Can't tell her hull form from the green pic. Looks like it's a very soft chine strip built boat. Tells ply on frame but where's the chine? That would be a good boat for my 60hp OB. 12 knot cruise?.

 

Cooper Jr's windows look small? She's a single hard chine of typical dimensions. The chine is viable to me on this image



If you focused on keeping her light during the build, the 60 HP (long shaft) will do fine in pleasant weather. A 60 would push her to the high teens at WOT on a calm lake. The mid teens would be her cruise.

 

OK GOOD,
I see the chine in two places fwd. Before I had assumed she was built like a FG/stripper canoe w very soft bilges. Would be nice but very time consuming.
I say the windows look small only when I found she wasn't about 34'. With a beam of barely over 8' and 24' long she's a tad on the narrow side for today's boats much to my liking. Is she double planked like the 17' clamer Digger? Looks like she's got a small amount of rocker evenly dispersed along the length of her bottom. That I like too. Not enough for bow in the air running (if trimmed and loaded properly) but enough to let the water slide along the length of her hull gracefully. Looks like there's a bit of negative rake at the top of her stem and a forefoot as far fwd as possible. Another like. Yup ... I like your boat PAR.

WOULD A 2 or 3' stretch at the stern making the stern narrower and a touch more rocker gained overall mean that she could make about 12 knots w the same power as w the 24' version? Or would the added wetted surface scuttle that possibility?

 

Cooper Jr, is a shortened version of a 28' sister. Comparatively, she's less efficient because she carries the same beam as her bigger sister, but she's a more practical size to drag to the launch ramp and put in. I've found you really got to like a 28' boat to trailer it around much, as most ramps can't handle this length, before the trailer wheels fall off the submerged portion of the ramp. At 24', this isn't usually a problem.

The hull form is my take on the old Lyman sea skiff form, which was a knock off of the Chris Craft sea skiff. The Lyman rode better in a chop and had a slight bit more dead rise in the midship areas. This boat (Cooper Jr.) has the same fine entry and deeper forefoot, but from station 5 and aft, there's really no rocker in her run, though the differences in the curve of the keel and chine cause some "bowing" in the bottom panels, which makes her look like she's got some aft. At speed her forefoot is just above the water, cutting chop, but clear and bluff enough to not "steer". She picks up huge amounts of volume, if it's suddenly submerged, typical of most hulls shaped like this.

She's not a semi plane hull form, but does better than most if she's at semi plane speeds, mostly because the bearing area is dragged a little bit further forward, than would be seen on a higher speed V bottom. I just accepted a lower top speed, which allowed me to get some more volume and comfort, abet additional drag and max speed.

The beam isn't all that modest, under the trailerable limit, though with hefty run rails, just under the limit. A stretch could work, but not much would be gained, as the additional weight and wetted surface would do as much to to her as the length. I wouldn't pinch her stern in much, if at all in a stretch and making her a semi plain means a whole new approach to the bottom and chine. No the bottom isn't double planked, just a single layer of 1/2" plywood. The boat is a typical cabin cruiser for semi protected waters or coastal putter around. She could venture off shore in fair weather, but shouldn't be confused with a serious passage maker.

 

Re the Lyman and CC I thought it was the other way around.

Thank's for your usual excellent input PAR.

I just realized I had a wood skiff that looked a lot like Cooper Jr. What is the expression or word for a boat narrowing in the stern? The navy boat had more of that than Cooper. I put a 20hp Merc on it and spent a great deal of time in the sloughs of the Snohomish River. Wonderful boat .. built real stout. It was kind of a "rat rod" boat. Peeling paint and all but she ran nicely at about 12 knots.

Good semi-displacement designs are rare it seems.

 

There's a phrase: Cod's head & mackerel tail, but pinched stern or narrowed transom are descriptive. Interesting name, sloughs of the Snohomish River. Too many other connotations in the UK. I think I think I prefer the nicer term of Wetlands.

Slough is a town in south east England. In 1937, the poet John Betjeman wrote his poem Slough as a protest against the new town and 850 factories that had arisen in what had been formerly a rural area, which he considered an onslaught on the rural lifestyle:

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
It isn't fit for humans now
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, death!

The poem was written two years before the outbreak of World War II, in which Britain (including Slough itself) experienced bombing from enemy air raids. However, on the centenary of the poet's birth, the daughter of the poet apologised for the poem. Candida Lycett-Green said her father "regretted having ever written it". During her visit, Mrs Lycett-Green presented Mayor of Slough David MacIsaac with a book of her father's poems. In it was written: "We love Slough". It's still referred to as the Slough of Despond.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slough_(disambiguation)#Biology_and_medicine

 

I don't think her stern is particularly narrow or pinched. It does taper a bit, but just enough to help her turn, which is the whole point. When I think of a narrow or pinched stern, I'm reminded of the early IOR sailors, which had too much removed to suit arbitrary rules.