Wooden Boat Plans Australia | Bruces Pontoons

Wooden Boat Plans Australia

We were planning to use Bruces pontoon boat that he scored somewhere around the Lake Shasta area as the base for our shantyboat.  In fact, it was Bruces pontoon boat score that gave us the greenlight for this project.  Not so sure about this now.  Every boat has a buoyancy, a certain weight that it can support safely.  Bruce writes:

I dont know how easy it is to calculate this. During high school geometry I had a crush on the Castellucio twin sisters (Karyn and Kathleen) and most of my mental energies were taken up by trying to flirt with the two of them rather than on the substance of the coursework. I havent really revisited the subject of geometry (nor, alas, the Castellucios) since that time.

The pontoons are sort of irregular shaped, they are flat on the top and sort of u-shaped on the bottom. The top to bottom dimension is 17 1/2". They are 18 1/2" wide.  As Ive mentioned before, the platform is 16 long. The pontoons extend another 18" to the rear of the platform. They also extend about 24" to the front of the platform. However, in the front they are tapering down to be much more narrow, expecially in that last foot.

Okay, Im gonna make some assumptions about Bruces pontoon boat.  Doing some crazy math that requires me to get out my geometry book again, I guesstimate the total cross-sectional area of the pontoon is about 2 sq ft.  To get the volume, we multiply that times the length. Well say that is 16 feet + another 1.5 ft at the back, and another maybe 1 foot at the front. For 18.5 feet. So the volume of one pontoon is perhaps 37 cu ft.

We just look at one pontoon, because we want to make sure that the capacity we work with never exceeds the floatation of one pontoon, lest a shift in weight drive it under the water and flip the craft. This situation even has an ominous-sounding name:  Pontoon Effect.  Plus, if you think about two pontoons, you want them both no more than half in the water.

To get the floatation, we multiply the volume times the weight of the same amount of water. Thanks, Archimedes.  One cu ft of fresh water weighs 62.4 lbs. So the flotation of one pontoon is 37 cu ft  * 62.4 lbs/cu ft = 2308 lbs. So the weight of the boat, plus the passengers, plus their gear and stuff, plus some margin of safety 10 to 25% should not exceed 2308 lbs.

Probably too tiny for our heavy shantyboat. However, we can build Bruces pontoon out to be a little hillbilly sun porch to accompany our shantyboat.  Something like this...

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Boden Boat Plans Australia | A Madcap Boat Scavenging Journey

Boden Boat Plans Australia

Kai and I took a mad motorcycle trip up the Sacramento Delta to check out a couple of "pontoon boats."  They turned out to not only not be pontoon boats, but much longer than we were told and barely afloat.

The first was a fiberglass houseboat around 35 feet or so, much too large, and much too... not what were looking for whatsoever.  The best thing that could be said for it, was that at least it was floating pretty high and.. not quite dry as it had lots of water sloshing around in its hull.  It was probably a 70s era houseboat, fiberglass hull, fiberglass cabin, ugly aluminum windows, rotting deck, and rusty inboard engine.  They offered to give that one to me free.  Uh.. thanks?

The second boat, and the reason we went up there, was an alleged pontoon boat that could easily be shortened, we were told.  Instead, it had a steal twin hull, something like triangular Vs that went down in the water, vaguely pontoon stylee.  Some of the bulkheads below the waterline had been filled inexpertly with foam. Unfortunately, these werent pontoons and the boat sat inches off the water and listed to the port side.  I couldnt see exactly how the hull was configured, but it looked like it was a steel hull with twin-Vs that couldnt have offered much displacement.  It was also filled with a lot of rusty water.



We guessed at the cross-sectional area of these "pontoons" was something like 249 sq in (compared to a round pontoon of the same width at 452 sq in).  We take the cross-sectional area of the "pontoon" times the length to get the displacement at 60.5 cu ft.  Times the weight of water to get the buoyancy at 3776 lb - plus youd have to subtract the weight of that enormously heavy steel hull.  For comparison, a similarly sized round pontoon would provide 6855 lb of flotation.  No wonder the boat was barely out of the water.

The one thing it had going for it is that it had a trailer. Still, though, I think well take a pass on these.  Chicken John, a friend who is no stranger to building with scavenged boats, says these sad houseboats are as common as dirt.  Or as he put it, "You can get that kind of stuff forever for free. Finding clean pontoons, steel or fiberglass is rare for free. They are worth $1,000 each. Steel is better, I say. Aluminum is swank, but there is always the possibility of theft, and they sell for like $2,000 a pop."

The guy who showed us around was a grizzled old fella who lived in a floating house in the marina and was heavily up-selling these boats.  "You can easily cut this down, make it the size you want, and wham!  There you go."  And "Just needs a little TLC and you got a beautiful boat."  He set my teeth on edge with a few borderline racist comments. The topper was when he tossed his filtered cigarette butt into the water.  Maybe Im stupidly naive, but uh, doesnt he live on these waters?

However, the trip was not wasted as I learned to ask better questions when Im on the phone with potential boat sellers.  "When you say pontoon, what do you mean?"  And "By 20 foot, do you mean actually 35 foot?"  Things like that. 

And Kai and I enjoyed the trip.  We loved the idyllic little towns along the delta, such as Walnut Grove and Islandton, where people were ridiculously friendly and helpful and seemingly lonely.  We had beers at Giustis Place and then sat out on the deck watching the fishermen and the migrating ducks.

In the meantime, if we cant find a pontoon boat base, well look into building our own hull using the fiberglass over plywood method.

Are we ready to tackle the craziness of being DIY boat builders?  I mean building everything above the deck just felt like being a carpenter, which Im comfortable with.  But building a boat?  Like, a real boat hull?  That part that floats in the water?  That feels crazy.

We took a very brief tour of a foreclosed boatyard.  Apparently, according to two different lonely men, the previous owner Bee owed lots of back rent and lost the boatyard.  Lots of tantalizing loot in the yard that wants to be turned into our shanty boat.

As we talked to the "caretaker" (read: a guy who lives in his RV in the yard), his tiny tiny guard dog Jezebel was vigorously attempting to eat my pants cuff and my boot.  He asked the usual questions, You from around here?  Where you from?  What you want a pontoon boat for? As we rode the motorcycle around the yard, we were in constant danger of either having our ankles chewed off or flattening poor ferocious Jezebel. Kai lifted her feet up on the hard bags out of range, and only risked dying of laughter, while my feet were thoroughly hazarded by Jezebel.

After listening to this lonely man for a while, we were taking our leave of Jezebel and the caretaker when he yelled.  "Hey, stop!  I got one more question."  I slowed the bike so Jezebel could attempt to noisily eat my boots again.  "Santa Cruz," he said, "Is it pretty much the same, or has it gotten worse?"  I pondered the many possible meanings and responses to that for a moment.

"Pretty much the same," I said.  "Its pretty much the same."


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Boat Building Plans And Kits | Beyond Napkin Plans

Boat Building Plans And Kits

I’m trying to turn my shantyboat speculations into something that feels a little bit more tangible.

Ooo, graph paper!  Getting fancy now.  When I sketch it out proportionally, the shanty boat is less long and skinny than I had drawn it.  In fact, it looks like a tiny shanty.  On a boat.

Id kind of like to make the cabin a little more squat, which I can afford to do since Ive dropped the cabin floor a foot or more below the level of the decks.  However, I am limited by a funny thing:  The head height of the porches.  They need to be at least 6 foot at the lowest part (and even thats pushing it a bit and likely to bonk any of my NBA friends).

There was some concern about balance with the cabin shifted back from center a bit.  Mostly that is to give us a big fine front porch and it only shifts the cabin back about two feet.  Plus I heard a boatbuilder suggestion to shift weight toward the back.  It lifts the bow and allows you to take oncoming chop a bit better.

Oh shit, and why do I keep forgetting the head?  There is a little 1-1/2 deep x 3 foot wide bump out along the front (or maybe the back) where the head goes.  Looking at it here, probably the back would be a bit more aesthetically pleasing.  It bumps into the interior a foot and half also to make a tiny 3 x 3 foot bathroom.

The interior is 10 x 8.

A little SketchUp magic and Voila!

 

Nice.  I’m liking the look of this.  Now, I just need to get myself a border collie.

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Boat Plans Bruce Roberts | Sketchy Napkin Plans

Boat Plans Bruce Roberts

As with all great projects, this one started with a napkin drawing:

 

While  barrel floats have a long glorious history, well probably do either pontoons or a full plywood-fiberglass hull.  

We wont need any kind of keel with pontoons, but with a full hull, the keel is still an open question.  Though apparently some plans call for a, whadyacallit, a skeg, like a short keel that runs the length of the hull.

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Boat Plans Bateau | A Mad Idea Fueled by Gin

Boat Plans Bateau

It started with Camp Tipsy. Alex and I started talking about what we could build, what kind of floating contraption would excite us.  We were unequivocally unanimous in wanting something like a tiny cabin that floats.  Something that we could escape to.


Or maybe it started earlier.  Maybe it started with the river floats.  For years, Id built homemade rafts and floated down major American rivers with friends.

On that first trip, when I was trying to rustle up friends to join the adventure, heres what I wrote "This is not white water rafting. Were talking rivers with class zero rapids. A floating river. A lazy hot summer day eating found apples sort of river. These adventures remain low on specifics, high on general concept, mood, and emotion. Part of an experiment and a belief in the power of boredom to inspire."

In 2005, a few of us set out on a punk rafting adventure, building a raft out of found and scavenged materials and floating for a week, Huck Finn-style, on one of the largest fastest rivers on the continent, the Missouri.

We lived to tell the tale (barely), and so year after year, we took longer and longer adventures, floating a handful of rivers on completely ridiculous homemade rafts. After that first raft trip, we invited others, launching with whole punk raft flotillas. The experience has been life changing.

Alex and Jen and I were at Camp Tipsy and it was Happy Hour at our camp and we were drinking gin and tonics and maybe the alcohol contributed to our grandiose and ambitious scheming, or maybe, honestly, Ive always been that way.

Camp Tipsy Hot Tub by ropersf

We were looking at all the bizzaro floating contraptions and nautical imagining.  We didnt want to go fast or swing or be propelled by some Rube Goldberg propulsion system or even soak in a wood-fired hot tub, so much, at that moment, as we wanted to sit peacefully on our own floating front porch and watch the madness of the rest of the world.

We decided to make a floating cabin, a shanty boat. 



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Small Boat Plans And Kits | Karaoke Doodles

Small Boat Plans And Kits

So far, Ive ignored the inside cabin layout, thinking that it would sort itself out eventually.  But I got thinking, and with a few beers started doodling.  I went to the normally quiet Trout Farm on Zayante Road (the same road on which we will build the shantyboat).  Unbeknownst to me, it was karaoke night at the Trout Farm and so I did my sketches and drank beer while people sang Bonnie Raitt and Sam Cooke. 

As you can see, the beer was liberally applied, and not just to me.

First thing I noticed was that in all my previous drawings I forget the head. Then I had to figure out a good place for it.  We will bump it out on to the deck a bit and bump it into the room a bit for a 3 x 3 foot head.  Probably better on the back deck, just because the bump out looks a little funny in front.

So there are three things that need to be located in a corner:  the head, the galley, and the woodstove.  Actually, the woodstove could go in the middle of a side wall, but it might be in the way.

I have the front door swing out because swinging in on a step down is weird and dangerous.  The back door swings in (despite the step) because otherwise it would interfere to much with whatevers happening on the back deck.

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