I’ve built a few little boats. The first one I built was a Puddle Duck Racer. It’s a great boat, but that is another story.
This boat is basically a Puddle Duck, but 12” narrower (so 3 feet wide instead of 4 feet). Puddle Ducks sail much better than they row. I’m hoping this one will improve rowing at the cost of some sailing capability. Other things as well. That will be a whole other post.
So, I’m 18.5 hours into this build. It’s a prototype so I didn’t want to spend too much time, energy, or money on this. My plan was to use material I already had. Unfortunately, the 1/4″ plywood I have is some of the nicest Home Depot 1/4″ ply I have ever seen.
I didn’t want to use it for this, but it’s all I had. It’s actually slowed me down a lot because now I feel like I have to do justice to nice materials 😆Draw lines across plywood at 12″ intervals. Measure out prescribed distance along each line and make a mark.Drive a screw into each mark. Hold a batten against the screws, trace the line.Cut along lineTake that piece. Flip it to the other side. Trace it. Cut that side out. Cut out a couple rectangular piecesThese five pieces represent the sides, front, back, and bottom. How to join them together?Gotta put some little framing sticks around the sides. Set the two sides upside-down. Prop them apart like this. Attach front and back rectangle pieces to the framing sticksTake that big piece and put it on the top, I mean bottom! Screw it to the framing sticks!I know, this doesn’t look like what you think a “boat” should look like. That’s a whole OTHER essay. Short story is, a lot of very important benefits VASTLY outweigh a few drawbacks.
The picture above demonstrates one of the great benefits – easy storage. And if you want you can even install temporary shelves.
And if you hate the boat, you can add some doors and turn it into a garden shed!
I’m trying to design this boat so that it can be built with only the most commonly available materials, basic tools, and rudimentary skills. I spent a lot of time today pondering an easy method to join the little rectangular pieces to the rest of the hull wherever the angles aren’t 90 degrees. Attached a stick along the bottom, and added this skeg. (As you can see it loads very nicely on top of a vehicle).
I’ve almost got it to the point where I can try it out for rowing!
Mate is out of the country again for several weeks, so I am left to my own devices. Thus any mitigating effect she has on my eccentricities is gravely attenuated. The tiny home we share has been sliding into a state of chaos over the past three weeks since we…
The day started out at high intensity. I got a text from Ironhorse at 8:00 AM that he was “ready to go.” I was still drinking my coffee. When I got to his place at 8:30 he had already gotten started without me. “Impatient?” I asked him as he limped…
wow, wow, wow,
where will you use it? Do you have water nearby?
It’s a boat for sheltered waters. There are some small lakes and ponds around, as well as a river and an estuary. 🙂