I feel cheated on.Oh, interesting, yeah, I guess it is a bit different even though I think aside from really location-specific stuff I usually just copy-paste from here; but then there's stuff here that's just never going to be a question, like "why are you hooking those fly-fishing rigs to weird side-spooling downriggers and dragging tiny plastic squid around?" that I don't have to explain here, but I feel like I need to give background on over there because it's so unfamiliar to them.
THT is strange to me because they're practically all in Florida, it seems like, so they don't understand 12 or 13 foot tidal swings, water full of logs, or 10 knot currents in passes. Or why anyone would need anything but a centre console, which actually doesn't even make sense in Florida to me because I can barely handle full sun here. There I think a centre console would be like trying to fish while a giant kid holds a magnifying glass over you. But anyway, I feel like I have to give more background there...like "yeah the thing is if you fall in the water here in January you can't just tread water until the next 60mph triple-engined Regulator whips by in ten minutes because there are eighteen million of you guys in an area a tenth the size and also...our water will actually kill you if you do stuff like, say, be in it."
But then I guess there's also just different questions that come up, and...yeah, I don't know, it's interesting. I have two other parallel threads going, actually: one on a boat-building forum, and one on a small gun forum mostly inhabited by either professional shooters, or high level competitors, where I've known most of the people for years. Each one has a bit of a different set of underlying information, so each one I have to tweak a tiny bit so people get why I'm doing some of the stuff I'm doing. It's been fun to write, actually. My favourite writing project in a long time.
I feel cheated on.
Look at that beautiful sheer!Not exactly scientific, but the transom end is the heavy end and it's not too bad. I couldn't have pressed that over my head or anything but it didn't feel like I was picking up much over 200 lbs, maybe 250. I think my math on the materials must be close.
I know a lot of people will say a heavy boat rides better and that is true...but you can always put more fuel, cannonballs and big ling jigs in a boat if you want it heavier. But if you build it heavy to start with, it won't get any lighter. Well, depending on just how much sanding you're willing to do, I guess.
At any rate this is pretty light but should be easily strong enough to handle the loads I'll be subjecting it to. It's not going to be a rocket or anything and the lamination schedule on the bottom, stringers and bulkheads would hold up for a much bigger, faster boat, so in theory I'm sure I could put a bigger motor on, go faster, and get away with it. I wouldn't want to put a 90 on it and run it at 50 knots or anything, for lots of reasons, but all I really wanted was a skiff that would plane at low speed, get me around the inside of Vancouver Island, and not burn a ton of fuel so I could happily take it out whenever I wanted without thinking about the cost.
Now I'm thinking I'll have to go back and look at the scantlings and load numbers and see exactly what it would tolerate - I bet it would actually put up with a fair bit of power, now that I'm thinking about it. It would be scary as hell, but I think I tied the stringers and bulkheads down with 12oz of glass per side, and the keel has 30 in, 24 out...the chines 24 in and out...yeah, I don't have the math in front of me but you could run this thing at pretty high speed, actually, if you had the nerve. I wouldn't do it, but with minor changes at the transom it would probably hold a 60. But it would be terrifying. A 60 would put this thing in orbit.
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You no longer need strength. You’ve got that boat.But what if, like Samson, I lost all my strength when my hair was cut off?