Project Scoop

How she came about:

 

A design cobbled together by me (Chris) using my boat design skills from 60 or so years ago. I thought I'd have to delve back in time to refresh what I used to be quite good at, but as it turned out design is like riding a bike and the skills were still there. (thank the gods!)

 

To set the scene, a few weeks back one of our members (Richard) expressed a desire to get involved in building a boat. Not just any boat mind you, more a blend of designs with the end result being a bespoke vessel, beamy, stable, roomy, safe, outboard-powered, ideal for travelling around a lake quickly for transit or slowly to take in the view, perhaps a bit of fishing, but also able to be used as a safety boat for our many Lake Tinaroo visits - which means ease of collecting people from the water after a mishap (hopefully this doesn’t include the driver..).

 

Lots of requirements for sure, but we think we have captured all the requirements. And no, we're not going to show the design on the internet as some lowlife will copy it straight away. What we will show however, is week by week updates of the build.

 

This week we dragged our steel building jig (that was originally made for Roger's 15' Canadian Canoe build) out of the wilderness and started to prep it for Project Scoop (PS).

We installed a 2400 X 600 base sheet on the jig with strongbacks set at frame stations) beneath and some 300mm packing strips on the strongbacks. The first structure being set up on this base is the laminated floor which will form the main strength member of the boat.

 

The pictures show the setup commencing 'with the speed of a startled gazelle' as we like to say, but in actual fact it's more like a cluster of wounded and confused turtles with back problems in a small enclosure, but we had lots of fun in doing so.

 

As for Richard - the bloke who had the original idea - well he's a bit of a daredevil of sorts. He's well-known amongst us for the many and varied methods he chooses to exit his (and other) boats, usually ending up immersed in the adjacent body of water; or sailing into various semi-submerged trees; and on at least one memorable occasion tried to do a loop-the-loop when driving his tractor. Things can get quite exciting with Richard around, so we're investigating borrowing one of the local vet's dart guns.....

 

We invite you to ask all the questions you like about Scoop. You can guess whether our answers are genuine or...........

 

Further, whilst we're still a bit coy about the design, suffice it to say she'll be a bespoke style of catamaran. Her laminated floor will support two hulls, and while we know there are plenty of lake-style pontoon boats around that are designed to just stooge around on nice, flat bodies of water, Scoop certainly isn’t one of them.

 

She's an in-house design that can get up & running' when necessary, but can also toddle around for some slow & sedentary touring in comfort with the added advantage of being able to easily collect swimmers from the water or even those silly buggers that have unintentionally exited their boats.

 

Add to that the ability to carry a certain amount of cargo & stuff, and she's starting to look like being a very handy craft all round. Anyway, with the main prep to the box section steel building jig finished, we spent quite some time setting up the lamination jig for the floor.

 

Yes, we know it looks like a jig for Santa's sleigh, but it isn't. Or at least it isn't until we can find a market for sleighs in Oz (which is unlikely given the current climate change discussions around the traps.).

 

The pics show the strength of the lamination strongbacks, and we'll be using them when the plywood eventually arrives... another long story....

 

In the meantime, many calculations have been done on the amount of buoyancy/volume of flotation in each lower pontoon, which has resulted in a change in their size & shape. That of course means a change to the design, and that means a complete redraft of the lines plan.

 

Then comes the discussion regarding hull sheeting, should it be plywood or should we step up the specs and strip plank her?

 

We shall see!