Something new for me

Jeff Horton

Member
Messages
4,272
Location
The Heart of Dixie
About to start work on the plans for this one. I have wanted a rowing boat for a while and really don't want a toothpick (rowing shell). I love the lines of the old Wherries and have been playing with the design for quite some time. It just kept evolving and getting closer to a Wherry. Of course as time has gone on I have improved my skills and I am able to know what to expect and work it all out.

Tricky part was getting the Wine Glass transom and being able to skin it and keep the skin on the frames so to maintain the shape. You can't have a concave shape or the skin will just stretch over it. 'I think' I have a shape that will give me the look and and the skin will take the shape I want. Only one way to know for sure.

Probably be a month or so before I start building but I am very interested in this project. Still have to work out a lot of details on this. Got to have good footrests. May need to make a set of outriggers to get a little extra width. Or course I need to make a couple of sets of oars. Thats something I have never done. But of course all that just makes it more appealing!

Sweetbriar-17-3d1.jpg


Sweetbriar-17-3d2.jpg


Sweetbriar-17-3d3.jpg
 
Hi Jeff.

Your boats look all great to me, but looking about this one I wonder how do you know wheter is it going to need a heavy keel or some ballast to maintain it on the water without tipping over or not.

Is it done by testing it on the water or there is some sort of formula or rule of thumb to know it?.

Or does it depend on the profile of the hull? On a boat like this one, (and I'm a complete ignorant about boats) I guess that one must be able to stand or sit and row without having to keep the balance as in a kayak, isn't it?
 
Hi Jeff.

Your boats look all great to me, but looking about this one I wonder how do you know wheter is it going to need a heavy keel or some ballast to maintain it on the water without tipping over or not.

I could give you a big long technical answer but the simple answer is SOFTWARE. Computers are wonderful things!! :D

There are very specific formulas that calculate what is referred to as the Righting Moment. It has to with the forces on the hull pushing back keeping it upright when you lean it over. It's very time consuming to do by hand and Computers make short work of that. Actually there are lot of stuff to do with the how the hull reacts with the water that the computer does near instantly that would take me all day to do. I can make a change, look at the numbers and change it some more.

I assume in the past it was done largely by intuition and then when they were happy with it some new guy spent a day or two crunching numbers to verify that the designer was right. I can not imagine nor do I ever want to do all this by hand.
 
Top