As I promised last time, I intend to spend a little time sharing some internet links that I’ve found; interesting, useful and sometimes, “just plain entertaining”.
But first I want to talk about my new boat design. The shape is a little odd but I think I can make it work. It’s 24’ long by 12.5’ wide. It’s about 14’ tall at the peak and the hull is made from 8” thick concrete. Doesn’t sound like a winner does it ;-)
Actually, I’ve just described my garage/boat shop. Problem is, it may need to become an apartment. You see, our oldest daughter has come back to the roost, and she has 4 children with her. Not exactly what any of us dreamed about but none the less, so it is.
Our home is only 950 sq ft and it’s feeling a little crowded with 9 people. Sure, some of those people are still pretty small but we’re running out of room.
I had the guys at work do a little drawing for me to see how we could make the garage functional as a living space. I’m not totally satisfied with their initial thoughts and I think we’ll need to think outside the box here a little.
The garage/apartment is in the lower left of the image above. You may recognize it from some of my original shop drawings on this web site.
If you think of the garage as a boat, it seems fairly roomy. I’ve been playing around with a few different ideas. We’re not sure what is happening next and for now we’re taking it a day at a time. I’ll let you know if I go further with this apartment design.
So, let’s talk about web sites. The time on the web has really been great for me during these recent times of feeling like the boat building dream is fading away.
Another great place to follow along as someone builds an Escargot is John Cockerham’s web site. It’s so awesome to see his detailed pictures and his notes about progress. He’s very close to launch day!
Want to follow along as someone makes the move toward being a full time live aboard? Greg deals with many of the day to day practical aspects of making it possible on a 24’ sailboat.
Let’s talk shanty boats here. Paul Browne designed a wonderful little trailerable shanty boat called the Lisa B. Good. Paul has since passed away but there appears to be a new interest in this simple boat. There’s not much left on Paul’s original web site but I’ve also included a link to the full set of text and drawings, compliments of DuckWorks.
The list of shanty boat sites wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Sam Devlin’s Millie Hill. Sam designs some really beautiful, traditional boats using the stitch and glue method. He’s a great guy to talk to, and his book on boat building is awesome also. The Millie Hill has been slightly redesigned and improved. Here’s a site well worth looking into.
I’m sure you understand that this list is far from complete. We’re so lucky to have so much information at our finger tips. This is just a list to get you started and to keep you dreaming!
I’ve started over on my Joli floor plan. There were several things that ended up too tight or not really workable. Stay tuned!
Another great post. That Millie Hill link was new to me, at least the version two things on there. What a nice little boat.
ReplyDeleteBryan