A new boat in the works....

Cody Williams

Cody Williams

Well-known member
Hey guys, thought I'd share some photos of my newest boat project. As my kids have been getting bigger I've been thinking of building a bigger boat that can carry my whole family and double as a duck boat for heavy loads and multiple hunters. I was strongly considering a Devlin Snow Goose but after studying the plans and consulting with Tod I realized that it probably wasn't quite the right boat for me. I took this as an opportunity to design a new boat from scratch, one that shares a lot of the design goals with the Snow Goose but it optimized for shallow water and a mud motor.

Step one-I've always wanted to try designing a boat by building a half model and scaling it up, I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity! I made a few 1/6 scale half models out of 2" insulation foam and tweaked the design until it looked right to me, then took the panel dimensions off of the model:

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I then traced the panels and used the tracings to make a dimensional panel plan:

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After my panels were scarfed and laminated, I used the panel saw at my day job to make sure I had a perfectly straight edge to measure from

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Rough hull shapes-this boat has a shallow V in the nose, transitioning to dead flat by the midpoint

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I've been waiting for my roll of biaxial tape to show up, so in the meantime I have been measuring and cutting bulkheads

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That's all I've got for now, hopefully my tape will show up any day so I can start sticking things together!

Almost forgot the dimensions-15'9" long, 72" beam at the deck, 20"transom, side height roughly 19". Power will be a 35hp Backwater longtail mud motor. She'll be a big gal, but sturdy!
 
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Good morning, Cody~

What a great project! Although long an admirer of Sam Devlin's boats, I have always been concerned about their draft For Great South Bay, I want no more than 4 inches. Your hull looks like a lot of Garveys used by baymen on Long Island - and points south. The deadrise up forward makes it "chicken-breasted" like the Chincoteague Garveys - a great design for workboats on shoal waters.

I will watch your progress with great interest.

BTW: That's quite the panel saw!

All the best,

SJS
 
Very cool Cody! Anxious to see the end result with high horsepower mud motor. Will you add any extra reinforcement on the transom?
 
Another boat build, wonderful!!! My "next last boat" will be another Devlin. Not sure which one but need to thin the herd first. Love my Poleboat but may need to make a larger, faster one. Will watch your progress with eager eyes. What a disease we all have and a support group here.
 
Thanks guys! Hope to have some more progress shots soon.
Andrew-the transom will be 3/4 with another layer of 1/2 laminated to it, and then another piece of 3/4 in the center section that ties to the longitudinals that go from the transom to the rear cockpit bulkhead. Here's how I did it on my BB3-

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It ended up being plenty stout, but I'm toying with adding even more reinforcement-the 35hp weighs 240lbs and will put a lot of torque on the transom, so I'm willing to overbuild a bit in that area!
 
I wouldn't worry about transom strength, it is typical to hang 150 hp outboards (and larger engines) on a transom cored with 1 1/2" plywood with very thin fiberglass skins and not near as much reinforcement as the rear flotation compartment bulkheads offer.

Very pretty work there.
 
AWESOME!

Finally a new boat build on the site. Cody lots of pictures through the process please we all need to get our fix.

I really like the design you came up with I think it will perform in the shallows with the mud motor really well.

As for the transom I built my with 3 pieces of 3/4 and one of 1/2 for use with the surface drive and it held up very well. Then again who's to say 2 3/4 would have not been enough.
 
cody,


there are approximately eleventy billion mud boats in Louisiana of very similar design. All I can offer in the way of suggestion is that generally a longer boat with a longtail is faster than a shorter boat. your work looks great.
 
Cody,

It appears as you chose zip-ties for the "stitch" portion of the build. I've heard of guys doing this before, my question is how do you remove them after "gluing" the seams? Or do you simply cut them flush to the panel and leave the covered portions as part of the boat? Any concerns associated with this? it certainly seems like it would be a time saver as you wouldnt have to cut lengths of wire and twist them in then heat and remove.
 
Thanks guys! Sounds like the transom will be stout enough.

Will-those are wire ties, I haven't tried the zip-tie method. I will usually tab the hull with thick epoxy and pull the stitches out before I do the seams, that way I don't have to worry about heating and pulling the wires after the seams have cured. I will sometimes leave wires in the high-stress areas like the rocker curve, then I heat and remove them the normal way.
 
Finally some more progress to post! I've had a ton of real work keeping me busy lately but I've been finding a few hours here and there to get some stuff done.
Transom lamination-3/4"+1/2" laminated together, with an additional 3/4" tripler in the center.
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I left a space for the longitudinal bulkheads so they can rabbet into the transom-probably not necessary but I am a sucker for joinery.

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I got finished cutting out the knees and bulkheads, and figuring out the deck line-hard to balance cockpit space with cover from the decks!

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The layout as it stands, with some bulkheads finished-there will be a shelf between the starboard side knees that goes to the transom, and the port side is notched for pushpole and oars. The cutouts in the rear cockpit bulkhead will be for a locking glovebox and a 12" deep cubby for storage. I decided to move the fuel tank forward to against the floatation bulkhead, so the starter battery and the boat power supply battery will be in the rear center compartment. Now on to floor supports and finishing the interior taping!

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Great build and very neat work,excited to see progress.
I know nothing of mud motors but was wondering why you chose longtail over surface drive.
 
Thanks Bill! I have run both longtails and surface drives in the past, in my experience for the areas that I hunt a longtail is usually a much better choice. It's much simpler to operate, and will go no matter what conditions you are in. Surface drives are a lot more finicky about how they are trimmed and how your boat is loaded, and take a lot more fiddling with to get them to run at their best. They also need to get up on plane to work as their designed, I have watched guys with $10,000 rodded-up Mud Buddies putt their way across a lake at 5mph because they couldn't get on plane enough to get the right water flow into the prop. Long winded way of saying I like longtails better.
 
Looks good!


I have used wire, and tabbed between the stiches, and pulled them prior to filleting the entire seam, and I have filleted over them and heated and pulled stitches. (I do not like that method) And I have used zip ties. I have left the zip ties in, with no adverse effect.
 
Cody this is going to be one sweet rig.

I may have missed it earlier but are you putting in flotation around the cubbys in the back?
 
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