Landing craft, quad sized.

[Netpackrat]

Our lake cabin has a floating dock, about 15' x 8', tied to shore and accessed via a simple plank. The dock is foam blocks encased in a wood frame and planked on both sides. There are runners on the bottom side so it can be hauled up on the beach. Wood is white cedar, fasteners are stainless. When we need to move large materials or a quad we put them on the floating dock and push it with a conventional outboard boat tied alongside. It's not super fast, but we've gotta have a dock anyway and it gets the job done. The outboard boat serves well for schlepping people and luggage, fishing, and otherwise zipping around the lake.

This is a thought that has definitely occurred to me. How large is the outboard on the boat you use to move your dock?

[Netpackrat]

BLUF; I ended up going with the Specmar 18.5 foot aluminum landing craft I linked in my initial post.

I mentioned this briefly in my cabin thread down in The Bilge, but I thought I would follow up here just to close the loop on this thread, now that I have made my decision. As described elsewhere, last spring after buying the property I bought a 14' jon boat, a trailer, and added my dad's old 15hp Johnson 2 stroke to use as a temporary boat to get me out there and figure out what I actually needed. A couple observations stood out. The first was that most people with property on the lakes there seem to use big aluminum jet boats. The second is that the weather can get super nasty out there, which coupled with a lot of the lakes being shallow, probably explains the first observation. There were a few trips across where I got my ass kicked by the waves; on my last attempt of the season I ended up aborting, and managed to screw up my prop in the shallows trying to avoid the worst of the waves as I slunk back to the boat launch in shame. Overall I've had a good run with the jon boat because I didn't push my luck too much, but it was never a long term solution.

What I have found, is that since I am mainly going out there for 3 day weekends, and based on the distance and lake conditions, the barge/dock idea is going to be a non-starter simply due to the time involved in going across to get it, bringing it back across 2 lakes at low speed, transferring cargo into it, and then heading back across at low speed. What works best for me, is pre-loading the boat up in my driveway, and launching it fully loaded so I can just head straight across. Additionally, the approach to my property is relatively shallow, as is the channel between the two lakes, so a prop is not really a good solution. Also, since dragging bottom IS going to happen sometimes along with outdoor storage, I ruled out epoxy/plywood construction just due to the need for constant repairs in order to keep water out of the plywood. A new aluminum LC in this size range is easily an $80k-$100K boat pre-built, and the only used examples I found were modifications of more conventional designs, done with varying degrees of competence. And even a used standard jet boat isn't cheap up here, with anything halfway affordable being decades old.

Concluded that the only way I can afford to get what I want, is to build it myself. I bought the plans from Specmar, and had all the pieces CNC cut by Alaskan Copper and Brass down in Kent, WA. It all arrived on Tuesday and I am still in the process of digesting all of the pieces into my garage. There's not going to be a build thread here since it isn't a BBC boat, but I will probably still post the occasional picture down in the Bilge. I am calling it "next year's boat" but of course it will take as long as it takes me to build. When I need to choose a jet outboard I may ask for input. That's going to be the most expensive single part of the end product (assuming I buy new) and I need to get it right the first time.

Edit to add; Oh yeah, I did make contact with the barge guy. His rates seemed reasonable, but he's got a draft limitation, and a standby rate during loading/unloading. Since I am mainly working by myself, I can't really make use of that kind of capacity at this time, and I don't think he can get close enough to my beach to be of much use short of building a huge/long dock. Carrying sheets of plywood up the hill is bad enough without having to wade out to get it, although getting a quad out there will help a lot with that.

[pee wee]

Looking forward to seeing this come together!


Have you scouted around for plans to build jet outboard engines? Maybe a lot of work, but think of the money you'd save . .

[Jaysen]

I think you’d be good with a build thread here if you wanted. Put it in the CL section or the bilge vs the official builds and your local moderator would be ok.

I’m pretty sure that’s been the policy all along.

[cape man]

Post everything in the CL section as Jayson suggests. Leave the bilge for the drivel it's meant for, not this awesome adventure!

[Netpackrat]

I'll think about it. Keeping up a build thread would be a bit of extra work. I like the Bilge simply because if I leave it open the forum software doesn't log me out generally. If I leave any other part of the forum open, when I come back to it I have to log in again.