Hickman Sea Sled plans status

anonymous · Post by **anonymous** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 3:45 am

In the google rec.boats.building group forum in Novvember 1998, Jacques mentioned that he planned to offer Hickman Sea Sled plans in 1999. I have not been able to find them listed at www.bateau.com however. Has the interest in the design died, or have the plans turned out being inappropriate for some reason? I have copies of the ones that Mystic Seaport Museum offers, but would like to have a full set of modern plans that have benefitted from current knowledge. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance for any help.

I have included excerpts of the message below from 1998.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec ... da46d112f3

Nov 17 1998, 12:00 am

Newsgroups: rec.boats.building
From: "Jacques" <n...@bateau.com>
Date: 1998/11/17
Subject: Re: Hickman Sea Sled

Scott Aleckson wrote in message <36517860.EB661...@alaska.net>...
>I'm looking for any information on the Hickman Sea Sled hull design
>(it's an inverted vee hull). This hull has recently been brought back
>from the original designs in some very good performing aluminum hulls.
>The few companies and builders who are commercially making this hull are
>being very tight with their plans (one wanted $16,000 just for the
>plans). It was originally a wood hull, and several thousand were
>manufactured in the first half of this century. If anyone has seen one
>of these or knows anything about the design, I would love to hear about
>it.

There was an article about Hickman in Wooden Boats 2 years ago. Go to their
web site, search the back issues and you can order online.
There was another article about the Sea Sleds by Dave Gerr in Boatbuilding
magazine this year, not as good as the Wooden Boat one.
There are lines for a Sea Sled in the old edition of Skene's.
The patent expired last year and the lines are now in the public domain but
the main problem is not the lines but the engineering. I have unfinished
plans for an 18' one in stitch and glue, I'll get back to them one day.

replies to:
Boat Plans Online
http://www.bateau.com

...Another post on Nov 23 1998, 12:00 am

Anyway, during this exchange, our office received 5 or 6 requests for a
Hickman sled. It happens that we have such an unfinished design that we
started 5 years ago for a local builder. The local builder decided to stay
with more traditional hull shapes but during our study, over two years, I
saw at least 10 small Hickman sleds or inverted vees. I really believe in
the concept but the builder must understand that such a boat is more
complicated to build than a plain vee hull. That type of hull suffers more
torsional stress than vee hulls and this was the reason of some problems
with the wooden sleds. Also, late in life, Hickman admitted that the sleds
had tripping problems in turns and we designed her with anti-trip chines.
We decided to revive that plan and hope to show it at our site begin next
year in 2 versions, 16 and 18' long. Building material will be
plywood-epoxy-fiberglass composite (2nd generation stitch and glue), same as our Phantoms.

anonymous · Post by **anonymous** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 7:32 pm

Dear Jacques Mertens:

After re-reading my message, I realize that I was not too clear, sorry.

I want to buy a set of plans for a Hickman Sea Sled with non-trip chines. Are plans available? What size boat are they for? How much do the plans cost?

The patent that describes the non-trip chine sections that I am looking for is US 2515005. A link to the 6 page patent is

http://patimg1.uspto.gov/.piw?PageNum=2 ... %2F2515005

Thank you for your time.

tech_support · Post by **tech_support** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 8:39 am

that link does not work - at least for me it did not

Post by **jacquesmm** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 10:49 am

I abandonned the Hickmann sled project.

anonymous · Post by **anonymous** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 1:23 pm

Jacques, is there any method available to me to revive your Sea Sled plan production process?

_______________________________________________________

Shine, about the link, you need Quicktime software for the US patent viewer. My search time limit expired when you go to use it, but it is still a good link with two extra clicks:

1) Click on the "FULL TEXT" button on the upper left side of the page. This brings you to a new page.
2) This new page gives you the message "Full text is not available for this patent. Click on "Images" button above to view full patent", so you look to the buttons listed at the top of the page, and choose "Images". This should bring you back to the page that the link brought you to, and the plan view of the vessel should show. Use the golden colored arrow key in the left hand column to scroll in the right hand direction to the following 5 pages of the patent, one by one. The second page has the profile sections. The non-trip chines are stepped in this patent. I have seen fiberglass versions of the sea sled without the steps, that the owners have reported perform very well.

In absence of the Quicktime software, there are other countries' patent search engines that allow you to view the patent.

Originally from boatdesign.net:

PATENTS BY HICKMAN

The following is an incomplete list of patents that were taken out by Hickman. Listing is US patent followed by the same or equivalent

patent as taken out in another country - shown in brackets (). US=USA, CA=Canada, AT=Austria, DE=Germany, GB=UK(Great Britian), FR=France.

US1044176 ( AT64415)
US1204355 ( AT93970, CA159692, DE385609, GB19153951 )
US1553160 ( CA275010, GB240470 )
US1553161 ( CA275011, DE478369, FR603499 )
US1620349 ( CA271328 )
US1621839 ( CA271329 )
US1644725 ( CA271324, GB207775 )
US1670622 ( CA271325, GB209700 )
US1670623 ( CA271327 )
US1681342 ( CA271326, GB209699 )
US2515005

All the above, except CA159692, are available for free from the following websites:

Canadian Patents Office:
http://patents1.ic.gc.ca/srch_adv-e.html

US Patents Office:
http://www.uspto.gov/patft/

European Patents Office:
http://ep.espacenet.com/

German Patents Office:
http://www.depatisnet.de/

UK Patents Office:
http://gb.espacenet.com/

The most interesting hull is shown in US2515005 where Hickman shows how he alleviated the majority of the disadvantages of sea sleds.

From 2-11-2004, Researcher

Post by **jacquesmm** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 2:56 pm

Hickmann patented everything in sight!

Non trip chines?

I known what it means, it's just a slanted chine.
The 1st Hickmann sleds had hard sharp chines and chine tripped. Later, he designed slanted chine like everybody else and took a patent for it but that patent can't be enforced.
Anyway, I like the Hickmann sleds but builders would immediately compare them to catamarans. Since catamarans are already well accepted I would design those first.

anonymous · Post by **anonymous** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 3:46 pm

I am very sorry to hear that you do not intend to complete the sea sled project, Jacques!

With your help, the design would have been accessible to many people. There are many places to get plans for catamarans, but few places to get thorough plans to build a sea sled.

The list of sea sled designers is empty at this informational web site

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SeaSledBoats

Post by **jacquesmm** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 6:09 pm

The Seasleds are a nice conversation subject but I don't think that many people would build one.

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