Homemade John Boat

[Riverman]

This is a serious boat building question...

I'm an old guy and simply can not use any boat that resembles a canoe. I've flipped one several times and am scared of them in fast water, to put it plainly.

I have my nice cypress, white oak and marine plywood in hand and ready to build a boat that I can use while river fishing.

The boat I like best is an old-timey paddle john boat... maybe 16' long, with 14" sides, 36" wide at the middle and around 24" on each end. I could paddle it from the transom, guide it with short oars from the middle in a flowing river or even use a small trolling motor on it if I wanted to some day.

My question is do you think 36" (bottom width) is too wide in the middle? I prefer stability over speed, all within reason. I do not want a tippy boat though.

Here's a sample of the old fashioned boat that I want to build.

 

[a Bald Cypress]

Re: Ozark John Boat

I'd bet that Tick and Keith are the ones to answer this. BUT, I don't think 36" is to wide at all if you are looking for stability.

Comfort is what YOU want it to be. To me, it sounds as if you have a plan of what you want.

Is this, to steal a phrase, By hand and by eye, or do you have a set of plans ?


EDIT: If ya gots $12.00 go here... http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDet ... 1%26y%3D12

 

[Riverman]

Re: Ozark John Boat

My friend has a sawmill with lots of cypress and oak lumber. I'll just cobble up something and see if it floats right, if not I'll start over.

 

[seedtick]

Beauty and function are always in the eye of the beholder

a 3' wide bateau (jon boat) is plenty stable for most of what folks want to do, probably too narrow for running big hoop nets or catching gators

IMHO 16' long is a bit long for for the 3' width, paddling won't be a lot of fun either, but a motor sure makes life easy

check out aluminum bateaus and their dimensions at your local sporting goods stores or on the internet

a 3' width is usually in the 12' range and a 4' width is more in the 16' range

since you've got ready access to lumber, build away. I know some folks that have built a half dozen boats and they're still tweaking the design

 

[Riverman]

I've seen many of the Ozark jonboats that are 20' long and about 32" wide... they do well on the rivers.

 

[gbinga]

If you don't want to use a motor, could you consider oars instead of paddling? Oars allow a wider boat to be practical.

GB

 

[Coal]

You might want to take a look at the Riverrunner.

http://www.duckworksbbs.com/plans/jim/r ... /index.htm