Had a new idea for a retirement project

[Fermion]

Some of you may have seen our past project, building our own RV from scratch, but I am attaching pictures of it for reference to this new idea.

We were helping a friend move her (houseboat/floating home) in Seattle to the dry dock for bottom paint when my wife and I saw how several of the boxy homes were just built on a aluminum barge type hull. We starting thinking what if we designed a similar hull that could hold our RV living and garage pods? I also came up with an additional idea to get a 12 foot beam but still have it only ~8 feet wide on a trailer which involves using two removable side sections that would stack on top of the barge when pulling it down the road.

The idea here would be to raise the pods from the flatbed truck where we normally carry them using the jacks and then drive the truck forward and set them down on the barge/trailer. The same jacks would fit into the side pontoons and lift them up to attach them to the sides, making a 12 foot beam, 35 foot long boat with our self contained camper and garage/workshop sitting on it. We would then use the truck to launch the boat, park the truck and trailer, and travel the entire length of the Mississippi or some other large body of not too violent water (inter-coastal waterway maybe?)

I think this would be pretty simple to design and build, although all of my welding thus far has been MIG steel. I could either get a spool gun for aluminum or try and get the hang of TIG again.

We already have the ultimate RV, with the detachable pod system, but this would be the supreme ultimate amphibious RV. As a bonus, the automatic door we use on the garage pod to load our motorcycles could act as a boarding ramp!

I would have a steering console under the living pod overhang, and maybe some snap on sides to convert that into a pilot house for stormy weather navigation.

Our current setup is about 28 feet long, so even pulling this barge we would be only about the same length as a large class A pulling a toad.

What do you think?

 

[pb4uski]

Interesting idea.

I have a small catamaran sailboat where the pontoons flip up to make it narrower for transporting... perhaps you could "borrow" that concept to make your 12' beam trailerable.

See http://www.windrushassociation.com/page_tipsandinfo/manual/p9b.jpg and http://www.windrushassociation.com/page_tipsandinfo/manual/p10a.jpg

Beyond that... pretty ambitious project for a retired guy.

 

[bld999]

Lots of naval architects in the puget sound area. I think I'd buy one a nice meal and beverage of choice for some brain picking before I tackled that.
Those "houseboat" floats are primarily for bouyancy, not travelling. Calculating the cg of the camper setup on the truck and loaded with gear might be pretty telling.
Sail area would be pretty influential in some cases.

 

[Fermion]

I was actually thinking about how one might calculate the C.G. of our camper (vertical C.G.). We designed it to keep most of the weight as low as possible (batteries, water tanks, etc.) but as for knowing exactly how high the C.G. really is? I can put scales under the four legs when it is on jacks and figure out the x-y C.G. easily...

There was a bit of a breeze on Lake Union when we took out her houseboat (with a sail area probably more than our camper would be) and the twin 20hp outboards seem to easily counter it. I do not think she takes it out in any serious wind though. Wind load is definitely something to be concerned about and ponder. I was actually somewhat worried about wind when traveling down the road but other than a bit of sway when we were in parts of southern CA during 50mph gusts, I have not had any issues driving it.

 

[bld999]

I re-read you description, and it looks like the truck itself stays on the beach, correct? I was first thinking you drove the whole show onto the barge. Big difference.

 

[Fermion]

Yes, yes, the truck and barge trailer stay on the shore

The camper pod is about 4500 pounds dry and the garage pod is about 2500 pounds empty.

The size barge I have in mind would only draft about 5 inches with 8000 pounds in it.

 

[Bamaman]

Chances are that anything you wish to do has already been done. There is a houseboat with a 8' beam that has additional pontoons on each side. The pontoons have arms on each end, and they can be winched up on top of the houseboat.

If you ever need info on weight carrying capabilities of pontoon boats, you can Google pontoon kits, and come up with manufacturers of pontoons as large as 36" in diameter and even 40' long. They have the specs. online.

I've got a 24' tritoon with a big Yamaha motor, and we can get up and run 40 mph. We love to do some distance river travel staying in hotels and state parks along the way. Our river is in my front yard and it has 650 miles of navigable water.

 

[Fermion]

Well things have been done before, but you are relying on the quality of mass market manufacturing (12 nails into a joint with 11 of them missing the underlying board).

The point of this would also be to have the custom designed living quarters we are comfortable with on land also being used on the water. Our 1100 watts of solar with 4kw true sine inverter, solid walnut kitchen counter, sleep number full size queen bed, maple cabinets with marine hardware closures.

The barge actually seems pretty simple to build, or even have built to our specifications if I end up selling our tools when we leave Seattle on our journey. The hard part is figuring out how well or poorly it will perform in water. I would expect it to be displacement, not up on a plane, so probably limited to about 8 or 9 knots max depending on length.

 

[dixonge]

I can't decide if this is insane or genius... lol

 

[NW-Bound]

Hey Fermion, have you sold your home? If you did, I missed the post.

 

[pb4uski]

I can't decide if this is insane or genius... lol

+1 but I probably would have thought the same thing about his RV and that turned out pretty nice.

 

[ls99]

Geat idea. If I was ten years younger I'd be inclined to do it as well.