Hello
I'm Mark, the new guy from up in North Scituate, Rhode Island.
To quickly cover the personal background stuff:
I studied Fine Art in college, (sculpture and photography). I never made a dime off it but it's managed to stay a big part of my life.
I've been a carpenter for close to 40 years, doing mostly finish work now.
I have some experience in electronics at the component level. I'm okay with "point-to-points" but I'd be in trouble if I had to read a schematic.
Divorced, no kids, 1 dog and like everybody else in the construction trades ...unemployed.
I'd been thinking about building a houseboat for a few years now, one that would run without fossil fuels and be essentially "off-the-grid".
I hope to spend time touring the inland waterways in the US someday.
I wanted to start on a prototype and did some drawings but I didn't have the space to start fabricating hulls.
The original idea is here:
http://solarboat.blogspot.com/
There's a link to some drawings at the top of the right hand column, you should skip the text unless you've got insomnia issues.
I grew up around boats, both power and sail, but this being "The Ocean State" I never had any experience with pontoon barges as they really aren't well suited for salt water.
I got a close look at one for the first time a year ago and it got the wheels turning.
I found a 20 foot 1989 Manitou Fish Hawk on Craigslist. The motor was blown and the furniture was toast but the pontoons and the trailer were in great shape and the price was right. I stripped it down to the trusses, replaced the deck with mahogany, added an 8' x 12' canopy for a PV array and wells large enough to hold 8 deep cycle RV/marine batteries. The plan is to turn it into a touring boat and a camper. There will be roll-down canvas panels around the canopy and the benches will turn into bunks.
I haven't figured out how to transfer the files from my Flickr account to here yet, so for now...
These are some shots of the early construction stages:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68066846@N04/sets/72157627783354944/
This is it with some of the wiring installed:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68066846@N04/sets/72157627790086652/
The construction is going well over all There's only a couple of days work left before I can get it wet.
I did put in the water once to check the buoyancy and balance but I haven't run it under power yet.
I need to get started on the charging systems now. With 96 square feet of canopy, I've got room for a fair size PV array. but I don't see it providing enough power. I had planned on adding vertical axis wind turbines, but all the designs I came up with ate up too much deck space.
I may try and put them on outriggers if I can find a way to keep them from getting wrecked dock-side or crushed going thru locks.
I've been looking into getting some power regeneration from the motors. Technically all I'd need to do would be to anchor in a strong current but I'd need a different set of props to get any real power generation and swapping out the props every night and then back in the morning sounds like a chore.
Feel free to hit me up with questions, suggestions or pointers. I've got a LOT of free time these days.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Mark
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