What do you mean, "you people"?

Best Lil hull we had was one my uncle picked up made of Kevlar. I used for a couple of seasons with a 8 hp lt. I was perfect for 1 guy I could drop it in off a levee,load and unload off the trailer by hand. It was tough as shit and took a serious beating. With that 8 hp and a skinny mofo it would run 18. The motor weighed more than the hull I'm almost positive.

Riley, you seem like a motivated and inspired individual. Build your boat. I just wasted 10 minutes reading how you have argued with everyones opinion on how this is going to turn out.

Quit arguing. You asked for comments, they gave them to you. From my point of view it seems like you have in your head that this will work regardless what everyone on here is saying.

Build it and quit talking about it.




and JC.... you went up a set up in my book today with the roadside ditch post!

Wtf kind of insanity is this.

Im betting thebrunners wont weigh as much As all the foam you are fonna pump in there. Especially when it gets wet.

Not to mention you must be a scrawny fucker if you cant pull a 14' boat off a trailer

Sent using Telekenisis

not only r u talking to a bunch of east texans, but u talking to 50 fucking coon asses that been around boats and building boats their entire lives. stfu, quit asking dumb questions. listen to the answers u asked for. u got 50 people telling u ur wasting ur time. for the price of the foam u can build the ribs and save money anyway. that shit isnt cheap.

which one of you fuckers has built a boat? everybody on here has prodrive or gatortail or something in their sig. nobody has ever mentioned anything about having any experience building a boat. NOBODY has come up with a decent argument for why it wouldn't work, just say it won't. just a bunch of dumb ass pricks getting pissed off and talking hard on a forum. nobody made you look at my thread. I'm through with this. I'll post again when I have it built

Don't and say you did

P.S.--We all have had homemade junk at one time or the other

I guess experience isn't a good enough argument

Can't believe I read this entire thread....

I don't have any experience with this but I can offer to help you out. Post up your address and we can all send you some regular foam to start your project off. I'll donate an entire giant, yellow, foam finger saying Hulkster is #1 or something to that effect for you to try. Maybe if enough guys give you enough foam you won't have to waste any money trying your idea out.

I take that back. I made a raft out of milk jugs for a middle school class one time. It floated for all of 5 minutes before it sank and started to come apart. Does that give you any ideas?

i think your idea has some merrit. but i beleave its flawed. if you do it as you say i beleave it will be ridged and should work for some time. you will be relieing on the foam to stick to the bottom and floor to gain the ridgid hull. once that bond is broken you will no longer have a single unit. it will be an unsuported hull and floor with a large hunk of foam in between. once that happens welds will crack and water will get in. no matter what foam you use that space will hold water. now you have a floppy hull that weighs a ton.

Boston whalers and Carolina skiffs have stringers too. They just foam ever available space to keep that bitch afloat. Whaler couldn't care less about weight, as long as it doesn't sink. That's the bottom line with those guys.

Have you considered bulding the boat out of cardboard and sealing it up, and pumping it pull of helium? You might could even install a fan and some wings and make it an airplane as well seeing as it will be filled up with helium..

Carolina Skiff stringers, kind of. Boston Whaler stringers, not really. A few under the deck on removeable deck models but not on the hull side.

Boston Whaler foam is a special blend to get adhesion to the hull and the deck.

Carolina Skiff uses fiberglass, but it is called a stringer. I have the pictures of our whaler being rebuilt after we tore a hole in the bottom on a tree floating offshore. It's a custom red dot 30' center console, but it does have fiberglass structure between the molds. Not that I'm a boat builder, but it looks like stringers to me.

oncall:

Not a boat builder either but I would think a true stringer would not allow the foam to flow and bond the two halves together. I am a Whaler nut and know a lot about smaller production hulls. Who knows what BW did on a 30' commercial hull. It may have stringers in it. Got to like a Whaler when you punch a hole in it Offshore and live to tell the tale.

I know the "stringer" you are talking about on a Carolina Skiff. Just a little resin and maybe mat between the foam blocks.

We didn't even know there was a hole in it for 2 weeks. When we finally hung it back up at the dock, there was a 2 foot tear where the bottom met the transom. Whaler built a brand new boat with several changes we wanted free of charge. That's why we took the pics. It has a 600# built in cooler in front of the console and an extended floating bracket for the twin 300's.

Try Popsicle sticks....There stronger than foam....especially when you glue multiple ones together!

Another thing to think about....Have you ever seen the composite trus joists made? Same principle as what everyone is trying to explain to you here. A solid, composite joist is very strong as long as everything stays together. Once the integrity is compromised, the joist weakens and results in failure.
There is no possible way you are going to get the foam to fill the void in the bottom of the boat. The flexing and expansion and contraction of the aluminum molecules will prevent you from totally filling the void. Once everything is sealed up, you will still get expansion and contraction of the molecules, resulting in eventual failure of the compartment. Go read up about metals chemistry, if you have'nt already. I will give you an idea as to why the project will most likely not succeed.