Bellystone
I talk about this boat a lot and even work on it some. It's been slow. I had two eye surgeries this year and then I poked a hole in my lake boat. So I spent the last week fixing that. I'm almost done with the lake boat repairs. Then back to the Bellystone.
As mentioned many times before the Bellystone is made from 18' foot side panels so it will be approx 17' feet long. Lots of side flare. 66" inches wide below the oarlocks (that is extremely wide for a 17' foot boat). Lots of side flare but the rocker profile is still kept under control so it has some but not much rocker in the middle and then sharp rocker out at the ends.
This will be a decked white water boat rigged to also work for day trip fishing expeditions. The bottom and 8" inches up the sides will be 3/4" Plascore fiberglass. Above that will be 3/8" and 1/2" inch oiled Meranti hydrotech with no fiberglass and no ribs. I want all plywood pieces to attach to thick, stout, laminated ash nailers at the joints, put together with caulk rather than glue, so any and all parts can be removed for repairs. So this boat will go together and come apart like an erector set. If I had it to do all over again I'd use 1" inch Plascore for the bottom but I'm using what I have.
The way I design new boats is to work with a full size model. So I built the following form:
On top of that I'll build the boat. The form is perhaps needed only for the design process. On the other hand for this hybrid half-fiberglass half-wood technique it might be necessary no matter what. I'm not sure about that yet. No one I know of has ever built a boat this way. It will be interesting.
Anyway I will be working on top of a form. So I needed to make a snub nose on the front of the form so a triangular wooden stem can be placed at the front, so the two 3/8" inch plywood side panels can attach the stem, and STILL be on top of the form. This is how I made the snub nose on the front of the form. You can also see a bit of form straightening technology there too, where a lengthwise 1x6 lines up with the center of the stem, and with the center of all temporary rib like formers in the form.