Friday, January 23, 2015
Experiments In Cabin Height Increases
As I have been building the boat, I have sometimes lamented on the fact that this boat has a low cabin height of 54" which is seriously short for me at 6. I felt it was something I would have to live with because I was sure that raising the cabin height would look all wrong with the boat.
Today, after discussing space increases with a fellow boat builder, I decided to try and see what might be done. At this point the whole thing is an exercise and not a firm plan. Mainly I wanted to see if it would be possible to increase the cabin height without destroying the lines of the boat.
I first considered raising the deck along with the and keeping the cabin height the same. This came out of the discussion with the other builder. He has some good ideas which I wanted to see if they might be practical for my boat. I didnt have a lot of luck with this approach, primarily because I have gotten to the point in my construction where making deck height changes would be a fairly substantial step backwards. Im not particularly prepared to go that far so I set that idea aside for now until I can get more feedback.
As a second way of tackling cabin height, I decided to try increasing the cabin height itself and leave the deck height the same. At first this looked hopeless. Everything I tried looked wrong. But I stuck with it and keep tweaking the shapes. After awhile I came up with a design which gives approximately 8 inches more of head room and still retains the look of the 50s styling that I wanted. Remember, the deck height is the same, only the cabin has been increased in height and the wing shape has been changed slightly.
Now the following pictures are only drawings and if I was to pursue this, it would take some engineering of the existing design to make it work. But the beauty of the boat is that the cabin is essentially just a box with two wings trailing back towards the transom. The wings are what make it possible to get the extra height and still look right. That and a little creative coloring to give the illusion of sleekness. So here are the before and after pictures.
Today, after discussing space increases with a fellow boat builder, I decided to try and see what might be done. At this point the whole thing is an exercise and not a firm plan. Mainly I wanted to see if it would be possible to increase the cabin height without destroying the lines of the boat.
I first considered raising the deck along with the and keeping the cabin height the same. This came out of the discussion with the other builder. He has some good ideas which I wanted to see if they might be practical for my boat. I didnt have a lot of luck with this approach, primarily because I have gotten to the point in my construction where making deck height changes would be a fairly substantial step backwards. Im not particularly prepared to go that far so I set that idea aside for now until I can get more feedback.
As a second way of tackling cabin height, I decided to try increasing the cabin height itself and leave the deck height the same. At first this looked hopeless. Everything I tried looked wrong. But I stuck with it and keep tweaking the shapes. After awhile I came up with a design which gives approximately 8 inches more of head room and still retains the look of the 50s styling that I wanted. Remember, the deck height is the same, only the cabin has been increased in height and the wing shape has been changed slightly.
Now the following pictures are only drawings and if I was to pursue this, it would take some engineering of the existing design to make it work. But the beauty of the boat is that the cabin is essentially just a box with two wings trailing back towards the transom. The wings are what make it possible to get the extra height and still look right. That and a little creative coloring to give the illusion of sleekness. So here are the before and after pictures.
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