FishyFish Tolman Alaskan Skiff and Boat Building Forums

A portrait of the design I did in Vector Works. The drawings help get my head in the boat.

To continue- I should describe the boat a little. The design is a fairly straight forward deadrise skiff, with a nearly plumb stem, steep deadrise forward, and a warped plane aft flattening out to maybe 7 or 8 degrees at the transom. Like the Tolman, she runs easy and level at any speed, with no noticeable drag hump. Transition to planing is barely noticeable. Also, she is easy to power. We powered with a Suzuki 60, and she runs about 25 knots at 5600. Not bad for a 1500 lb. boat. I like to cruise at 4000- 17 or 18 knots.

The hull is thick with very little framing. There is a fir keelson, chine, and sheer clamp, and a fairly robust stem construction, inner and outer. There are floor timbers which are the only athwartship frames except for a bulkhead fwd, and the drywell/deck assembly aft. There are small frames at the sheer to support the deck/carlin structure.

The inner stem goes on the building jig, and after planking, the outer stem goes on. The whole business is through bolted with bronze carriage bolts.


Pre-drilling bolt holes on the drill press. Later, the holes are drilled through the outer stem from the inside out.


Beveling the stem.


Stem and longitudinals are set up on the molds and beveled fair.


I over-beveled the stem, and had to patch in a little with Quik Fair. Plenty of gluing surface here, so no worries about a little fill.


Planking!

More pics later.

Thanks for the reply mike. The Point Comfort is a great boat, and it would be fun to build another one. It's a little heavy though. The hull is about 1500 lbs. plus motor and trailer, it's a lot to tow. I think the Tolman is a great boat, plenty capable for any water I'm liable to explore on the Chesapeake, and as long as I don't go crazy, towable with a small truck or SUV. Also, I've already built a Point Comfort, and I like new challenges. the Tolman is different construction than I'm used to. Simpler, in terms of number of pieces to fit, but more dependent on eyeball fairing. I'm fussy about fairness. Also, after 3 years now with the PC23 at the dock 6 months per year, I would appreciate a cleaner interior to manage. The PC has slatted floor boards, and athwartship floor timbers that collect funk. I clean under the floor boards every week, and sponge out the bilge.

Anyway, I'll continue some construction pics. The different construction might be interesting to some.


The aft side planks are made from a single layer of 3/4" meranti, with butt blocks at the seams. The forward topsides are done in 2 layers of 3/8" because the curve was kind of tough for a piece of 3/4.




Very sharp forefoot!


In a deadrise boat, the bottom planking overlays the side planking up to a point, then transitions to a butt as the angle gets steeper. There is a notch in the sides and chine at the transition.



Whole sheets of ply are fitted to the bottom aft. Then as the twist becomes unmanageable, we transition to shorter pieces of double 3/8". These started about 3' long aft, then ended up no more than 6" long at the bow.









I'll continue later. Thanks for looking.
Cricket

Share away, David. You can see these pics? I no longer can.
Cricket

Thanks Steve!