WANTED

14.08 in and, Boat Plans, bracing, diagonal, inspiration, walls, wanted

You know how many marinas there are in the Sacramento Delta?  A lot, let me tell you.  And Ive called nearly every one in search of our elusive, inexpensive junked, but still floating, 20 foot-or-so pontoon boat.  A few leads which Im following up on.

Kai and I also hung a flier up in a few delta towns when we were up there. 

Surprisingly, we got a response within a few days from a guy named Chris in Walnut Grove.  "I live on a little harbor.  The woman who owns it is like 90 something and shes going crazy.  The marinas falling apart.  There a boat in the harbor, just sitting there for years, sounds like what you are looking for."  It took me a bit to understand Chris.  He seemed like a nice guy, a lot like the other folks we met in the area, lonely, talkative, staggeringly inarticulate.

"I dont know if its a pontoon boat, but its sinking on one side.  So its probably a pontoon boat, right?"  I had to think through this logic a little bit.  One of the reasons we are interested in a pontoon boat is that it is less likely to sink. 

"This boats got stuff in it.  A fridge, held up with a rope.  It got coats in there, like nice ones.  And other stuff."  I wondered that the locals had not already stripped this abandoned boat full of nice coats.

I asked Chris if he could send me a picture of this boat.  "You know, Im technology illiterate.  My phones got a camera, but I dont know know how to use the goddamned thing.  Technology, man, I just dont know it."

Chris went on, "To tell the truth, you dont want this boat.  Its sinking on one side.  But its just sitting here.  And frees a good price, right?  Am I right?  You know, who knows?  You could haul this thing out and do us a favor before it sinks."

As dubious as it sounds, well probably take a look at it next time we go up there.  If it hasnt already settled to the bottom of the Sacramento River.  As Chris says, who knows?

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Inspiration

17.23 in a, about, Boat Plans, by, fueled, gasoline, gin, hard, idea, inspiration, mad, think

Looking around, shanty boats have been around for a long time.  The dream of living on the water is hardly new.  Shanty boats were the obvious choice for itinerant workers, miners, dockworkers, and farmers. And as living on land has felt more and more constrained, people have looked to the relative freedom of rivers, lakes, and seas.

From "Toward Defining Shantyboat Living" by Bryan Lowe (original source uncredited)

Here are some of the inspirations Ive found from various online sources.

Untitled by Alexey Sergeev

"Floating camp on the Ouachita River by FinchLake" by Scott Whitlock.

"Euro Floating Cottage" from Euroship Services.  Custom made floating cabins.

"Float Cabins on Powell Lake" by Kent Griswold.  Float cabins in Coastal British Columbia.

"Loggers floating cabin" by Darian Rawson.

"Floating Shack" by Sadieinoz1957.  A floating bluegrass stage on the Derwent River, Hobart City, Tasmania, Australia.

"Jack Kerns Shantyboat" by Bryan Owen.  Permanently anchored in a little bay off the beach on the Ohio River.

"Shantyboat Gals" from steamboats.com

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A Madcap Boat Scavenging Journey

18.46 in a, boat, Boat Plans, inspiration, journey, madcap, napkin, plans, scavenging, sketchy

Kai and I took a mad motorcycle trip up the Sacramento Delta to check out a couple of "pontoon boats."  They turned out to not only not be pontoon boats, but much longer than we were told and barely afloat.

The first was a fiberglass houseboat around 35 feet or so, much too large, and much too... not what were looking for whatsoever.  The best thing that could be said for it, was that at least it was floating pretty high and.. not quite dry as it had lots of water sloshing around in its hull.  It was probably a 70s era houseboat, fiberglass hull, fiberglass cabin, ugly aluminum windows, rotting deck, and rusty inboard engine.  They offered to give that one to me free.  Uh.. thanks?

The second boat, and the reason we went up there, was an alleged pontoon boat that could easily be shortened, we were told.  Instead, it had a steal twin hull, something like triangular Vs that went down in the water, vaguely pontoon stylee.  Some of the bulkheads below the waterline had been filled inexpertly with foam. Unfortunately, these werent pontoons and the boat sat inches off the water and listed to the port side.  I couldnt see exactly how the hull was configured, but it looked like it was a steel hull with twin-Vs that couldnt have offered much displacement.  It was also filled with a lot of rusty water.



We guessed at the cross-sectional area of these "pontoons" was something like 249 sq in (compared to a round pontoon of the same width at 452 sq in).  We take the cross-sectional area of the "pontoon" times the length to get the displacement at 60.5 cu ft.  Times the weight of water to get the buoyancy at 3776 lb - plus youd have to subtract the weight of that enormously heavy steel hull.  For comparison, a similarly sized round pontoon would provide 6855 lb of flotation.  No wonder the boat was barely out of the water.

The one thing it had going for it is that it had a trailer. Still, though, I think well take a pass on these.  Chicken John, a friend who is no stranger to building with scavenged boats, says these sad houseboats are as common as dirt.  Or as he put it, "You can get that kind of stuff forever for free. Finding clean pontoons, steel or fiberglass is rare for free. They are worth $1,000 each. Steel is better, I say. Aluminum is swank, but there is always the possibility of theft, and they sell for like $2,000 a pop."

The guy who showed us around was a grizzled old fella who lived in a floating house in the marina and was heavily up-selling these boats.  "You can easily cut this down, make it the size you want, and wham!  There you go."  And "Just needs a little TLC and you got a beautiful boat."  He set my teeth on edge with a few borderline racist comments. The topper was when he tossed his filtered cigarette butt into the water.  Maybe Im stupidly naive, but uh, doesnt he live on these waters?

However, the trip was not wasted as I learned to ask better questions when Im on the phone with potential boat sellers.  "When you say pontoon, what do you mean?"  And "By 20 foot, do you mean actually 35 foot?"  Things like that. 

And Kai and I enjoyed the trip.  We loved the idyllic little towns along the delta, such as Walnut Grove and Islandton, where people were ridiculously friendly and helpful and seemingly lonely.  We had beers at Giustis Place and then sat out on the deck watching the fishermen and the migrating ducks.

In the meantime, if we cant find a pontoon boat base, well look into building our own hull using the fiberglass over plywood method.

Are we ready to tackle the craziness of being DIY boat builders?  I mean building everything above the deck just felt like being a carpenter, which Im comfortable with.  But building a boat?  Like, a real boat hull?  That part that floats in the water?  That feels crazy.

We took a very brief tour of a foreclosed boatyard.  Apparently, according to two different lonely men, the previous owner Bee owed lots of back rent and lost the boatyard.  Lots of tantalizing loot in the yard that wants to be turned into our shanty boat.

As we talked to the "caretaker" (read: a guy who lives in his RV in the yard), his tiny tiny guard dog Jezebel was vigorously attempting to eat my pants cuff and my boot.  He asked the usual questions, You from around here?  Where you from?  What you want a pontoon boat for? As we rode the motorcycle around the yard, we were in constant danger of either having our ankles chewed off or flattening poor ferocious Jezebel. Kai lifted her feet up on the hard bags out of range, and only risked dying of laughter, while my feet were thoroughly hazarded by Jezebel.

After listening to this lonely man for a while, we were taking our leave of Jezebel and the caretaker when he yelled.  "Hey, stop!  I got one more question."  I slowed the bike so Jezebel could attempt to noisily eat my boots again.  "Santa Cruz," he said, "Is it pretty much the same, or has it gotten worse?"  I pondered the many possible meanings and responses to that for a moment.

"Pretty much the same," I said.  "Its pretty much the same."

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