Lewis Boat Works: Custom Boat building and Plans
Building Chugger
A 12 ft Flat-bottom Minimalist Overnight CabinCruiser.
Please read this Disclaimer before building any plans found on this site:
Update: 10.03.02
The finish and load up.
Thursday!! Launch day. Got up early (0730) to take the kids to school. Normally I check email, groups and hit the sack again, but not today. Did the rest but went to work on the bunks instead of hitting them. As you can see, two hours later, I went home and got the camera and took this. For anyone wanting to build the boat, here's the framing completed. I used 1x2s and 2x2s. I figured the 1xs would do to support the ply, but I wanted to have 2xs where the weight would be concentrated when sitting.
Getting the sheet of ply in was a bit of a pain, but the cut out allowed the sheet to bend easily enough to bow up and let me slip the edges into the slots on the sides. Notice that I boo booed on the placement of the side stiffeners. Never noticed until the boat was together. OOOps, but doesn't hurt nothin'. The window material will go against the outer trim lip, and have some inner trim put on to keep it in and spruce up the appearance. I didn't finish the front of the bunks, as I might put drawers here or doors on the inside of the knee hole, or both.
This is Travis, one of my co-workers. I pursuaded him to come and help me test the carrying capacity. He weighs in at about 290 (his estimate). Notice the slot in the bunks has the cover installed. It doesn't have any framing on it yet, and might not need it (More later).
Getting the boat into the truck was a piece of cake. We pushed it up to the back of the truck, and lifted the rear end onto the tailgate. Once it was on the gate, we pushed/rolled the dolly forward and the boat slid in far enough we could lift the front and push it all the way in. Getting the junk out of the truck was more effort than putting the boat in.
Free plans are available on this site.
