Dec 2. The Plans

It's about time I show you the plans so you have a better understanding of what I'm jabbering on about. 

Jaunty little thing isn't it?  You can see that this little boat has extreme rocker and flare, which will make it bob like a cork and turn on a dime, and the extreme bend in the sides gives it a huge beam to length ratio. You can see it has an oarsman in the back with two seats forward and a stand-up angler station in the peak. It is the perfect boat with which to fly fish western rivers.

Definitions:

Rocker -- the bottom has a lot of rocker when it is low in the middle and high on the ends, like a rocking chair. 

Beam -- the width of the boat at its widest point. 

Flare -- the outward angle of the sides. 

Transom -- the small piece of wood in the back. 

Drift boats are unique in that the rower sits facing the stem (front as you go down the river) of the boat and rows to slow the drift of the boat down the river. Most row boats have the rower facing the stern of the boat. 

Another side note: traditionally, the length of drift boats was measured by the length of plywood required, which would make this a 16' boat. But government agencies require overall length, which, with the extreme curvature of the sides is 14'. 

To get that cool shape, the designer provided us with this simple method of cutting out the sides and bottoms from the plywood while flat, which is much easier than the normal method of "lofting" used on wooden boat construction. Remind me to explain lofting some other time over beers. 

So we cut a diagonal line on the 3/8" by 16' sheet of plywood to get the basic shape of the two sides, and we cut a football shape out of the 1/2" by 16' piece to get the bottom. The small transom comes out of whatever is left. 

The location of everything that goes in the boat is marked on the sides right now.