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 We have built a boat. Or a floating, self propelled house. Of sorts. I want to tell you about it. When we started, we had no clue what we were doing. As a result, the boat looks... well, functionalistic. It has taken five guys a full eight of our short, Norwegian summers to get it to where it is today, and even then it is still not entirely finished. But it works now, despite the continuous predictions to the contrary from most of our friends and family. Here it is:   (All images: My hosting.) Total displacement is somewhere close to 35 metric tons, and the main deck is 13.5 m long and 7.6 meters wide (45' x 25'). On the fist deck we have seven private cabins, a soon-to-be-finished bathroom, a small workshop, and the anchor lounge by the stern exit. On the second deck is the bar/common room/bridge, and on top of that is the upper roof deck. Underneath all of this we have the hot, dark dungeons of the storage tanks and the engine bay, full of head-bursting engine noise and rusted pointy things that we're too lazy to do anything about. In total we have about 120 m² (1300 sq. ft) of floor indoors (not counting the tanks), and about 85 m² (900 sq. ft.) of outdoors deck. The roof deck lies at 6.1 meters above the water, and makes for a pretty decent diving platform. (Especially when people get proper sailor drunk. Which they do.) The boat is located on Norway's largest lake, Mjøsa, and can be seen on Google maps here: http://goo.gl/maps/rYZ5R (Look for a little white dot in the centre of the image, in the bay just north-west of the marina. Close up imagery on a Norwegian map site here.) It might not be the prettiest thing ever to float, but to us it has a beauty of its own, none the less. And mind you, she's one hell of a looker compared to the project that started our collective houseboat mania way back in 2002. Just after we finished high school, me and a friend decided – on a drunken whim – that we ought to build a house boat. This sort of thing usually amouts to gently caress all, but for some unknown reason, the following day we actually started working. Without the slightest idea of proper construction, hydrodynamics, or material efficiency, we set about building a raft from a few whole timber logs, old cladding boards, and some oil barrels. We planked up a rickety shack on top of that, and strapped my dad's 4 HP Yamaha outboard to what we decided to call the stern of the whole mess. All in all, we spent a grand total of 1400 NOK (approx. 240 USD) on the whole thing. After two weeks of highly inefficient and inebriated flailing about with hammers and falling in the water, our little floating goblin encampment was finished, and we took to the seas at an impressive 0.55 knots. Against the obvious odds we managed not only to not drown, we even had some particularly good fun.    So when the old gal succumbed to rot, rust and bad craftsmanship after two summers of service (and two winters of heavy entropy), we decided to build another one. And this time, we would do it properly. Despite the still very acute fact that we didn't really know just what that involved. (Other than “don't build it like a pile of poo poo entirely devoid of 90 degree corners with too little buoyancy”, of course, that much we had actually gathered.) This was in 2005. Since then, we've been toiling away on a diet of hot dogs and beer every summer, and in September 2012 we made the maiden voyage – albeit a rather modest one. One week later, however, we sailed the 60 kilometres from the construction site to our designated winter dock. But to avoid making this OP too long I'm not going to go into any more detail right now, but rather just show you some photos. I'll post a reply here soon, where I will tell you more about the building process, and try to answer any questions. In the mean time, have some pictures!   One of the private cabins on the main deck. Upper half of the wall folds out.  Everything - and I do mean everything - is custom built on site. This is a detail from the crane arm for the foldable wall in the last picture.  It's a bit of a redneck build, admittedly, but that's because we make use of what we can find. Rain lid for the exhaust, made out of an old garage door hinge, a part of an old window, a rusted barbecue, and some assorted bolts.  More window parts.  We have even made our own anchors.  Trying to get all the wiring for the engine in place.  If this isn't a mess, then I don't know what is. Beta testing the engine and the cooling system (also self built, of course).    I know some other goons have built houseboats, and their stories have been some of my favourite posts on the forums. If you've ever built anything vaguely resembling a boat of some sort, please feel free to share pictures and stories here. And if you've posted about it before (paging Slo-Tek to houseboat thread), I for one would love to see an update. Edit! A dig in the old archives yields a sweet loot: a 3D model! doom baboon posted:We may not have a real video walkthrough, but I found an old Sketchup model of the boat, and with a bit of tweaking I was able to make a simulated video walkthrough. Check yoself: doom baboon fucked around with this message at Mar 12, 2013 around 00:31 |
| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:05 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 20:48 |
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I want to drink a lot of beer on your boat with girls on board.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:08 |
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How turned on are girls by an accomplishment like this?
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:08 |
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Any plans on building a garage attachment for a smaller boat?
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:09 |
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Earth posted:How turned on are girls by an accomplishment like this? I think for maximum girl stimulus OP should hereafter refer to his boat as a Yacht.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:11 |
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Preoptopus posted:I think for maximum girl stimulus OP should hereafter refer to his boat as a Yacht. Allow me to rephrase then. How turned on are girls by a Yacht like this?
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:14 |
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Earth posted:How turned on are girls by an accomplishment like this? Preliminary testing indicates highly variable effects. So far we've had anything from "holy poo poo have my babies" to "well it's nice and all, but you could use some help with the interior". Priapus posted:Any plans on building a garage attachment for a smaller boat? We actually have plans for a floating, towable garden with a hot tub, along the lines of this thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgDUVJCZC50
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:18 |
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That's awesome, i'm pretty jealous of your houseboat.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:18 |
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God drat that's cool. People as a whole need to embrace big awesome projects like this more often.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:19 |
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Earth posted:Allow me to rephrase then. Dennis: We gotta pop by the department store and get a mattress, I want a nice one too... Mac: A what? A mattress? What do we need a mattress for? Dennis: What do you mean, what do we need a mattress for? Why do you think we just spent all that money on a boat? The whole purpose of buying the boat in the first place was to get the ladies all nice and tipsy topside so we can take them to a nice comfortable place below deck, and, you know, they can't refuse. Because of the implication. Mac: Oh, uh, OK. You had me going there for the first part. The second half kind of threw me. Dennis: Dude, dude, think about it. She's out in the middle of nowhere with some dude she barely knows, she looks around, what does she see, nothing but open ocean. (Imitating female voice) "Oh, there's nowhere for me to run. What am I going to do? Say no?" Mac: OK. That seems really dark. Dennis: Nah, it's not dark. You're misunderstanding, bro. Mac: I think I am. Dennis: Yeah, you are. Because if the girl said no, the answer, obviously, is no. But the thing is she's not gonna say no. She would never say no. Because of the implication.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:19 |
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Do you call it the Doom Boat or the Doom House Boat? Your name is Doom Baboon after all. Or does the boat not have a name at all?
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:20 |
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WendigoJohnson posted:Do you call it the Doom Boat or the Doom House Boat? Your name is Doom Baboon after all. Or does the boat not have a name at all? Doom Yacht. obviously.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:22 |
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You must come to California and build me one. This is magnificent.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:24 |
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SerSpook posted:Doom Yacht. obviously.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:24 |
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I hope you don't just dump your human waste in the water, that's gross.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:26 |
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That floating fortress could cause mayhem just by being near a country. I think that's pretty drat cool. Do you have to do much routine maintenance on it?
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:27 |
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That's dope as hell dude.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:27 |
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Are you renting out cabins on your doom boat op??
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:28 |
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How much did you spend on it?
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:28 |
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SoroScrew
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Paradox Personified posted:How much did you spend on it? And how many people could he have fed with that loving money?
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:29 |
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WendigoJohnson posted:Do you call it the Doom Boat or the Doom House Boat? Your name is Doom Baboon after all. Or does the boat not have a name at all? She's called Den Grimme Elling. The official story is that it's named after H. C. Andersen's 'The Ugly Duckling', which in Danish is Den grimme Ælling, as a poke to an old steam boat operating on the lake, nicknamed the White Swan. The real story is that the boat is named after a guy named Elling in the local building administration who (for reasons still unknown to us) had some problem with the project, and raised all bureaucratic hell to stop us. Coyote Smith posted:I hope you don't just dump your human waste in the water, that's gross. We don't, but the aforementioned steam boat does. Nice. Wicker Man posted:That floating fortress could cause mayhem just by being near a country. The whole thing is more in a state of being built than being maintained, and it will probably stay that way for as long as it exists... In other words: yes.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:31 |
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doom baboon posted:Preliminary testing indicates highly variable effects. So far we've had anything from "holy poo poo have my babies" to "well it's nice and all, but you could use some help with the interior". Casimir Radon posted:Grover boat. Grover Girls? I'll pass, but I'll also admit it's an interesting project.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:32 |
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So you are kind of like the real life MacGyver? I'm jealous, so I hope Murdoc shits your house. It is pretty loving cool. How much?
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:33 |
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So the engine is in one of those tanks on the bottom?
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:33 |
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What happens when conditions get choppy and that thing is out? What do you set the odds at for the whole thing failing in a spectacular fashion and exploding? How much silly putty and bailing wire are you using to hold it together? Can it reach warp 1.8? Thanks in advance for answering my questions!
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:34 |
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Where's the cannon? It needs a cannon. (That thing is loving amazing)
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:36 |
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Paradox Personified posted:How much did you spend on it? Just over 100,000 NOK, spread over seven years, and divided between five people. That's roughly 16,500 USD in 2006 currency, and about 17,500 today. Considering that the average annual income in Norway is about 450,000 NOK (and a big mac costs about 15$), I'd say that's not a terrible price to pay. (And it includes feeding five people on cheap hot dogs for several weeks a year.)
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:38 |
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That boat owns, I would love to attend a boat party on that fine piece of work in such a beautiful setting. Does she have a name?
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:39 |
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Holy poo poo, man, that whole thing looks like it was built by Ikea Orks. I mean that in the best possible way. Can you be a little more in-depth about how the engine is housed and how the drivetrain was assembled? It looks like it's suspended Hellraiser-style from cables inside one of the pontoons, but I can't tell what's going on behind it. Does it drive a prop/screw/whatever on that one side only, or is there a shaft leading to center mass somewhere? Or, god forbid, are there two engines to propel this gorgeous thing?
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:39 |
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doom baboon posted:(and a big mac costs about 15$) 
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:40 |
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Not a lot of news on my boat. It works, electrics and plumbing are in, insulation and pickled beadboard interiors are still in progress. Thinking about putting a 3rd pontoon down the middle for more flotation, as all the electrics/refrigerator/engines/gas/beadboard have turned out to be pretty heavy. Up the creek, no paddle  Roof full of old people  Flattering lighting  This happened  So we removed the two damaged hull sections and rebuilt them  Then we put them back on  Your boat is spectacular. Slo-Tek fucked around with this message at Mar 6, 2013 around 03:56 |
| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:41 |
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I have been following your boat building for many years, I'm glad to see it come to fruition, unlike so very many goon projects. Looks like fun!
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:41 |
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Brian Moser posted:And how many people could he have fed with that loving money? Oh, come off it, he's Norwegian and they pay a shitload of taxes
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:42 |
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doom baboon posted:We don't, but the aforementioned steam boat does. Nice. If I poo poo in your boat's bathroom...where does it go?
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:42 |
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How much is insurance on that thing? ... you do have insurance right? Don't let it die in vain!
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:42 |
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MA-Horus posted:Where's the cannon? On the drawing board. (Of course we're going to have a cannon.) Nathilus posted:What happens when conditions get choppy and that thing is out? What do you set the odds at for the whole thing failing in a spectacular fashion and exploding? How much silly putty and bailing wire are you using to hold it together? Can it reach warp 1.8? Thanks in advance for answering my questions! A) Conditions don't get all that bad, fortunately. Calm inland climate. It probably wouldn't last more than a couple of days on a proper ocean. B) Quantum. C) Half the budget worth. D) It can reach 1.8 knots, even in slight headwind. Farecoal posted:So the engine is in one of those tanks on the bottom? Yes. More on this in the next major post.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:45 |
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I like your boat. Please tell me more about your boat.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:46 |
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Goddamn I have done jack all in my life compared to Ein Haus Boat. Can you give a detailed walkthrough of the interior? I can't imagine 7 private cabins.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:48 |
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I made a boat exactly like this in Garry's Mod.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:49 |
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| # ? May 22, 2013 20:48 |
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I would love to work on a project like that.
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| # ? Mar 6, 2013 03:54 |
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