Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Can't decide whether to go Teardropping or boating? Tet AquaTear solve the problem!

After seeing all of those great designs in the contest, they stirred around in my head and this is what came out. Okay--I know there might be sealing and leakage problems--but heck--this is just for fun.





Would I build it? Hmmm.

That is way cool! Would you feel safe sleeping in that?
I know, it just for fun!!!

Dan,
I gotta show the boys over at the boatbuiding site this one.
Did you really design and draw this or did you find it somewhere?
Hope you don't mind, but I'm going to be sending a group of my canoe and kayak buddies on a tour over here.

Well seeing that Dan is a retired graphics designer, I would say he drew it himself.

Mike...

Mike,
That is way cool! I just posted an invite on the forum over at http://www.bearmountainboats.com. You might be getting some extra traffic over this one.

Let em come!!! We got the room. Besides, I see they'll be right at home, seeing as how they use phpBB too!

Mike...

Mike,
We just recently got this type of forum over there. The old forum was a FrontPage based program and a couple of months ago, it CRASHED! We may have lost a multitude of information. (The're trying to figure out a way to retrieve the info from the old forum and archive it)

Yeah, far as I know it's my own design. But then, there are so many creative people with so many great ideas out there that one or more folks have probably come up with something very similar.

I'm a long-time fan of Phil Bolger's instant boat designs and have built three based on his concepts. Some of that probably mated with the stuff from the tear contest in a dark corner of my brain and spawned the AquaTear.

Would I feel safe sleeping in it? I think so. The main teardrop section would be completely waterproof when the doors are properly sealed. The fore and aft sections exist mainly to provide additional stability. A change from the drawing is that the rear entry hatch would be changed to have a one foot high stepover--that means the unit would have to be one foot deep in the water before taking some onboard.

About the drawing--I get a lot of silly ideas for the projects I get involved in so I just sketch them out in pencil on a pad of plain, grid, or isometric grid as appropriate. Whenever an idea seems to merit further development, I take it up through a variety of steps to achieve better graphic results. In this case the drawings were on non-photo-blue grid paper. I went over them with ink, erased the pencil lines and scanned them as grayscale images. From there it's drop them into a draw/paint program and add some text, save as JPG and post. Fairly quick process.

For the boatbuilders... Yes, I know the lines and hydrodynamics are kinda klunky but, as I said earlier, this is just for fun.

I like it but I would be afraid of leeks. I myself rather build a large raft, wont tip in rough water and you can carry more supplies on it that any other.

>>
About the drawing--I get a lot of silly ideas for the projects I get involved in so I just sketch them out in pencil on a pad of plain, grid, or isometric grid as appropriate. Whenever an idea seems to merit further development, I take it up through a variety of steps to achieve better graphic results. In this case the drawings were on non-photo-blue grid paper. I went over them with ink, erased the pencil lines and scanned them as grayscale images. From there it's drop them into a draw/paint program and add some text, save as JPG and post. Fairly quick process.

For the boatbuilders... Yes, I know the lines and hydrodynamics are kinda klunky but, as I said earlier, this is just for fun.
<<

I'm a great believer in "brain storming" ideas. For me it's not that any specific design is going to be built or is even practical, but that it sparks creative thinking. I've seen some really neat ideas on this list because the members are willing to put their creative ideas down on paper (electronic paper that is) and no one criticizes them over the practicality of the design so the good ideas keep on coming.

Joanne

Is anyone going to try this design???

tdthinker wrote:I like it but I would be afraid of leeks. I myself rather build a large raft, wont tip in rough water and you can carry more supplies on it that any other.

Its long enough to be stable front to back, but being narrow it could use something for sideways stability. I'd add a small drop-down telescoping outrigger pontoon on each side. Folded up, they would be just above the roofline, and in the out position they would make the thing very sideways stable!

And if the bow and stern sections are made of glassed-over foam, the thing would be nearly unsinkable, like a surfboard. The bow and stern sections, as they are, would even be a close match for the thing's weight distribution too!

Getting it sealed water-tight might be a bugger to figure out, but the rest looks doable!

Just one question: Inboard or outboard?

I have the solution for using your tear on land and water. When I purchased the plans on ebay, see http://tnttt.com/viewtopic.php?t=819 in the included PDF version of a book published in 1937 titled "How to Build Trailers", there are plans called "Build a Trailer Barge". It's simply a barge type boat that you park your trailer on and into a pocket on top of the barge. The barge has an outboard motor. This would be great for inland waters and such! I'll try to extract some photos from the PDF document so I can share that with you.

Ok ya'll just had to get me thinking again,,,ya'll just had to do it,,,OK this aint my fault,,,so here goes,,,

build a tear with a 5'x10'base,,,on top of this (hull) build a 4'x4'x10' tear drop,,,the front bottom rounded part of the hull blends into the 4'x10' top chamber,,rear hatch opens down to approx 20' above the actual bottom of the tear/boat,,pull the motor mount a bit forward to fully enclose the motorwith hatch either open or closed,,,put lots of windows in the front,,open the doors,,instead of a front bulkhead its a dash/console with a steering wheel,,another galley requirement ,,where in the hairy do I mount a 5 gal gas tank,,,ohhh and battery,,,now figure out the balance point,,,remember the 9.9 hp motor hung off the rear

barge bottom,,teardrop top sleeping for two,,,guess ya got to beach tha thing to cook,,,,oh and make it so it slides onto a 5x10 Lowes trailer,,,,,,,dang my head hurts,,,if I ever figure out how to use and post cadd ya'll are definately in trouble,,,,

chip

@Chip
You crack me up! When I first looked at this thread, I thought it was a funny idea.....until I bought that damn plans package! When I saw that barge idea, my mind really started rolling. I'll never do it, but it's fun to know one can!