Hello from the wooden boat world

[Kergan]

Thank you very much, I appreciate you taking the time to go over this for me. I will definitely use some serious plywood. Florida is brutal on wood.

[yrock87]

Welcome to the forum! you will find TNTTT to be a wealth of knowledge, information, and ideas. There are lots of different styles and methodologies to building your tear. ranging from super light weight, to barn/house theme, to foamies, to all metal framing/skin to woodie, to weekend build. It already sounds like your boat building background will leave you primed to make a quality tear in short order. My one piece of advice is to remember that the forces on a 'drop are much lower than you are used to dealing with. You are making an airplane, not a tank (or a boat I guess).

Your adventure plan sounds amazing. Cross country road trip followed by a sailing trip... gonna add that to my bucket list.

I'm up in the Puget Sound and while I am firmly on dry land, we have some great boating culture here. There was just a "Harbor Days" event over the long weekend in Olympia where there were home made mini-tugboat races and people bring their boats in from all around the area.

[jalmberg]

Welcome to the forum! you will find TNTTT to be a wealth of knowledge, information, and ideas. There are lots of different styles and methodologies to building your tear. ranging from super light weight, to barn/house theme, to foamies, to all metal framing/skin to woodie, to weekend build. It already sounds like your boat building background will leave you primed to make a quality tear in short order. My one piece of advice is to remember that the forces on a 'drop are much lower than you are used to dealing with. You are making an airplane, not a tank (or a boat I guess).

Your adventure plan sounds amazing. Cross country road trip followed by a sailing trip... gonna add that to my bucket list.

I'm up in the Puget Sound and while I am firmly on dry land, we have some great boating culture here. There was just a "Harbor Days" event over the long weekend in Olympia where there were home made mini-tugboat races and people bring their boats in from all around the area.

At the moment I know just enough about teardrops to be dangerous, but the basic requirements are taking shape.

You are right that I don't need a tank, and I also don't need it to last 100 years. I'll be towing it behind the best car I've ever owned (a Jaguar Sport Wagon) so my #1 priority is keeping the load as light as possible, in terms of weight and resistance. I'd also like it to look kinda classy, so want to keep to the traditional streamlined teardrop look, rather than something more boxy.

I've been doing some sketching...

[yrock87]

At the moment I know just enough about teardrops to be dangerous, but the basic requirements are taking shape.

You are right that I don't need a tank, and I also don't need it to last 100 years. I'll be towing it behind the best car I've ever owned (a Jaguar Sport Wagon) so my #1 priority is keeping the load as light as possible, in terms of weight and resistance. I'd also like it to look kinda classy, so want to keep to the traditional streamlined teardrop look, rather than something more boxy.

I've been doing some sketching...

I'm pretty sure I am in the same boat as far as being dangerous. a year after joining the forum I am still not done and still haven't camped. but I have learned a heck of a lot

towing with a small car gives you two challenges, and you have identified them both. the higher and wider you go, the more that dreaded resistance kills you. and since resistance increases with the cube of speed, a small increase of your vehicles cross section results in a large performance change. I'm guessing that you aren't short HP, but if you get to heavy, you will want to add trailer brakes.... which has its own set of complications.

many here, myself included, have had good luck with a torsion box construction. my build has very minimal wooden support and it is stiff enough to hold my weight on the roof. here is an image of the 14x14 roof vent cut out that I am standing on. it easily held my weight over a 1 ft gap. my cabin is around 250lbs with the 3mm plywood bonded to each side of 1 inch foam board, and is very stiff.


I went with some less than pretty plywood because I was too cheap to buy nice stuff for the exterior, but I have seen others get great woddies using this technique.

good luck with the design, make sure you create a Build Journal so we can stay caught up on your build. I'm sure i'll learn something.