Deck jobs on open boats

[yarnellboat]

Having seen Kelvin's video with a decked Zoom, and the end caps for the Blackfly, anyone else have stories of adding decks to an open boat?

A friend is thinking of cutting down and decking his beat-up Viper 11.

I added an oversized deck plate on the bow of my Outrage by rivetting on a thin ABS sheet, and arching it a bit with minicell on the thwarts. The ABS might be a little brittle for a larger area though.

What have others done? The Zoom job looked slick.

Pat.

Edited to add: For those who haven't seen the video with the skookum deck, here it is....

http://vimeo.com/15197013

[french erick]

I've seen the zoom job you speak of up close. It is very slick...but the owner is a gifted welder for bespoke car parts.
http://www.conceptracing.co.uk/

His is aluminium rivetted with a skirt to fit. It doesn't add a tremendous amount of weight...but I think it might be due to Bob's skills more than anything else.

Anyway, Bob has been recovering from a nasty quad accident for the last 2 months...spare some positive vibes.

[philcanoe]

One caveat or word of caution...

is to be aware of expansion and contraction. It's simply the nature of some materials to not be very well suited to use as decks. I've seen screws pulled from wood gunwales, and on the other extreme seen some mighty loose floppy decks. All from the using the same material. If in doubt, I'd check by measuring then cooling/freezing/warming and remeasuring.

[gumpy]

but phil, my viper 11 doesn't fit in my freezer

[Pierre LaPaddelle]

Hey Pat

I've never gone to a full OC deck, but I've played around with oversized end caps -- say, half of a deck, 18" or so.

Lexan worked fairly well -- maybe 1/8", depending on span. It cuts well with a sabre saw, drills well, and sands well on the edges. SS screws into wood gunn'ls, countersunk so heads are flush.

Would love to see more pix of similar projects. . .

Rick

[AJ]

Here is my Ocoee with a deck.



I made it to fit under end cap and gunwhales with slots at the thwart for tie down. The material was like 1/8" PE.

[yarnellboat]

Thanks AJ,

The deck on my Outrage is quite similar, complete with the minicell deflecto-shield, but I rivetted an ABS sheet on top of the gunwales.

Hardly a need for me to post pics now, as it looks more-or-less like what you've got.

I'm wondering who else has done more than just an oversized deck plate - anything to compete with the skirted Zoom?

Pat.

[Roy]

Here is a story from the outer limits.

I have some friends who used ~ 1/4" sheets of plastic to convert three Old Town Trippers into massively-heavy C-2s. They installed C-boat-like rims and used normal neoprene skirts. The stock plastic gunwales and seats were left intact.

I think in the late 1980's, they used the things on an un-supported Glenwood Springs to Pierce Ferry run. The original plan was a Lake Granby to Yuma run...and, I have to expect they were thinking about a drag/portage/whatever to salt water.

Sorry to say: no pics.

Roy