The Steamboating Forum

Thanks to everyone for their comments, I'm close to installing angle iron on ribs which I epoxied to the bottom of the hull last week. I think my plan will be to find the center of the water line put boiler on the front side and engine on the rear. I can always slide the boiler and engine on the angle iron till I get them to a desired location.

DetroiTug wrote: Free software is generally written by programmers that are doodling or simply took it on as a class project or to test an internal architecture. Who knows, maybe it's as good as any professionally written software? I wouldn't trust the results of free software when a mistake it creates could corrupt perhaps a years labor.
-Ron

As far as CAD software - I agree, not a lot of free options I think are good.

Otherwise I don't know what you are talking about - every Android phone is based on the Linux Operating system. Open Source/Free software is not junk. Open source software is flying in planes (even the US military), orbiting in space, and doing a better job of it then paid professional software. Peer review is the key word.

-CB

Linux as originally released was virtually unusable for the general computer crowd. Some folks have made changes to it to make it more user friendly, but they did/do charge for their versions. They call it a donation to keep in credo with the premise of being "free".

The Linux crowd loves to make the assertions "Hey look, so and so uses it!" What they leave out is the thousands and millions of dollars worth of post development that was required for it to be used for their particular application. Case in point, these android companies are frequently suing one another over copyright infringement of OS features.

-Ron

Linux was developed from Unix. I like my Unix system. Especially I like the graphic interface that overlays it. It's called MacOSX.

I think I'll let this thread revert to getting his boat on the level (grin).

Lopez Mike wrote:Linux was developed from Unix..

Actually that's not true, it's a clone or "unix-like" - written from scratch. MacOSX however does have actual lineage back to the original AT&T Bell Labs Unix of ~1970.

Ron, I strongly disagree with your last post on multiple points, but I think Mike is right - that argument is too far off topic for this forum and thread as well as very broad. So I resign or agree to disagree on that argument.

Let's get back to getting a steam boat on balance.
(As long as I have enough buoyancy on my pontoon I think it should be easier for me because I'll have enough deck space to move people/wood/coal around as ballast)

-CB

Hi Folks

Jumping back to the original thread of this theme can I offer my experiences?

I was very concerned in the building of Frances Ann that she would float the wrong way up, never mind being down at the head or stern. To assuage my fears, I spent a great deal of time with a spreadsheet adding the weights of components and seeing what happened. The main problem I had was that I would have need to weigh and position mark every piece of wood, screw, etc. in order to come up with the necessary numbers. That way lies madness, so in the end I built the folding cabin and then weighed each of the pieces (5) and got a total weight and made an estimate of the cabin centre of gravity position. I assumed that the main fitting out of decks and coaming was 'neutral' in that there were decks and coamings at each end. That just left me with the big bits, the boiler and the engine. I had the latter and was able to weigh it, but I had no boiler. Offers of weights from steamboaters I knew were useless as they were all different and threw the calcs all over the place. Without the weights to hand, you are not going to get a sensible answer.

In the end the boiler and engine went in where they had been intended in the overall design. Happily, she did float the right way up, but she is down at the bow as the machinery is offset forward. However, as Mike pointed out, when we have 3-4 folk on board, especially if the saloon seating is used, she trims OK. So, if you cannot get the figures, perhaps the old addage is the answer - if the design looks right on paper then it probably is right.

Regards

Pete

When lines are available use them. In my case the lines provided with the hull from a prominent Steamboat Shop were not the same shape as the Hull. They were a similar length boat only and did not reflect the shape I was looking at. Being a boat builder and not wanting to take off all the points to redraw correct lines, my solution was to float the empty hull. Hull weight can be determined by weighing the hull and trailer, and then just the trailer. But the Hull weight is not critical at this time. I placed about ten empty barrels in the hull as singles and pairs along the centerline starting at about mid-ship. I measured their positions from the bow (any location that does not change can be used as a datum). We marked the hull at both ends with tape where we thought we wanted it to sit for the best look. Measured the fore and aft heights to the water and started slowly filling up barrels trying to keep the boat level fore and aft keeping track of the changes in stages as we incrementally approached the desired waterline. This is where the math starts to come in but don't get scared as it is very simple. The principal of "moment arm" (distance x weight) is a fancy way to describe a one sided teeter totter. Each full barrel of water and it's distance from a known point determines it's leverage (moment arm). If you add all the weights (barrel volume times the weight per gallon) you get the total weight you can add. If you multiply each weight by it's distance and then add them all together you get total moment. Divide this by the number of barrel entrees and you will have the center of gravity of all the weights together. We will call this a working position. If you consider the engine/boiler combination may be 1/4 to 1/3 of the total weight of the empty vessel you can see the importance of this measurement. Partial weight waterlines can be determined as desired with more simple math. I would keep the engine/boiler as close to this position as possible based on other weights. The deck weight most often will about balance for and aft based on it's construction. Treat the cabin weight as separate from the deck if not located amid ship. If your passengers and cabin are aft of the working point the boiler/engine will move forward a bit to balance them. If your passengers and/or fuel weights are forward the engine/boiler will move back. Each item can be identified by it's weight and moment arm from that new point if you just want to balance the new added loads. Remember a 100lbs at 1 foot (moment arm of 100) has the same leverage (moment arm) as 10 lbs at 10 ft. Remember the little kid on the teeter totter can lift the big kid if he can slide back far enough. Please be thoughtful and do not use diminishing weights as fuel as constants without care. I know this was long but hope it helps, Michael