building onto fiberglass vs. aluminum vs. wood rowboat - floating art project

Hi Everybody,

I'm in the beginning stages of starting a big art project, where a few friends and I are going to build a miniature pirate ship.
It's going to be a sort of spanish galleon, with the top being mostly plywood or something to that effect, and the bottom being a rowboat.

I don't have any experience with boats, so I've been doing some research, but I thought you guys would have some valuable pointers.. I know that building onto the top of it is going to make it heavy and awkward, and I don't want it to tip, so it sounds like a wood or fiberglass boat would be more stable in the water vs. an aluminum one...
However I don't know how I would go about attaching the top part of the ship to the rowboat if I got a fiberglass boat, because from what I can tell you dont want to just drill and bolt into it...
Aluminum seems to take the best beating, but is more unstable and also cold and loud (we will fish from it from time to time)..

The masts will also probaby be an issue, and might be purely for show and usually closed to prevent it from just blowing over sideways, we will probably just scoot around the canal here with some oars.

So I guess my biggest question is what type of rowboat should I be looking for?
Fiberglass sounds good but then I don't know if it is feasible to attach the top half of the galleon to it?
Wood sounds good but is... a lot of maintenance?
Aluminum would probably be the easiest to bolt the top half of the ship to but we would all freeze our butts off and most likely tip over?...

Questions?
Comments?

Thanks in advance for you insight!
F!

Re: building onto fiberglass vs. aluminum vs. wood rowboat - floating art project

you are going to roll.

Hi welcome to iboats.

for this application i would use a glass boat.....this is due to the ability to make it what ever you want.

what size og boat are we talking about?

the big deal about going top heavy is the draft ....you need a deep draft...with ballast in the bottom...you also need freeboard...none of what a row boat has....

i would find a cheap sail boat.....then build up the freeboard.....then add more ballast in the keel......then build

Re: building onto fiberglass vs. aluminum vs. wood rowboat - floating art project

you are going to roll

Click to expand...

Ayuh,... Agreed,... A rowboat of any sort ain't gonna work....

the big deal about going top heavy is the draft ....you need a deep draft...with ballast in the bottom...you also need freeboard...none of what a row boat has....

Click to expand...

Maybe Wide 55gal. drum outriggers/ sponsons.... I stress the Wide...

Re: building onto fiberglass vs. aluminum vs. wood rowboat - floating art project

Arright...
Thanks for your insights everyone!

So it sounds like I should go for a small, deep glass sailboat...
I would prefer to work in wood though for the top pieces... do you think that is going to be far too heavy?
And I would affix the top section to the glass boat just with Bond-o? If you drill through the lip and bolt anything to it, it's just gonna crack off, right?

I checked out a bit of that link but it made my head spin. Lol... Maybe I'm in over my head but I was hoping to find something I could just build out on top without completely dismantling the thing first...

Re: building onto fiberglass vs. aluminum vs. wood rowboat - floating art project

Maybe I'm in over my head but I was hoping to find something I could just build out on top without completely dismantling the thing first.

Click to expand...

Ayuh,... Not likely...

Re: building onto fiberglass vs. aluminum vs. wood rowboat - floating art project

Neat Idea I guess... I think a parade float is you best option to make it 'float' because weight and being way too top heavy seems to be a major issue... Rowboats have a flat/semi-flat bottom, even deep V hull aluminum's cant handle that much weight on top of them, plus sailboats have keel's to keep them from toppling.

About the only thing that has any chance of working is a big fat slow sailboat that displaces a ton of water--even then, weight and being top-heavy is a huge problem. Strip it down to the bare hull, then attempt to make your boat--especially the higher up you go from the water line--absolutely as light as possible. When you start pilling lots of wood on your boat, its going to get really heavy, really quick. If you can be creative with paint to make fiberglass appear that its wood--you'll have a much better shot at accomplishing your pirate ship then if you were to plan using all wood.

Remember its not just the weight of the boat--its where the weight is located. Too much weight, too high up will cause your boat to roll. Old pirate ships were made with an extremely deep V with a lot of weight down low, to keep the boat stable.

Basically, do some research on small sails with cabins... find out what the hull weight is in the boats manual, and what the max load of the boat is. If you find one that you like, one that has a deep V with a lot of boat below the water line, once you strip it down to just the hull--if you can reweigh it--you can determine what your max weight will be for the building materials and load... then remember, a large percentage of that weight will need to be close or below the water line.

Re: building onto fiberglass vs. aluminum vs. wood rowboat - floating art project

The only boat you can just build on.....is a pontoon boat or party barge.

Even then you would have to watch the weight up high.

Then you could fab some wooden sides to look like a galleon hull.

Dont forget the mast head.....(the girl carved into the front of the boat) !