Container Boat Alternative

[valhalla360]

A number of people have tried to design a boat to fit in a shipping container so you can travel the world by shipping the boat there and then assembling it but it seems like most are such bad compromises that they aren't worth the trouble. the biggest issue being the limited beam in order to fit I a container. The result is a cramped boat that is very tender.

But instead if you focus on the goal and give up on ocean going capability. This would be ideal for coastal cruising and canal/river cruising, so it opens up a tremendous number of cruising destinations.

My thought would be to base it on two containers:

The first would be the main cabin, essentially being the container itself.
- The locking corners of a container would be built in and thus could be used as is (maybe needs to be at the top of the stack on a container ship so you don't need massive structural strength).
- Widows would be built into the sides with built in covers to protect them during shipping.
- You could use slide out technology from the RV industry, so you would get a rectangular living space with 13-14' width on the interior (making sure it is livable with slides retracted.

The second container would carry twin hulls and connecting beams.
- The hulls might be 2'x4' each.
- The beams would be curved and could be mounted with curve up or down.
- The beams would have hinges so they could be folded in similar to folding trimarans.
- A pair of outboards (10-25hp) would be mounted on the sterns.
- If extra shallow draft is needed, the hulls could be laid on their sides so the draft would be cut roughly in half.
- 6' x 3' Fiberglass floor panels would fit between the hulls and the main cabin forming a 6' wide deck on both sides (when set up for max width)
- Supplementing the side decks, RV awnings could be mounted on either side.

How would it work:
- In coastal cruising mode, the beams would be fully extended with the curve upward. This would provide a very stable 20' beam and with the curvature of the beam, you would have 3-4' of bridge deck clearance. Not a true rough water boat but should be able to handle 4-5' waves and an occasional bigger wake. Great for bays or select coastal hops.
- On larger river/canal systems (say the route from Chicago to Mobile Bay), the same layout could be used.
- If you go to a river system that doesn't have much in the way of wakes but has low bridges, you flip the beams, so they at just clear of the water dropping the air clearance to 8-9'.
- If you wind up on a narrower river/canal system (say the French canals) where a beam over 15' is troublesome, the arms can be swung in part way and the deck plates mounted sideways so you only have a 3' side deck giving roughly a 14' overall beam. (the hulls could also be mounted on their sides reducing draft if needed).

It would be possible for very narrow waterways to move the engines to the main cabin and float the main cabin independently (using the slides or awnings would probably not be practical in this configuration). I would be tempted to make the main cabin 7' so you could do the English canal system (floating directly in the water) but that creates a number of issues (ie: it wouldn't be a standard width container) and starts to really limit interior living space, so that's probably out.

If you really wanted to be able to sail, you could probably mount a 40' deck stepped mast but that would probably be more hassle than it's worth.

With the extra space in the 2nd container, you could bring a large hard dingy, jetskis, motorcycles, maybe even a smartcar (or similar small vehicle)

[Steve Bean]

This is really thinking outside the box - of is it really inside the boxes. Or, what's a box?