Boat layout Planning

[Dave-TrAction--Progress]

I thought i would share this idea which i have never seen in any of the books or magazines related to boating.

 

When our 50' Narrowboat Progress, was a drawing on the wall in our house it grew, shrank and changed configuration by the week, if not by the day. Obviously you need to commit to a layout when you order your shell so that the windows, portholes, hatches etc are in the right place.

 

I have quite a good spacial awareness but my idea was to take a ball of string and a packet of tent pegs to the park (our garden is not big enough) and to peg out the design full size on the ground.

 

This enables you to literally walk round the design and get a feel for it. you could go one stage further with large cardboard boxes to represent bulkheads etc.

 

This gave us the confidence to go ahead with the design and we have not regretted it.

 

I hope others can make use of this.

[Jo_]

And if you stayed with the string, tent pegs and cardboard boxes, think of the money you'd save!Though I suppose your local park with soon come up with a policy on continuous moorers so you'd have to move parks regularly .....

[bowten]

I thought i would share this idea which i have never seen in any of the books or magazines related to boating.

 

When our 50' Narrowboat Progress, was a drawing on the wall in our house it grew, shrank and changed configuration by the week, if not by the day. Obviously you need to commit to a layout when you order your shell so that the windows, portholes, hatches etc are in the right place.

 

I have quite a good spacial awareness but my idea was to take a ball of string and a packet of tent pegs to the park (our garden is not big enough) and to peg out the design full size on the ground.

 

This enables you to literally walk round the design and get a feel for it. you could go one stage further with large cardboard boxes to represent bulkheads etc.

 

This gave us the confidence to go ahead with the design and we have not regretted it.

 

I hope others can make use of this.

I did it with chalk marks and cardboard boxes,all good fun.

[Paul C]

http://www.narrowboats.org/narrowboat_layout.aspx

 

PS forgot to add, take a good look at a variety of canal boats to get an idea of how plan layouts on paper (or screen) correspond to being in the boat. For example, go round loads of hire firms, look around the boats and get their brochures (almost all have plans) and you'll see what's good and bad. Its the little things though, which don't appear at first sight in a plan, which makes a boat easy or hard to use though.

 

50' is a decent size to get what you want in it and a bit of space to make it not feel cramped.

[Chalky]

Agree with Paul C. We visited lots of boats and also followed a lot of blogs. The blogs and web sites were very useful since they often described the planning process, the build, then the list of what worked and didn't after a period of usage.

All of our planning was done in Visio using the architectural libraries with layers for different services etc. It allowed dimensions to be checked and then mock ups made of problem areas.

Main issue was that the builder didn't put one of the port holes in the right place - it's 6" out which isn't noticable but is a pain. The original layout is a 5 berth boat (in a 40' trad) but by moving one bulkhead and swapping the back cabin / bathroom it could be converted to a fixed double once the kids have left home. Unfortunately the porthole now clashes with where the bulkhead would have to go.

[Taslim]

A "sculpted" bulkhead? I've done something similar on a coach conversion so that the widow lights one space. Disadvantage is the other side of the bulkhead has some dead space below window level which became a cupboard.

[sueb]

Windows can be moved. A bit of welding will sort it

[Ange]

I thought i would share this idea which i have never seen in any of the books or magazines related to boating.

 

When our 50' Narrowboat Progress, was a drawing on the wall in our house it grew, shrank and changed configuration by the week, if not by the day. Obviously you need to commit to a layout when you order your shell so that the windows, portholes, hatches etc are in the right place.

 

I have quite a good spacial awareness but my idea was to take a ball of string and a packet of tent pegs to the park (our garden is not big enough) and to peg out the design full size on the ground.

 

This enables you to literally walk round the design and get a feel for it. you could go one stage further with large cardboard boxes to represent bulkheads etc.

 

This gave us the confidence to go ahead with the design and we have not regretted it.

 

I hope others can make use of this.

 

Welcome to the forum Dave

[keble]

I thought i would share this idea which i have never seen in any of the books or magazines related to boating.

 

When our 50' Narrowboat Progress, was a drawing on the wall in our house it grew, shrank and changed configuration by the week, if not by the day. Obviously you need to commit to a layout when you order your shell so that the windows, portholes, hatches etc are in the right place.

 

I have quite a good spacial awareness but my idea was to take a ball of string and a packet of tent pegs to the park (our garden is not big enough) and to peg out the design full size on the ground.

 

[snip]

Welcome Dave!

Good idea. We have just had a 'stretch' and faced with planning the new space I tried Google Sketchup. This allows you to build a 3D model and move around it.

But the real thing turned even better than the model, fortunately.

Your idea is a good one. Hope your boat lives up to expectations!

[RLWP]

Welcome to the forum Dave

 

Welcome Dave, did you have a good banter?

 

Richard