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Lately I've spent some time working on a vintage 16' Poulsbo Boat, which I bought this Spring from a long-ago boatshop customer. (Almost 17 years ago, when we had a restoration shop in Seattle, we were asked to design and build a troller-style cabin for the Poulsbo Boat...which had originally been built as an open fishing boat. The owner asked us to deliver the boat in an unfinished form...just bare wood on the new cabin, ready for the owner to complete.)
I was approached at last year's Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival by the same gentleman, who sheepishly admitted that he'd hauled the boat to his woodworking shop 17 years ago and had never touched the project since then. After several months of back-and-forth discussion, I made an offer and hauled the unfinished boat to our shop on Marrowstone Island.
Anyhow, one of the critical decisions in the completion process was power: Whether to continue with the original little inboard engine, or go for another option. The big challenge with theinboard was that it lived right in the middle of the (small, semi-cramped) wheelhouse. After struggling to figure out how to sit almost on top of the inboard engine, I took a lot of measurements and decided to build a well about three feet forward of the transom to accommodate a small four-stroke outboard...in the process concluding that the motor would remain in a fixed,mstraight-ahead position and I'd steer with an old bronze transom-hung rudder, using dual cable-and-drum wheels--one mounted outside the cabin and another inside the wheelhouse.
At this point I'm two weeks away from the first water test. The interior needs paint everywhere and I've still got to finish building seats in the aft cockpit...and a long punchlist of other stuff to deal with.
Here's a recent photo....
- Marty
I was approached at last year's Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival by the same gentleman, who sheepishly admitted that he'd hauled the boat to his woodworking shop 17 years ago and had never touched the project since then. After several months of back-and-forth discussion, I made an offer and hauled the unfinished boat to our shop on Marrowstone Island.
Anyhow, one of the critical decisions in the completion process was power: Whether to continue with the original little inboard engine, or go for another option. The big challenge with theinboard was that it lived right in the middle of the (small, semi-cramped) wheelhouse. After struggling to figure out how to sit almost on top of the inboard engine, I took a lot of measurements and decided to build a well about three feet forward of the transom to accommodate a small four-stroke outboard...in the process concluding that the motor would remain in a fixed,mstraight-ahead position and I'd steer with an old bronze transom-hung rudder, using dual cable-and-drum wheels--one mounted outside the cabin and another inside the wheelhouse.
At this point I'm two weeks away from the first water test. The interior needs paint everywhere and I've still got to finish building seats in the aft cockpit...and a long punchlist of other stuff to deal with.
Here's a recent photo....
- Marty
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