Modern bass boat plans

[Eric13]

Just wondering if anyone has seen or knows where I can purchase plans for modern bass boat made of wood and fibreglass around 18 ft? I have found a lot of older plans but nothing like they build them today.

[Lewisboats]

you could try GlenL...they have plans for a garvy style that look pretty nice. I don't think anyone has plans for a Ranger style version...

[Eric13]

you could try GlenL...they have plans for a garvy style that look pretty nice. I don't think anyone has plans for a Ranger style version...

Thanks, I saw that one and have it on file in case it is all I can find. I feel like if I am going to spend the time to do this I really want it to be sweet.

[merlinron]

i recently posted the same question, after a neighbor of mine asked if i could "help" him build a bass boat with the classic looks of a bright finished mahogany runabout but the lines of a modern bass boat. i got about the same answer.....glen-l.

there are two that do have "some" potential if you don't mind a little creative modification. evidently these two 16 foot plans are somewhat flexible and allow you to respace the frame for more length and there are several build pic albums on the site that show quite a bit of modification such s walk-through cowls and fishing style for decks, so it could be done. power boats aren't as criticle to weight and CG height as a sailboat would be. both look to be fairly easy to build.

first one is the venerable old "stilletto", a hot rod of a ski boat. it's flat bottom will pound your teeth out in a chop though, i know this, i've been in one.

the other. the "renegade" has more potential. it's a deep v design, so it will ride better. they both have essentially little hull depth though, more like a go-kart for water, with your legs streatched out straight under the fore deck, not good for getting in and out of the seat, at all.

my thoughts were to add a sheer strake to her that is about 4 inches high at the cockpit area and tapers forward to the "as planned" height and aft to about 2 inches in height. along with the carlin on the inside of the side decks it would give you enough height to put a decent seat in the boat. with the frames spaced to build an 17-18 footer, the increase hull depth wouldn't look out of place at all. the second part would be to sink the fore deck about 6 inches to make a fishing deck.

i haven't contacted glen-l with my ideas yet, but i don't see any problems with the raised CG. and the walk-through cowl is a common mod for these two plans.

[mmd]

"power boats aren't as criticle to weight and CG height as a sailboat would be." - merlinron

With respect, I beg to differ. Excess weight in a planing hull will have a huge impact on performance, affecting such things as time to get up on plane, planing angle, top speed, and ride quality. Centre of Gravity height is a bit more forgiving, but longitudinal CG is a large factor in the items listed previously. Granted, a poor planing hull will float and will plane, but to do it well with predictable results, good speed, and no discomforting behaviour such as porpoising or uncontrolled at-speed broaches, a planing hull has to be as carefully balanced as any performance sailboat.

[merlinron]

as i said, the CG hieght is not as criticle. nothing i have mentioned has not been done to these plans before. an addition of 2-1/2" of sheer strake hieght concentrated in the central erea of the boat will hardly change any aspect of CG at all. as for the other mods, the walk-through and lowered fore decks on these boat have been "ok'd" by glen-l and there are many done this way already. there is actually very little change in materials when doing these mods, the most radical is actually lowering the foredeck and it's additional thickness so that it is useable. the amount of weight is similar to putting a cooler of beer or the anchor under the fore deck.... no body would think twice about that.

you should go to the site and look at some of the modifications that are already done and working just fine. none of the changes would do any noticeable change to any planing or ride attitude.
there is always a range of weights and balances that any boat (especially a power boat) will perform pefectly acceptable in. the plans state that the overall length can be changed in a range from 16 to 18 ft. by respacing the frames. that in itself negates all that you just posted sbout. it also lists a range of power that can be used on these boats up to 100 hp, what if a guy wanted to put 45 hp. on his, it certainly doesn't weigh as much as a 100 hp motor, now does it? the LCB and cg would definately change a whole bunch wouldn't it?, what about one gas tank vrs two, what about 1 passenger vrs. 3-4, what about using all doug fir vrs.white oak and merante ply. what about a four of people only 5'' tall vrs four seven footers. what about towing skiers from the transom vrs. a tow bar 3 ft. high?. there is mention of putting trim tabs on the transom if you would like to that certainly changes planing angle. power boats just simply aren't as criticle to changes as sailboats......

the point being that i'm sure glen-l has worked out possibilities and if the boat was that critical, there would be no freedom about changes in frame spacing or power and the plans probably wouldn't be in their catalog. no body has any ideas of making wild changes to the planing surfaces here.... although a change from 16 ft OA. to 18ft OA. might just be a pretty drastic change, yet doable.....hence your quote of my post and your warning is essentially mute. a person doesn't have to be a nautical engineer to make a change to a plan that will work, although you and several others here surely seem to think so. don't get me wrong you lifes work is certainly important to you, as is mine to me, but this forum is not for selling yourself where it's not needed.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

To get the latest in "composite"( plywood and 'glass) construction go to;
http://www.boatplans-online.com/
These designs by Jacques Mertens NA are noted for light weight, good speed potential with modest size motors and ease of construction. These designs are fairly fresh, most having been done in the last 15 years.
The big trick with Merten's designs is to stick to the boat on the plans. Builders that try to "improve" on the design by increasing scantlings, installing to many interior modifications and/or using too much epoxy give away the advantages of reduced weight.
The boat in my avatar weighs 65lb. It wasn't easy but it can be done.

[mmd]

Well, I reconsidered what I had originally posted here. Must've got up on the wrong side of the bunk.

Merlinron, I was not selling my services here on the WBF. I was merely trying to point out that there are some factors about planing hulls that bear consideration before one goes changing the design from the original plans. That changes can be, and are, made daily goes without mention. But if one is not aware or the possible downside of making wholesale changes, one may spend a lot of time and money to create a less-than-satisfactory hull. And once built, it is commonly very, very difficult to change. Such errors are not just the purview of homebuilders, either; there have been some dogs created by professionals as well. In one case, a 27-ft production hull porpoised badly at speed in calm water. After tens of thousands of dollars of trials and investigations, it was found that if the 110-lb sewage holding tank was moved six feet farther aft and one foot lower, the problem went away. If that is not CG-sensitive, I don't know what is.

Here's my grief: A designer creates a planing hull that does what it is supposed to do well with the anticipated load & power. Someone decides that they would like to modify the hull. They change the CG, the bottom loading, and the hull dimensions. The boat then does not meet the performance predicted by the designer - it is 10 mph slower. So they add a bigger engine, but now the boat porpoises at speed. So they add trim tabs, but this causes drag so fuel consumption goes up. In the end they have a hull that just isn't what they had expected. Do they say, "Well, gee, I guess this is my fault for all these changes I made"? Not usually. They say, "What a piece of s**t this design is - it isn't anything like the designer said it would be!"

I do not say that you should not modify designs slightly to suit your specific needs and wants. All I am advocating is that you do your homework first before you begin, so that you know the possible pitfalls of what you are about to do. And, forgive me for being blunt, but first-time builders are rarely knowlegeable enough to make such changes with impunity. Be careful, be conservative in the changes you make, and learn as much as you can about what you are about to do before you start. That's all.

[pipefitter]

Here is the phantom from Mertens site. It's a flats boat but carries a deck layout much like the modern bass boats and could probably be used for dual purposes. I know several people that own flats boats that bass fish if it's Largemouth bass fishing you are talking about.

http://boatplans-online.com/proddetail.php?prod=PH18

[John Meachen]

If only people would read and reflect on the wisdom of mmd's posting.How often do we read about a project that begins with a particular hull and then leads to a whole host of changes?It can't be honest to describe a hull with a stack of alterations as being the work of the original designer.Altering a design can be part of the evolutionary process that has led to the present state of the art.It is best undertaken by willing and knowledgable participants who understand and accept the penalties of a mistake.

[merlinron]

sorry i let 'er snap on you MMD. i didn't mean to infer you were selling your services here on the forum, i know you are more upstanding than that.
your profession is absolutely essential to the design of any water craft, and i don't mean to berate your importance in that area. these design have been around for a long time and are very well established. if any mods that were commonly done to them resulted in any serious detraction of performance in any way, they would surely be universally known about by now.
maybe it's just an insecurity on my part, but i have a tendency to go off on people that i concieve as,"making thier knowledge more important than it actually is". i deal with people like that every day at work, and have a tendency to bit them in the azz and set them straight in short order......(they generally fail to realize that some one else may have a brain on thier head and know how to use it, as well). i realize it's more or less your professional responsability to interject caution where it is needed in certain instances (such as changing designs), but quite honestly, there's not much that can be done to these plans that hasen't been done before. a walk-through with forward seating on these boats is about as radical a change as can be made to any boat of this size and design, yet it is done all the time and as mentioned, is ok'd by the designer, as i stated.

no hard feelings...... ron

[merlinron]

MMD.
i was thinking about your story about that 27 ft. hull. not knowing any details beyond what you related to us all, i would think that that 110 lb. tank could actually have made quite a large change in center of pressure.... a 6 ft. move, if all aft of the CG is a 660ft-lb. addition of "aftward" lever on the boat's balance , if it happened to cross the (original) CG in it's move, it's obviously not quite so much aft, but also reducing forward weight by it's aft/fore bias, either, an amount that would apprecialbly move the center of pressure aft dynamicaly, i would think the 1 ft. of vertical movement would not add to a pinch of beans, the downward movement was probably due to space, more than planned purpose. .......i think any planning hull will porpous to some extent at some particular speed, it's just not realized because the point at which it will appear is not a speed that is commonly or frequently used, and sometimes it is very small initially, but will cyclicy increase if that point in speed is kept long enough to do so such as in a calm. in accellerating, that point is just breifly passed over on the way to top speed and not felt unless drastic. in this particular instance, all the static and dynamic factors that will cause a porpous just happened to appear right at or close to top speed. static calculations and dynamics don't always follow suite, so to speak. staticly, 660 lbs. in a boat that size doesn't appear to be all that much, but to the unpredictability of dynamics, it's a considerable amount.

whatevrer the case, your story is just one of those instances that keeps the saying,...." nothing is set in stone",... alive.

what say you?..........

[Eric13]

Here is the phantom from Mertens site. It's a flats boat but carries a deck layout much like the modern bass boats and could probably be used for dual purposes. I know several people that own flats boats that bass fish if it's Largemouth bass fishing you are talking about.

http://boatplans-online.com/proddetail.php?prod=PH18

Hey, that looks like a good design to modify as well. I have it narrowed down between the phantom at boatplans.com and the desperado at glenL. This being my first boat build, ease of modification is a big factor. Thanks for the info.

[erster]

I am not speaking out of turn here. This is a well known issue that was addressed early on dealing with the phantom plans by builders back in the late 90s and early 2000, with a lot of fingerpointing taking place from the designer. It is real in this hull, even though some modes have been made from what I hear tell. But the hull is very wide, built with thin plywood, and sold as a tape and glue, stick and glue or however you wish to define it. But early on the hull is very flimsy.

For the firstime builder, the boat requires larger amounts of epoxy than the experienced builders end up using, again coming from many builders that build these style hulls and most all hulls using a composite layup and built for the first time. So plan accordingly in your budget, too.

But this boat has spans that create some issues such as dipping in the middle of the boat. I highly recommend that you take some time and build a rigid jib, actually inhancing some belly or convex in your keel line.

I would also install the stringers into the jig, not glassing them in, but they will also keep the hull rigid and from racking a bit untill you get the hull glassed up. DO NOT ROLL THE BOAT UNTILL YOU HAVE AT LEAST PAINTED THE BOTTOM. Be done with it. The boat will gain weight after you do the inside because or the additional parts and glue and glass.

If you add that to the beam, you end up with quite a challenge if you are doing it by yourself in a small space if this is also another issue for you.

This is what happens when the hull is laid up without sufficent support. This was well documented early on, but the builders took the heat. This hull arrived as you see it with a new moon built in it. We ran a 50 hp Suzuki four stroke on the boat. This boat was a very controversial project for the plan seller. So prepare accordingly if you plan on modifying the phantom plans. Measure all your parts and in some cases, do not depend on the text book measurements. The choice of good plywood is essential because of the hard bends in the bow.

In another issue, the bow sides sometimes have a tendancy to dip down more if you cut to exact measurements. So builders have actually had to add strips to the sides in the foward section to make up for this. So if you can, use some extra plywood and let the sides run wild in your initial cuts for the sheerline or the area of the rubrails at teh foward half of the boat sides.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Bateau1/phantombottom.jpg

[mmd]

Ouch! Erster, that looks fugly!

[erster]

Ouch! Erster, that looks fugly!
Yep!!!! It was not real purty;) in the beginning.

How do you propose to fix a hull that has 3/4" dip in the centerline keel area, bottom glassed, inside stringers glassed, the interior glassed and painted? Worse than that, the transom was cut to pattern, and glassed in place with not enough angle on it, forcing the chines at the stern out which really created a huge trim tab from the bulkhead aft of the fill, also causing the sides to have a half moon in it about two feet foward where the other bulkhead was located, which also required some filling. If you add that to the fact that a twist ended up in the hull, various depths were acheived too on both sides.;)

I think you can also see some of that variance if the sanded out parts. There was the need for solid pieces to sand, which also did not require 20 lbs fiberglass and resins, which I figured would have been required to fill it either. It had to be solid enough, too, to ride on the trailer and sit on the sand, high and dry. So foam was out, and would not have been much of a difference. We then faired the fillings and glassed and faired the complete bottom again.

I took out some of the dip and made running reverse chine strakes that hid some more of it, fairing it out and it worked out fine and ran fine. I think that finally this issue was addressed. But this boat scantlings being thin, has a lot of flex in it until you get all the parts in place. In most cases early on, little building was done on substantial jigs. The inexperienced person rarely understands fairness until after the attempts at shine is placed on the boats and is highlighted.