Custom Aluminum Aircraft Carrier?

O/K, so you might have noticed we have a preference to aluminum boats. You'd be correct. Aluminum is light, strong, and very easy to work with. Here is an ugly old hull that has worked hard. It used to have a cabin at the back which was cut off by the person we acquired the boat from. His plan, and likely ours as well; was to cut out the front of the boat and install a ramp to use this vessel as a landing craft. Making getting items (gear and pilots) to shore easy.

Here you can see the ugly looking hull. Not to worry, it's easy to polish and or paint. It is a very seaworthy design and built to be very strong and lightweight.

If you look closely, you can see the scuppers along the sides of the hull where the water drained off the forward lower deck as the gillnets were reeled into the boat. Behind it are the water ports for the fish hold, that someone welded over, then drilled out to allow them to drain again.

This boat has a Chevy small block V8 which I recently rebuilt, and the outdrive, though very dirty seems to be in fine mechanical shape. It has trim tabs, which are a plus for low speed operations. It also had hydraulic steering which was broken. I fixed the hydraulics, and there are 2 separate steering stations, complete with throttle and shifter that can easily be rigged for this boat. You could steer it from anywhere you feel like essentially.

I can add decks and a cabin if I want, I'm thinking I might want something different. It would be nice to be able to launch a paraglider from the boat, so I'm thinking of either adding 2 whips that extend upwards vertically that the glider attaches to. Hook in a pilot to the winch, accelerate to a kiting speed, release the glider and speed up to watch the pilot fly off. Another option is a couple hydraulic arms that extend outward and aft along the boat. Between these arms you could add a net. In use the pilot attaches to the towline and tosses a rosetted glider onto the netting. The boat accelerates to a kiting speed and the pilot builds a wall and inflates the glider. Once overhead the boat accelerates until the pilot lifts off. The benefit of the netting is the pilot can easily (?) land on the boat, then drop the glider onto the netting.

Hang gliding, I have no idea, but I suspect a platform would allow an easy launch. It's easy to add arms to pick a glider out of the water and place it back into a launch cradle. Perhaps there is a way to easily land right on the boat with a hang glider. Not being a plumber, I have no idea, and from my experience with Rogello wings years ago, I'm not the guy to try it.

The hull is available, and we have a great fab shop. Email us your ideas and come join us next summer. Why should the paraglider pilots have all the fun.

Go Back to our first Aluminum boat page - with a Bravo performance series outdrive

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