Fold-Out 18ft River Boat Project With Trailer, No Engine.

I spent the last 30 years designing and building boats for the French inland waterways. The boat project which is for sale here – called, appropriately, ‘Last Tango’ – was a retirement project to create a boat with sleeping accommodation for two which was narrow and light enough to be towed on a trailer pulled by a family car but which could be opened out to around 9ft when it got to the water. This would produce a very stable craft - with, say, a 10HP outboard - on which I could cruise those French waterways which I had not already explored. As things stand at the moment, the combined weight of the boat and trailer (without. Engine) is only about 750kg.
This is because the hulls are built principally from (rigid) foam, glassfibre and epoxy resin. The amount of foam used in its construction effectively renders the craft unsinkable. I also planned to use the boat as accommodation while I was afloat. Consequently, it has a double bed, a (somewhat primitive) WC and provision for basic cooking facilities. The idea was to drive the boat from the aft cockpit (like a narrowboat) when the weather was fine and, when it was not, to take shelter in the forward cabin or abandon ship and adjourn to the nearest bistro.
The basic design consists of a central hull about 1.2m wide to which a 350mm outrigger is hinged on each side. The central hull is attached to a frame/platform above it which is about 2m wide and which carries the ‘superstructure’. Thus, when the outriggers are extended outwards, they increase the beam of the boat by around 0.7m and create a walkable side deck on each side of the ‘superstructure’. The superstructure itself currently consists of an aft cockpit with seating and access hatches and a forward cabin with a walk-on ‘lid’ which creates a sun deck in its down position. The lid is hinged at the front and opens – on gas struts – to create the roof of the forward cabin which is accessed from the cockpit and which provides full headroom in the aft part of the cabin.
This is where I planned to install the galley. The bed is athwartships at the forward end of the cabin. There is also an escape hatch at the forward end of the cabin which gives access to the foredeck and the LPG locker. In terms of what remains to be done, that depends on what a new owner wants in the way of a superstructure, since the three hulls themselves need no further treatment except for a lick of paint here and there for cosmetic purposes. The superstructure I have built could easily be detached and discarded in whole or in part so the new owner could build their own on the existing platform.
I wanted the craft to be low profile for additional ease of towing and storing, hence the up/down lid. But a new owner could, for example, remove the lid, increase the height of the cabin sides, maybe with a few portholes, and replace the lid as a fixed roof. Alas, I have had to abandon this project – along with my plans to cruise the French waterways - due to an allergy to epoxy resin (which is a bit strange considering I’ve been using the stuff for 30 years) and ever-worsening arthritis. This means that, even if I were able to finish building the project, it is likely that I would be physically unable to use it. Into every life a little rain must fall.
Which is why I am putting the project on the market. Please call me, Peter Sylvester, on 07704 33 22 35, if you would like to come and have a look at it. If you are wondering what the black stuff is round the edge of the foredeck, it is gaffer tape. I have used it as a temporary weatherproof seal between the deck panels and the platform. The deck panels have not yet been fixed in place, partly because that would involve epoxy (which I would find problematic) and partly because access is still needed to the space below deck to complete the installation of the gas locker.
BTW, the 'lids' of the outriggers which constitute the side decks when the outriggers are extended have non-slip surfaces and are removable.