For those of us in North America, we frequently bemoan the lack of a good wooden fishing boat kit. I’m sure there are some out there, but we’re always on the lookout for others.
Clint Chase and I were discussing it Monday morning, and I pointed him to this:
Mushulu 14, Courtesy of Denman Marine
OK, it’s not readily apparent that she has an attractive shear.. but she truly does.
It’s always nice to find a stitch-and-glue design, and this seems well designed for her purpose.
Let’s hear a few words from Denman Marine’s Mark Denman:
“Aluminum tinnies have been the mainstay of Australian recreational fishing for many years. However over the years, the boats have grown larger, fancier and heavier , requiring more and more horsepower to push them along. Whilst some people are quite adept at welding aluminium and making, modifying and repairing their own tinnie, the average punter has to pay a qualified welder for all these services.
The cost of a decent, well made tinnie (few and far between these days) has to many people, become a barrier to having a new boat. Normally the “package” price still requires many thousands of dollars in extra bits and pieces and dealer charges. A number of the popular manufacturers are selling their 14’ hulls for anywhere between $8-11,000.” [Those are Australian dollars. Today's exchange rate is one Australian dollar = .89 US $.]
“The design of many of these boats also is left wanting. I have heard of special hull shapes slamming, welds cracking first time out and paint falling off when the boat is washed which is all very disappointing when a bunch of your hard earned has been spent on a “quality” product.
I am not saying that there aren’t high quality tinnies out there but they are generally from smaller custom builders whose prices for a 14’ are beyond the reach of most folk.”
Here’s what Mushula looks like in construction:
Mushulu 14 Looking Pretty
I always have a soft spot for any boat design or boat that comes out of Tasmania. Now, Andrew Denman will finish Mushulu 14’s design brief:
“As Australians, we love building wooden boats. Wooden runabouts were very popular before aluminium came on the scene but were dumped as people wanted the new shiny so called “maintenance free” boats. With the advent of high quality marine plywood, modern fiberglass cloths and epoxy resins, timber runabouts or let’s call them Timber Tinnies™ have become a perfect low cost DIY alternative to the aluminium crowd. Build them yourself, customize them and repair them yourself with minimal skill and tools required.
My company, Denman Marine has partnered with Queensland Naval Architect Mark Bowdidge of Bowdidge Marine Designs (BMD) to bring out a range of fishing/power boats in kit form for home builders. Denman Marine will be CNC cutting kits for Mark’s designs and the first design that we have developed for kit production is Mark’s well known Mushulu 14 with his other designs to be developed over the coming months. We have also asked Mark to design a larger 16’ dedicated sports fishing boat similar to those models popular in the Top End which will be in kit form also.
As a professional boat builder, I have always been very skeptical about claims of kit boat producers but I must admit, I was absolutely amazed at how quickly the M14 went together and how fair the hull was. Construction is stitch and glue utilising high quality epoxy resins (we use and recommend WEST System) and Mark has designed a CNC cut building jig that took no more than 5 minutes to set up. The jig has male molds to help form the shape when stitching up and a set of female molds to hold the boat level when working on the interior. The total time to separate all the components from the sheets, join the hull/bottom panels (no scarfing required) set up the building jig, laminate transom and stitch the boat together ready for filleting and glassing was just over 6 hours.”
If you live in Australia, the cost for the Mushulu 14 kit is — get this: AUS$2,499. How can anyone afford NOT to have one?
Please check out Denman Marine’s website:
http://www.denmanmarine.com.au/id74.html
I’ll be on vacation for the next 10 days or so, so please email me (carl@woodenboat.com) details of any boat finds you think would be appropriate for “My Wooden Boat of the Week.” I’ll post here again on March 23.
And please click on “Comment” below to comment on the Mushulu 14, or any of my past posts.
