an abandoned barge was used like that on a lake near here for several
years - music, food, the works. they used to tie motor boats to it for
propulsion. one time a summer storm came up and all the boats but one cast
off and ran for cover leaving a bunch of people on the old barge exposed
to the wind and rain. it was all the remaining power boat could do to keep
the barge pointed into the weather.

you could make a barge or raft type vessel out of plywood. many identical
"boxes" bolted together so they could be unbolted and individually put in
the back of the pickup trucks you mentioned. someone did something similar
at the Kingston (Ont) messabout this fall. a design for the box was
published on a website. people made the boxes at home and brought them to
the messabout. the organizer made a bow and a stern box. they were all
bolted together end-to-end at the messabout. the idea was to see how long
a hull they could make this way. if you subscribe to Duckworks you can see
it there. I don't know where the organizer's webpage is.

you'd get the most floor space and stability with flat bottom boxes.
you don't need the total of the boxes to be the size of the barge/raft as
plywood could be used to span spaces between boxes. you'd have to watch
the bouyancy and draft calculations. (so many people per box of raft as
the raft size would probably vary depending on how many people show up for
an outing)


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William R. Watt ) writes:
.. you'd have to watch
the bouyancy and draft calculations. (so many people per box of raft as
the raft size would probably vary depending on how many people show up for
an outing)

um, also the larger the barge/raft the heavier the scantlings you need to
keep it rigid. put another way, the size of the scantlings limits the
number of boxes you could bolt together into a raft. don't forget those
sudden summer storms. SW Ontario seems to get more than its share.


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