who would like to live in a houseboat?

[UbuntuBirdy]

You're absolute right, non of my boats will be built without consulting experts before and, perhaps, redo the whole work...
The big streams in Europe, specialy the Rhein and the Donau assume that you have special licences to navigate on for certain sections. And in most cases these licences costs too much money and time for one trip on the stream. And often you need a licence for your boat too to be alowed to run the boat on this stream.
I do not no exact numbers, but I beleve most of the house boats in Europe are not certified for the Rhein and almost all of their owner have no licence to navigate the Rhein with this big boats so why spend money for only a few percents of possible customers. If they need this possibility, we can always switch to more power - with a hybrid system or a bigger battery bank.

[okh]

..why spend money for only a few percents of possible customers...

Because customers are optimists overestimating their abilities [:)] - you should see how many idiots are navigating big sea-going boats around here, without a clue as to what they are doing. Even if it is pretty obvious they will (and should) never take their overpriced vessels beyond sheltered waters. Your logic is good, but it is easy to underestimate the vanity of new boatowners... ok

[UbuntuBirdy]

@okh, the waterways I'm talking about are like these:


River Saone


Canal des Vosges


Canal du Center


Canal du Rhone a Sete


Canal de la Robine


Canal du Midi

On these waterways 25hp will be enough for a 25m boat!

[Mike53]

Keep coming with these, i for one am enjoying the thread, nice work [:)]
Mike

[UbuntuBirdy]

You want more boats? Here you have more boats! At least one more...

Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce Minimoat!

All above the waterline has the shape of a tube, the bow and stern the shape of a sphere. A very special, eventually even an strange design. But there is a reason for this shape.
I thought about which shape fits best under the medieval bridges that spread over many of the French canals. And then I tried to let float this shape - and Minimoat was born.
By the way, Minimoat is not a "mini moat", it's the fusion of "mini" and "boat".

Minimoat is designed to offer 2 + 1 persons as much comfort as possible in this small area. Thanks to its big windows and the rear door made of glass its interior is really bright.

The boat has only two rooms (apart from the storage space): the big open living room and the comfortably bathroom. A double bed is created from the table and the benches and a single bed can be created from the drivers bench.

Minimoat is 8.5m long, 3.5m wide, has a draft of only 0.5m and a height of 2.5m above the waterline. Like all of my boats it has an electric propulsion, but this boat can not generate its own energy. It would be possible to gather some energy with thin-film solar cells, but this would never be enough for a longer autarky.

This time I have absolutely no idea how much a boat like this would cost, but I guess it should be feasible with less than 100'000 Euros.

Ok, this was Minimoat, and now let's find out which boat is next...

[VeroniQ]

What a creative man! I would love to see these boats on the beautiful canals you mentioned (even if I like the old barges too). Keep posting!

[bdfd]

Great Ubuntu ! [=D>]

It reminds me of an excellent french movie "Le petit baigneur" with a lot of unusual boats ! [;)]


a floating restroom


an inhabited boat


To conclude with a paddle that maneuver with the hands.


[:))]
.

[Ceciliabr]

Cool!

[UbuntuBirdy]

I have an updated picture of my fleet:

There are some minor improvements on some of the boats and there is also a new one.

@bdfd - I have to watch this movie!

[Mike53]

Have to agree with VeroniQ wonderful imagination to come up with the designs and no lack of talent creating them, very nice work.
Mike