The Steamboating Forum

I see folks new to the forum are supposed to hay HI, otherwise they will be removed...
A little background, I am a retired electrical engineer who got interested in steam about 15 years ago. I have a small hobby machine shop in my basement including a bridgeport milling machine and south bend lathe. I really wanted a steam car, but could not justify the cost for a Stanley. I ordered a Modelworks Likamobile kit and built it over a period of 3 years, many improvements were incorporated in the build, as the design needed help in some areas... I now have over 1000 miles on the car. Video here if you are interested, https://youtu.be/aFWiWdtiqJU
I am considering buying a classic steam launch. I see a number of boats for sale on the west coast of the US, unfortunately I am on the east coast. My requirement is that it fit in a 24' deep garage. In a couple of weeks I plan on visiting Rappannock Boat Works in Bealeton VA to see what they have on offer. Projects considered, where would be the best place to look for used steam boat?

Hi Wwayman

Welcome to the crazy crew who love, build and sail steam boats as well as researching them and more. You will find lots of useful information here if you need it as well as lots of folk willing to help you with any questions you pose.

Thinking about your question, I would suggest getting in touch with Beckmann's Boatshop in Rhode Island if I recall correctly. The old website is here http://www.steamboating.net/ and used to have boats for sale. There is also a new flash website under construction, but much of it fails to work, at least this side of the water. On the old site the pre-owned boats link goes nowhere useful as of today, but for the cost of a phone call or email you might get the odd lead.

Hope this set the ball rolling.

Regards

Pete

Welcome Bill, your steam car is spectacular! You will have no problem building a steam launch.

The active magazine of the east coast steamboat hobby is the Smokestack http://northamericansteamboat.org/index.htm. Every issue has steam launches for sale, in fact that is where I purchased my current hull (now running with my engine and boiler), also built by Ronnie Baird.


Regarding the 24' garage, you can buy trailer tongue hinge kits to allow you to keep a long boat in a short garage.

I added doubler plates to mine for redundancy at the joint.

You can see a video of my first launch here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDv_J1RXTB4. 20' long, and she lived in a 23' long garage.

Here are a couple more sources for used steamboats. Although some may be on the west coast, there might be some out here that know the boats or are willing to check them out to let you know if it's worth looking at or not...

https://www.northweststeamsociety.org/classifieds

https://discoverlivesteam.com/discoverf ... arine.html