Can I turn this in to a paddler?

[kiwimodeller]

I have a fiberglass hull from Kingston Mouldings called Yarta - http://www.kingstonmouldings.com/pdyartasteamyacht.htm
It is 45" (1125mm) long and 7" (175mm) beam. Although it would look lovely as a steam yacht I was thinking that I might like to turn it in to a steam powered paddler. I am worried that it might be a little slim but it does have plenty of depth to the hull so as well as the weight of the steam plant I think there will be enough buoyancy to need some extra ballast in the bottom of the hull. Interested to hear opinions on whether this is a go or not and also to see if anybody can point me to any photos or plans of a paddler with similar lines. Cheers, Ian.

[Eddy Matthews]

What about trying to make it into a model of the Sirius?

Take a look in the downloads section at: http://www.paddleducks.co.uk/smf/index.php?action=downloads;sa=view&id=52

Regards
Eddy

[Harold H. Duncan]

Well suggested Eddy.
On that hull the Sirius would be at 1:48th scale, and need very little modification to the hull moulding. You could even get away without changing the moulding and still have a model very close to scale to not matter.
Go for it Ian, and look forward to seeing the finished boat some time
cheers
kiwi

[Roderick Smith]

In Australia, various paddlers were converted to screw.
I am enclosed a photo of a vessel which went the other way: screw to paddle.
In logging in, the random photo was of a very long-lean paddlesteamer, so I grabbed it too.
If full size can do it, why not a model?

AFAIK Hebe and Leo were very similar, and there were others of the style.  They were cane tugs on northern NSW rivers.

Generally, Australian paddlesteamers were stumpy rather than lean.   I gather that this was for towing stability, and particularly cornering stability in currents.
The notable greyhound PS Ruby was lean, and used barrels of water rolled on each corner for stability, but it was also a three-deck vessel.

Duck Flat was quite happy to build a paddle version of my Tennessee hull (9 m long, 1.8 m beam, 10 cm draft, a 5:1 aspect ratio), without fears re stability.

Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor