School Bus as Boat

[soused moose]

Here’s a strange Schoolie project…
This guy is converting his Schoolie to be a world class Cruising Boat

http://www.escapeartist.com/efam/58/Anp ... veler.html

[Steve]

Am I the only person who doesn't think that will actually happen.

But...

It has been done before:

http://www.skoolie.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=110

[soused moose]

I agree!!!
Worked on some boats in some extremely nasty weather …and there’s no way (no matter what the guy does for modifications)…that’s going to make it through the incredibly crappy weather and high seas you find out on the ocean.

If huge and really well designed Kodiak Crab boats sink every year up in the Bering Sea…I doubt a Schoolie would last very long.

Plus…how’s he going to keep his wheels & running gear from freezing up solid from rust in his 7-year long circumnavigation?

Now…what I think would be a very cool setup for a Schoolie…. is to go down to the Gulf of Mexico and buy a mid-sized Fuel-Barge or something similar (goes for around $2000.00-$3500.00)
And set the barge up with a place to drive your Bus onto it…and have a small single story house addition added …who knows, maybe a chicken coop and green house too.

Then tow the barge up one of the backwater sloughs …and live on your floating homestead.
When you wanted to do some road traveling …drive the bus off the barge and hit the road....

[gealto]

The article doesn't seem to feasable. However, after seeing the pictures of the "riverboat bus" in the pictures section of this site, I was kinda wondering if that really floated or not.

It might be possible to make a couple of big pontoons, that store on top of the bus on the road, then install them for use as a dock-yacht for use on inland lakes. Let's see now, to float a 20,000 pound bus, you would need 20,000/64 = 312 cubic feet of pontoon displacement. If the pontoons were four feet wide, so two could be stored side by side up top, and 36 feet long, the pontoon would have a daft of one foot, so the pontoons could be about 2 feet tall. Something like that could be done, but would be lots of work. Wouldn't be very sea-worthy for ocean crossing, that's totally different environment. A skoolie would rust out completely on a single ocean crossing.

[Steve]

The Monster Garage school bus pontoon boat actually floats and worked very good. They took it out in the middle of the river and docked it with a bunch of real pontoon boats and other things and had a huge party out there.

http://www.skoolie.net/gallery2/MG_SchoolBus

[Steve]

This guy actually is still working on this bus and has it in water now.

http://www.courier-journal.com/local...1119-5873.html

[Les Lampman]

I wish him all the best; I'm glad he's following his dream and has the commitment to do so. Personally though, I'd rather have this:




The rest of the story (including a very cool video) is here:

http://www.terrawind.com/terrawind.htm

[JonCBrand]

Ill take 2 of those!!

[Steve]

I think the website has moved here:

http://mitglied.lycos.de/amphicar/wheelsea/wheelsea.htm

[Zen Ken]

Well Michael,
That would certainly be one way to get off the island! LOL!!!

[Slowpoke]

The schoolie boat is gonna be an artificial reef after it hits it's first freighter wave. The monster garage bus did float on a lake, but that's a lot different than in the open ocean.

[Ryan Grimm]

Not many of you folks are old enough to remember the guy that took his amphibious Jeep (WW2 vintage), modified it and ran it across the Atlantic Ocean. The book about it (and the Jeep) was titled "Half Safe".

Interesting read!
BTW, HE TOOK HIS WIFE! Can you imagine the trip with two folks on a postage stamp for who-knows-how-long?

[Steve]

Where did he store all the fuel to make it between stops?