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Permalink Reply by chris towles on October 12, 2012 at 8:57pm

I have a hankinson drift boat. It's a 16 ft high side that I cut down to standard size. The interior is sweet and it uses bulkhead cabinets and running boards to frame in the side panel shape as opposed to a traditional framed design. I would say its construction method is solid and sweet. Although the interior is clean like a stich and glue, it has a fair amount of drawbacks in its design. Most notable, the sides do not have enough side fair which makes for a lack of rocker. This makes the boat track pretty good, but its lack of bow rocker makes it plow into waves in the trough rather riding up and over like a traditional mckenzie would. A little tippy, but very mauve arable like most 48" hulls are. Holds three just fine, and its more symmetrical design makes it better suited to fishing a rear fisherman. I do like the running board design but in my next boat I would make them be big pockets, with dry boxes that slide in between. The stem design is a little clunky, and the long floor boards warp pretty bad no matter what you do. If you do end up building one, IDE be happy to provide advice on anything as I have many many hours workin on mine and am familiar with its quirks. If you we're to modify the shape a little with more flair and rocker, it would be sweet..the construction method works and is solid, I just am not partial to the side flair and ensuing rocker profile or for that matter lack there of

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Permalink Reply by Mark Heskett on October 15, 2012 at 12:04pm

Chris

Thanks for the reply. Do you think a 54" bottom would cure the tippiness. Bummer to hear about the lack of flair. The boat would be used mostly on the middle and upper Rogue but it will see a few side trips to the other Oregon rivers and maybe a couple of trips to Idaho and Montana. I'm trying to decide if I build if I should go traditional or this Hankinson design.

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Permalink Reply by Rick Newman on October 17, 2012 at 7:42am

Mark,

For the rivers you suggest you want to run there is something about a design that has been developed and tested on those waters. Have you read Roger Fletcher's book, Drift Boats and River Dories? Perhaps reading this will give you some insights on what design will work best for you.

Rick Newman

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Permalink Reply by Mark Heskett on October 17, 2012 at 11:12am

Rick

Yeah I have read Rogers book cover to cover a few times and pull it out every time before I go to look at an old wood drifter that is for sale. I was looking at the Hankinson design for it's simplicity and simple function. The search goes on. Thanks.

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Permalink Reply by eric stevens on October 17, 2012 at 4:07pm

I built the 16 foot boat from Ken's plans about 4 years ago, and i have built stich and glue drift boats since then. The stich and glue process is way easyer to do for a person with little or no boat building experience. The Hakinson plans are very difficult and are basicly done the way old boat builders would build sail boats or ships. There is a website called montana riverboats that has free plans for stich and glue drift boats, and there is a forum on there to talk to other guys building the same boats. I built one of these and it was great, it is the easyest way to build a boat.

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Permalink Reply by Bob bryan on October 20, 2012 at 10:03am

I built the 10' river pram...very good full size plans, very easy build and the boat handles as well or better than any other I have used on the river...That covers 8' prams to 17 1/2 ' guide model drift boats The only thing I changed was to put a full length plank seat down the middle for ease of keeping it trimmed with other people in it. This is a type of seat I have only seen up here in Darrington and was the most common seen on all the home built river prams that used to be around up here

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