Tooner Area 51 update "The Light Design"

A while back Shaun from carpe troute “seize the trout” http://carpetrutta.blogspot.com/

reached out to me via the comment section with an offer of collaboration or something to that affect. Before I go much further I would suggest reviewing his swimbait “how to” blog post that was pretty damn impressive in my view. Maybe because I am pretty crazy about swimbaits. To be honest I was a bit intimidated by the proposition and still am.

http://carpetrutta.blogspot.com/2011/03/swimbait-building-101.html

http://carpetrutta.blogspot.com/2011/03/swimbait-building-101-part-ii.html

Bill Trussel http://btrussell-fishingthroughlife.blogspot.com/ also mentioned the desire to see a little more on my tooner aspirations as well. In an attempt to save this fragmented paragraph I will detail one of the basic concepts I have in mind as well as a few variations. Hopefully this will appease the masses meaning one or two regular viewers of my blog.

Design One-Light and Simple

Simply take some thin aluminum pipe and bend it into a square similar to what is shown below. The dimensions would approximately be 7’x 26”. There are a number of specifics I will leave out but suffice to say this lightweight frame is intended to rest on the top of my 8ft. tooner. Right now you might be saying to yourself, “Is that it?” My answer would be, “It just might be all I need”.

Design Two-Light and Simple with Oar Locks

It may sound easy but adding something like oars to a metal frame design is more difficult than it looks, especially without the materials, a pipe bender, or any experience using said materials or this magical pipe bender unit. (I am more of an idea guy and this really holds me back in the overall development process).

Some of the work may be foregone by forming the oar holders with a few tight bends instead of forming additional pieces and welding them on. Then a couple of holes would be drilled to accommodate whatever oars and miscellaneous hardware are to be used.

The idea is to come up with as light of a version of the 8ft tooner frame as possible that would support around 350lbs. Decking material added would provide additional support as the frame itself won’t tolerate must stress. I haven’t quite finalized the deck design but looking to make that portable as well.

A few items are still being researched and not quite finalized, how the frame is sectioned and then connected back together for example. I have a few ideas but haven’t found anything that works better than the spring lock type on the front bars of my red tooner. The final concept would look similar to below.

As I mentioned before, this design is not earth shatteringly different. It is merely lighter than all of the rest and I could lug it further with less effort than other models. The deck allows me to stay out of the water eliminating the need for waders. It should go without saying that this frame would not be intended for any type of river or use on larger waters. Mainly smaller ponds and lakes where hand propelled craft are permitted but somewhat of a hike to reach.

In closing…

A lot of my time is spent keeping the bills paid and whatever precious moments are left tend to be focused on fishing. This mentality has kept me from being homeless but hindered a lot of my tooner concepts from going into the prototype phase. In all honesty I would be willing to discuss the financing of materials and possibly some of the labor to see my mad tooner visions reach the prototype stage. Letter of disclosure or some sort of partnership can be discussed prior to that life changing sales pitch to Creek Company or others.

This design is the simplest one and the best one to start with. Due to simplicity, the overall design would be difficult to patent. The new design of kickboats more or less follows a similar framing size so I am not really that far from what is out there already. But just like that old U2 song, I still haven’t found what I am looking for. This idea may be it.

From there we can work our way to the solar powered fish finder with coffee cup holder\warmer as well as a few other tooner concepts that resemble something out of Kevin Costner’s Waterworld. How awesome was that boat?

Good luck and good toonin’.